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Inventive blue cheeses are delighting adventurous consumers.
Of course you stock Stilton, Gorgonzola, Roquefort, Bayley Hazen Blue, and the acclaimed blue cheeses from Rogue Creamery and Point Reyes Farmstead. Those are the basics. But why not distinguish your cheese case with blue cheeses that are a bit off the beaten path?
You may have to hand-sell them, but these newcomers will earn you the loyalty of customers who like to be cutting edge. Cross-merchandise with honey, quince paste, panforte, and other dried fruit-and-nut cakes, dessert wines, and strong, spicy craft brews such as Belgian tripels and quadrupels and Imperial stouts.
Domestic:
Deer Creek The Blue Jay (Wisconsin): Made by Carr Valley for the Artisan Cheese Exchange, this 6-pound triple-cream wheel is subtly but noticeably scented with juniper berry. The paste is as moist, mellow, and luscious as Gorgonzola Dolce. Pair with a gin and tonic at the cocktail hour, or with a nutty sherry at the end of a meal.
Grey Barn Farm Bluebird (Massachusetts): An 8-pound block made from raw organic cow’s milk, Bluebird has a handsome natural rind, a rich butter-colored paste, and plentiful veining. Sarah Dvorak of San Francisco’s Mission Cheese is a fan. The producer, Grey Barn, is a small diversified farm on Martha’s Vineyard milking 45 Dutch Belted and Normande cows.
Sequatchie Cove Creamery Bellamy Blue (Tennessee): This creamery’s Shakerag Blue has been well-received but is complex, labor-intensive, and “agonizing” to make, says creamery co-owner Padgett Arnold. Hoping to add another blue cheese that was easier to produce, cheesemaker Nathan Arnold devised Bellamy Blue, a raw-milk farmstead wheel seasoned with smoked sea salt. The 6-1/2-pound wheels are matured for at least four months but often longer and develop a natural rind. “It has an appealing aroma, like smoked meat or something grilling,” says Arnold. “It’s elusively smoky.” She describes the interior as creamy, dense, and buttery, with a boiled-peanut flavor. “That’s such a Southern thing,” she says of the peanut reference, “but we all taste it.”
Valley Ford Cheese Company Grazin’ Girl (California): This small Sonoma County producer makes exclusively farmstead cheese from raw Jersey milk. That’s rarified air already; a blue cheese that checks all those boxes is rarer still. Cheesemaker Joe Moreda, whose mother started the cheesemaking venture on the family’s 100-year-old dairy farm, initially envisioned making an American version of Gorgonzola dolce, the luscious, spreadable Italian blue. But three years of development yielded a cheese that’s closer to a robust Stilton: dense and buttery with a scent that hints at buttered toast, Saltine crackers, and roasted nuts. Grazin’ Girl is a four-pound wheel with a natural rind and a mellow personality.
Imported:
Andazul (Spain): Several retailers are fans of this new goat’s-milk blue from Andalusia. “We can barely give blue cheese away at Bi-Rite, but this is probably the tastiest goat’s-milk blue I’ve had over the years,” says San Francisco cheesemonger Jon Fancey. Made on a small scale from the milk of the indigenous Payoya goats, Andazul is the creation of a cheesemaker who used to make Montealva. Unusually, she does not pierce the wheels to create air channels for the Penicillium to grow. Instead she aerates the curds by hand before she transfers them to molds, says importer Michele Buster of Forever Cheese. The result is mellow and plush, neither salty nor piquant—an excellent choice for customers fearful of blues but one that will also please the aficionado.
Bleu 1924 (France): An unusual mixed-milk wheel from the Auvergne region—Roquefort country—Bleu 1924 relies on sheep’s and cow’s milk in roughly equal parts. François Kerautret, a now-retired cheese importer, dreamed up the idea and persuaded Hervé Mons, the respected French affineur, to find a creamery to make it. “What if Roquefort and Stilton had a baby?” is how Kerautret described his vision for the cheese. The creamery, a blue cheese specialist, ships the young wheels to Mons’ aging facility and his team matures them for about three months. The 6-pound wheels have a natural rind and a creamy, spreadable interior with aromas of toasted walnut and malted barley. It is more buttery than pungent, more Stilton than Roquefort. Steve Jones, the owner of Portland’s Cheese Bar, calls it “a really cool addition” to his counter.
The name is an insiders’ joke. Roquefort received its appellation d’origine—the first for cheese—in 1925 and the appellation rules require sheep’s milk. Before that, farmers sometimes used mixed milk.
Erborinato Sancarlone allo Zafferano (Italy): Made by a single farmer in the Piedmont region, this new cow’s-milk blue from Guffanti is perfumed with saffron. “It’s aesthetically interesting because it has that tinge of color, but it’s not super-saffrony,” says James Higgins of the Cheese Board Collective in Berkeley, Calif., where the cheese is selling well. Wheels weigh about 7 pounds and are matured for a minimum of three months. Guffanti describes the flavor as “strong and intense.” Saffron is cultivated commercially in Italy, and adding it to cheese, especially pecorino, is not unknown.
Fior d’Arancio (Italy): From Sergio Moro, a cheesemaker and ager in the Veneto, comes this seductive blue, a cow’s-milk wheel soaked in sweet Fior d’Arancio wine for a month. The steeped cheese absorbs the wine’s fruity aromas and honeyed flavor. “It tastes like blue-cheese candy,” says Andy Lax of Fresca Italia, a distributor near San Francisco. “People who are anti-blue will taste it and say, ‘Wow.’”
Le Ganix (France): This sheep’s-milk gem comes from acclaimed affineur Rodolph Le Meunier. Produced in the Basque country, it shows “all of the loveable characteristics of Basque cheeses: toasted nuts, brown butter, perfect balance,” says Emily O’Conor, gourmet cheese coordinator for Oliver’s Markets in Northern California. Weighing in at about 7 pounds, Le Ganix resembles Bleu des Basques. “It’s got a little bite but there’s a mellowness to it,” says Lax.
Janet Fletcher writes the email newsletter “Planet Cheese” and is the author of Cheese & Wine and Cheese & Beer.
Photo credit: Janet Fletcher/Planet Cheese
from Food Trends https://ift.tt/2ZtWSPz
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