Past Newsletters

Vol 3 No 10

A Delectable Treat for October

Your cheese selection this month will send you back in time allowing you to celebrate the award winning craftsmanship that blends a perfect balance of both tradition and quality. Keep in mind the holidays are fast approaching and the Cheese of the Month Club offers a host of ideas for that gift-giving goblin inside of you.

Complete your gift giving before Thanksgiving (I always do), and you can have the luxury of actually enjoying the Holidays! We'll ship your gifts for you and send personalized Gift Announcements on the dates that you select. For unique gift ideas, visit www.monthlyclubs.com and ask about our special prices for a combination of several orders.

Wensleydale History In The Making

The first selection that will enrich your taste buds comes from Wensleydale, which is a northern county of England, just a few miles northwest of York. This area is also known as The Dales, and is especially famous for cheese making. Cheeses originating from the Dales have origins that date back to Roman times. Some of the more obscure ones like Cotherstone can be traced back to Yorkshire’s now defunct monastic orders that were a result of the Norman Conquest in 1066. Talk about exceedingly deep-rooted traditions and ancient cheese making recipes! There is no doubt in my mind that William The Conqueror ate cheese made from the very same recipe as the cheese you are about to try.

Back in the early days, all the cheeses called Wensleydale were made from sheep’s milk and briefly aged into a soft, moist, blue cheese. By the middle of the 17th century, cows replaced sheep as the main source of milk for Wensleydale cheese making. With the Industrial Revolution, came standardization. Factories and creameries cropped up and the character and style of Wensleydale changed. It was now a harder textured cheese with no blueing that was sold quite young. By the end of World War II, less than a dozen farms were left making Wensleydale.

In the 1950's, the Milk Marketing Board started to layout strict guidelines for cheese making. These guidelines didn’t take the flavor or tradition into consideration; it was all percentages, yields and standardization…not great criteria for full flavored cheese. Unfortunately, in utter frustration the last few farmhouse Wensleydale cheese makers gave up. There was however, one small creamery that continued to make the “real” Wensleydale.

Wensleydale Creamery is the only company in the world that still makes Wensleydale the way it has been made for hundreds of years. All the rest is made in huge factories that also make a myriad of other cheeses, which curiously enough all taste pretty much the same…it’s just the labels that are different.

White Wensleydale with a fine curd, minimal texturing, and a high moisture content is usually eaten young, at about a month old. It is creamy yet crumbly, with slightly sweet, but also tart flavor. The flavor suggests wild honey balance with fresh acidity. Sometimes Wensleydale is described as having buttermilk, nutty, flavor and an aroma of cut grass. Real Wensleydale is firm but not dry and hard.

If you are ever in England, keep an eye out for a rare and delicious cheese, Blue Wensleydale. The celebrated blue veined Wensleydale requires six months to mature. It has a smooth creamy texture similar to Stilton but with a mellower flavor. Until the 1920's, Wensleydale cheese was almost entirely recognized as the blue veined cheese we now know as Blue Wensleydale.

8 pints of Milk In Every Pound!

Hand crafted, wrapped in muslin cheesecloth or wax, this delicious, creamy-white, flaky cheese is pure, natural and wholesome. The fresh milk drawn from cattle grazing in the sweet limestone Wensleydale meadows, and of course, eating the wild herbs growing in this area of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, gives this cheese its distinctive and extraordinary flavor. (Designated an Environmentally Sensitive area, the use of artificial chemicals and fertilizers is heavily restricted).

Taleggio Will Lure You Back For Morsel After Morsel

This cheese was first made in the area of Val Taleggio as early as the tenth century, but the name, Taleggio (pronounced tahl-EH-zhee-oh), has only been used since the early 20th century. In 1988, Taleggio was designated an Italian cheese of Denomination of Origin, and in 1996, it obtained the European acknowledgment of Denomination of Protected Origin, DOM. This means its production and commercialization are controlled and guaranteed by the Association for the protection of Taleggio cheese. Today, this cheese is made all throughout Lombardy, and also the regions of Piedmont and Venetia.

Val Taleggio, its point of origin, is in the northern region of Italy called Lombardy, which borders the Swiss Alps, where the climatic conditions are most favorable for abundant and superior quality fodder for dairy cows… unspoiled high pastureland where commercial fertilizers and other chemicals are restricted.

Taleggio is a soft, unpressed, cow’s milk cheese, and is a member of the Stracchino family of northern Italian cheeses. Stracchino means tired, which refers to the time of year the cheese was originally made… in the fall when the cows were brought from their alpine pastures to their valley pastures. It stands to reason that the cows may have been tired from the journey… well, at least the herders were! These days Taleggio is made year round.

The Origin of Taleggio Dates Back to the 10th Century!

Originally Taleggio cheeses matured in the caves of Valsassina, in the province of Como. These caves are particularly renowned… as a result of deep fractures in the rocks; they provide a unique climate that favors maturation and the growth of molds on the rind.

