Severe Cheese: Get Your Teut-on

Whereas France, Italy, and Switzerland have been basking throughout the cheese spotlight for lots of of years, totally different nations in Europe have quietly been perfecting delicious, sensible, down-home cheeses that will truly rival their further well-known counterparts. Germany and Austria, two nations not broadly acknowledged for the cheeses they produce, have been at it for a really very long time, and are solely starting to get seen proper right here throughout the States.

Definitely, if you love smelly cheese, these two nations are making some amazingly pungent specimens that will downside your very notion of “edible.” New York Metropolis’s Murray’s Cheese simply currently began carrying a whole spate of unusual German and Austrian cheeses, 4 of which had been specializing in proper right here, after the leap.

Romadur is a supremely delicious raw cow’s milk cheese, with a supple texture and a rich, yeasty model. It’s a smear-ripened cheese, which means that the rind is smeared with brine all through the 4-6 week ageing interval, in order to encourage the enlargement of micro organism that help break down the cheese and make it tasty. It’s made by the Bremenreid Cooperative throughout the Allgäu space of southwest Bavaria.

Weisslacker (or “white lacquer”) is a square-shaped, crumbly white cheese whose small dimension belies its intensely tart, pungent model. I’m afraid to say it’s a little bit too extremely efficient to let unfastened on a cheese plate, till you’re serving it to some brave cheese lovers. Alternately you probably can grate it and serve it over Spaetzleor one other type of noodle, which, in accordance with Murray’s, is exactly what the Bavarians like to do with this one.

Bergkase Alt—truly “outdated mountain cheese”—is an Austrian variation on Alpine cheeses like Gruyère or Comté. It’s a raw cow’s milk cheese, aged for about 10 months, and its texture is clear and elastic, and dotted with small pea-sized eyes (holes). It is sort of drier and additional grainy than its Swiss and French cousins, nevertheless it certainly has the equivalent nutty, sweet style that characterizes such cheeses. It might be good in fondue, or melted proper right into a grilled cheese sandwich on pumpernickel.

Bachensteiner, from the Bregenz Forest in western Austria, is properly basically probably the most foul smelling cheese I’ve ever encountered. I can’t, in good conscience, relate to you exactly what this cheese smells like, for fear that it might break your urge for meals. Nonetheless it tastes good! The cheese is rather more mild in your mouth than your nostril. It’s purchased an earthy, meaty style and a semi-firm texture that goes good on a hefty darkish bread. It’s a raw cow’s milk cheese, aged only for 4 to 6 weeks, and shaped like a gold bar. Warning: this cheese must solely be served to close mates and sympathetic household. It’s scent may flip off even basically probably the most open-minded foodies. You could be forewarned.

In the event you’re an formidable caseophile, you need to think about getting your fingers on a couple of of those. They’ll almost truly broaden your cheese horizon. Moreover, I in truth can’t take into account a higher time of yr to interrupt out your lederhosen, pour some Riesling, and feast in your super-stinky assortment of unusual Teutonic cheeses.