>> Break Out
Of Your Cheese Rut!
EXPLORE NEW CHEESES TO SHAKE THINGS UP
W
e know that, like us, you’re constantly in pursuit of mind-blowing cheeses. New cheeses, old cheeses, anything billowing with flavor and funk. Nothing wrong with having stand-bys--butterscotch-y aged gouda, truffle-y camembert, a tart, bright chevre--these things always fit the bill, induce swooning, make company happy and perhaps jealous. But change is good! Here are some cheeses that will rock your world and shake up your cheese routine—
IF YOU LOVE GRUYERE: L’Etivaz A raw cow’s milk, 5-to-13-months-aged mountain cheese from the Vaud canton of Switzerland. It is named for the tiny hamlet near the pastures of its origin. L’Etivaz has to be one of the very most intensely delicious cheeses we’ve had in our lives. It was created only 30 years ago by 76 Gruyere-producing families who felt Swiss Gruyere was losing its rusticity, so they pulled out of the Swiss government’s consortium in order to make the cheese the way they felt it should be made. Serve it with rustic bread at any juncture – with whiskeyon the rocks or other stiff cocktails, fruity
red wines, alongside the salad course, for dessert with fresh fruit, as a snack with crackers, to accompany that extraordinary bottle of wine that has been burning a hole in the pleasure bank of your mind as well as in the wood where it has been laying in your wine shelf. You know you’ve got to drink that bottle sooner or later; here’s your excuse: a drop-dead cheese that’s worthy of a big, big red. L’Etivaz will obliterate the heftiest white wine.
IF YOU LOVE PARMIGIANO-REGGIANO: Sbrinz Of Celtic origin, it’s thought to be named for the village Brienz in the Berne Canton of Central Switzerland, where there are a lot of place names where the S is followed by a b, and that falls to the old dialect known as Romansch. The cheese Sbrinz is massive, massively thick, and hard. It has a gorgeous thick rind the color of amber or butterscotch, as is the interior. The fragrance of the interior is almost like warm caramel, and as a chanterelle is apricot-colored; this grand cheese tastes as much like butterscotch as it looks. Grate your Sbrinz for pasta. Shred it for gratins. Chisel off shards to accompany all manner of food and beverage.
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