Brie Cheese © Denzil Green Brie is a creamy French cheese popular for its smooth yet tangy, slightly acid taste and its woodsy smell. The cheese ripens quickly, and must be eaten before the flavour and aroma become offensive. The cheese is a pale yellow inside with a crust like a soft white velvet. Brie…
Surface-Ripened Cheeses
Brie de Chèvre
Brie de chèvre is a cheese that looks something like Brie, except it is made from raw goat’s milk curdled with vegetarian rennet. The cheeses are round, about 1.5 to 2 cm (3/4 inch) tall, and weigh approximately 500 g (17 oz.) The crust is white with mould, and like Brie, it gets creamier inside…
Camembert Cheese
Unctuous, oozing Camembert Cheese © Denzil Green Camembert is a mild, creamy cheese that is slightly salty. The outside crust will have a few splashes of red. Camembert starts off as a solid, soft cheese formed into thin wheels that have a coating of white surface bacteria applied to them. The bacteria does the ripening;…
Esrom Cheese
Esrom is a semi-firm Danish cheese made from partially skim raw cow’s milk. Starter and Rennet are added to the milk, then the curd is cut, stirred, drained and warmed. The cheese is place into moulds and lightly pressed. The surface is then salted and rubbed with a bacteria, then aged for 10 to 12…
Limburger Cheese
Though Limburger Cheese’s greatest claim to fame is its smell, most of the smell is in the sticky, brownish rind. The bacteria, “Brevibacterium linens” which causes the colour also creates the smell, which is a strong, rotten odour. Inside the rind, the cheese is semi-soft and ivory coloured, with a taste that is far from…
Mantecoso Cheese
A Port du Salut style cheese made in Spain, Mexico and throughout Latin America. The rind is oily; the cheese inside is semi-firm with a rich butter-like taste. Substitutes Mozzarella, Emmenthal, Fontina, another Port du Salut style cheese. Language Notes Mantecoso means “buttery”.
Port du Salut Cheeses
The term “Port du Salut Cheeses” is used to describe a family of cheeses which began with the cheese called “Port Salut.” It is often called “Port du Salut style.” All are semi-firm, so they can be sliced. Technically, if anything, the commercially-made Port du Salut style cheeses should be called Saint Paulin style, and…
Port Salut Cheese
Port Salut Cheese © Denzil Green Port Salut is the cheese that started a whole range of cheeses: see Port du Salut cheese. Port Salut is semi-soft cheese made from cow’s milk. The cheese is ripened from the outside in by a smear of surface bacteria. It used to be brushed with brine while aging,…
Smear-Ripened Cheeses
Smear-Ripened Cheeses are softer cheeses that were made in lowland areas. These were cheeses that didn’t need as long a storage life, as they were being made very close to where the markets where (cheeses made in highlands and the mountains often had to be able to last through the winter, until passageways down to…
Surface-Ripened Cheeses
Surface-ripened cheeses are a large group of cheeses for whom the ripening starts on the surface of the cheese, and works its way inward. It includes other groups of cheeses such as washed-rind cheeses and smear-ripened cheeses, as well as Brie and Camembert. See: List of cheeses that are surface-ripened The science When a smear…