Weekly Cheese: Tomme Crayeuse

This weeks Weekly Cheese is one of my very favorite: Tomme Crayeuse (tohm cray-YUHZ). It is made from the milk of mountain grazing cows in the Savoie region of France in the Swiss Italian Alps. This buttery, semi-soft, soft-ripened cheese is layered with damp earthy flavors including straw and mushroom in the rind, and a mildly milky but tart almost citrusy center. When eating cheese I like to imagine myself enjoying a food with ancient roots and a long history; I was surprised to learn that this cheese is actually a relatively recent invention. It was developed in the nineties by a French Affineur (an expert in maturing cheese) Max Schmidhauser. He partnered with a cheesemaker in order to make a cheese superior to the areas classic: Tomme de Savoie; and I'm very glad he did. This beautiful cheese has a dusty brownish grey and white rind with bright yellow spots caused by cellulose in the cows diet. The ivory interior is smooth and soft with a slightly crumbly dense center getting a little gooey as you get closer to the rind which is thin and pliable enough to easily slice and delicious to eat.



















Reading the process raw milk undergoes to become this delicious cheese gave me a whole new appreciation for the art and craft of making cheese. One secret to this amazing cheese is two stages of aging for a total of about two to three months: the first in a warm moist environment; much like a sauna, the second in an equally moist but cool cave. The first stage loosens and softens the outer crust of the cheese and the second brings out the earthy mushroom flavor and preserves the milky center. This particular combination of techniques creates a moist flavorful wheel or tomme that now competes for popularity with Tomme de Savoie, and in my book is the hands down winner.
























I like this cheese best on a good piece of bread, or simple crackers.

Weekly Cheese: Boucheron

This is the first post, of hopefully many posts, in a new feature I'm calling the "Weekly Cheese". I'm working at a cheese and Charcuterie counter at a small gourmet food market, and am immersed in the delicious world of cheese: "real" cheese. I say real cheese because once you start exploring this diverse and flavorful world, you'll probably never go back to supermarket cheese again. For those of you who have already discovered this world, you know; these cheeses are alive with flavors and textures, and each wheel comes with a story and each cheese a history, some going back hundreds of years. If your cheese experiences are limited to blocks of cheddar and string cheese, find yourself a good cheese counter, and dive in. Don't feel intimidated, just go for it. I recommend tasting at least a few cheeses every time you go, and buy small amounts (a quarter pound is pretty common) of a variety of cheeses. You should really buy only enough cheese to eat in a day or two, and go back for more freshly cut from the wheel or block. Don't be dissuaded by a cheese you dislike; likes and dislikes are necessary to narrow down your choices as you taste your way through the worlds huge variety of cheeses. Some people dislike an entire category of cheese, like sheep's milk, or aged cheeses, or stinky cheeses, these preferences will help you and your cheesemonger to make your first choices. I just caution you to test your preferences periodically. As you expand your palette and try more cheeses that fall out of the norm, you will find yourself able to tolerate more diverse flavors and textures.

For my first Weekly Cheese post, I will start with Boucheron [BOOSH-rawn]; an accessible, very briefly aged (5-10 weeks), soft, pasteurized, goat cheese from the Loire Valley in France. This cheese is a looker, a bright white bloomy rind covers a small forearm length log. Your cheesemonger will, using a wire, slice from this a perfect disk that reveals a beautiful cross section of bright matte white and dove gray. It's visual appeal makes Boucheron a great cheese for a party or cheese board. But its easy-going taste and price make it a great everyday cheese. The middle of this laid back cheese is mild, dense and crumbly like a fresh goat often referred to in the US as a Chevre, but then it gets interesting. As you can see, there is a layer of gooey cheese around the large chalky core, and finally a thin bloomy layer of mold similar to a brie style cheese. This is because of the nature of a "bloomy -rind" or "soft-ripened" cheese, (like brie) which age from the outside in. Thanks to the magic of mold you get two cheeses in one; a creamy, mushroomy, "brie" style, contrasting with a dry and clay-like, mildly tangy fresh goat. Boucheron also plays well with others. It is especially good on salads or with grapes, and compliments just about any bread or cracker. I especially like it with a simple spinach salad.























Finally, I know people don't need much encouragement to talk about cheese, but I ask, if you have tasted Boucheron or are inspired to taste it by this post, contribute to the discussion. Let us know what you think; what are your favorite pairings?, any similar cheeses you would recommend? Where do you get your cheese? any tips on serving or storage? etc....