Still largely a northern Italian secret, Taleggio has only recently attracted the attention it deserves. This rich cheese, 48 percent fat, is traditionally made in square or rectangular pillow shapes that weigh about 4 to 5lbs.

Today, you can find Taleggio sold in flat blocks or cylinders, covered with a wax coating or a thin mold. Farmhouse Taleggio comes wrapped in several layers of paper, and if the cheese is fully ripe it is nearly impossible to remove. You can rub it off or ignore it, either way you are about to enjoy one of the world’s most magnificent cheeses!

The inside of the cheese, the dough, is semi soft and rather streaky with small straw color eyelets. It is pale ivory to pale yellow, with a compact consistency. The dough is softer as you get close to the naturally pink or rosy, thin, soft, and wrinkled rind. As Taleggio ages, it darkens to deep yellow and becomes rather runny.

In Italy, Taleggio is a typical… yet most outstanding table cheese, eaten at the beginning, or the end of the meal. It goes well with robust wines, such as, Red Franciacorta, Oltrepò Pavian, Pinot Nero, Piave Merlot, and Red Piceno. Italians consider it to be a splendid dessert cheese, served with apples and pears. I like to include pecans as well.

Why not dovetail your cheese of the month selection with the International Wine of the Month Club? The holidays are approaching quickly and you deserve to be treated like a king or queen for that matter!

Guaranteed Flavor In Every Bite

Your third selection this month incorporates tradition and taste stemming from La Vernelle, the historic berry region in the heart of France. For more than fifty years the Jacquin family has specialized in the production of goat cheeses. With a combination of innovation, quality, modernity, and tradition your cheese selection is both simple and complex.

Cheeses produced by Jacquin are mostly AOC cheeses, which is the classification for cheeses whose quality and process are guaranteed and controlled by French and European officials.

Cheese And Wine Pairings

The combination of cheese with wine is as commonplace as peanut butter and jelly in some regions of the world. Both cheese and wines, with their centuries-old traditions, are natural products that are frequently consumed together. As a standard rule, the whiter and fresher the cheese, the fruitier and crisper the wine should be. The great advantage of this pairing is that cheese and wine are both foods that can be enjoyed in their "raw" state, with little or no preparation, making them an ideal choice for quick snacks.

There are no hard and strict rules about which wine should be selected to accompany a particular cheese as the best selections are almost always based on individual tastes. However, we can offer you the following suggestions:

• A smooth, fatty cheese may go very well with a similarly smooth, slightly oily wine.
• Dry, fresh red wines are ideally suited to soft cheeses, especially goat cheeses
• Sweet wine contrasts very well with a cheese with high acidity.
• Not all red wines work with cheese. We recommend the light, fruity red wines.
• A wine with good acidity may be complemented by cheese with high sodium content.
• Dry champagnes are a brilliant combination with bloomy white rinds.
• White wines go better with many cheeses than reds.
• Cheeses can be matched very well with beer or cider.
• Try regional combinations, the cheese and wine or beer from the same region.

Tasting Notes:

Taleggio
In order to fully appreciate its aroma and flavor, Taleggio is best at room temperature. It is up to you whether you eat the rind or not…of course, the cheese will be stronger if you do. Farmhouse Taleggio has a great depth of flavor that is certainly a result of the high-unspoiled pastureland. The flavor depending upon the age is often described as “sweet, buttery and delicate with aromatic shavings,” or “nutty and meaty with a wonderful salt-smack” at the end. Once maturation is reached the taste gets decidedly spicier and more peppery.

Wensleydale
White Wensleydale is firm but not dry and hard, creamy yet the surface is slightly uneven and crumbly, and has a slightly sweet but also tart flavor. As a reward for cutting real Wensleydale, you always get some crumbs-just to give you an appetite! It’s sometimes described as having a nutty, buttermilk flavor complemented with a honey aftertaste, and the gentle aroma of cut grass. It has a fine curd, minimal texturing, and high moisture content. Wensleydale is usually eaten young, at about a month old. This cheese goes well with crisp apple and is traditionally eaten with fruitcake.

Cheese log by Jacquin
This intriguing cheese log will partner well with fresh red wine. The taste is fresh, almost fruity with subtle undertones of goat milk. Traditional pairings for goat cheeses are with Sauvignon Blanc wine, Avocado, thin slices of Walnut Bread, Olives, and Figs.

Recipe

Wensleydale Apple Cake

Ingredients

Butter 4 oz.
Dark brown sugar 16 oz.
Plain flour 8 oz.
Eggs, beaten 2
Mixed spice 1 level tsp.
Cinnamon 1 level tsp.
Baking powder 2 tsps.
Cooking apples 1 lb.
Milk ¾ tbsp.
Wensleydale cheese 8 oz.
Clear honey and demerara (raw sugar) sugar for topping

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until pale and fluffy.
2. Add the eggs a little at a time, beating well.
3. Add the flour, dark brown sugar and spices and beat well.
4. Add sufficient milk to make a soft dropping consistency.
5. Line a 20cm/8inch round cake tin with buttered paper and put half the cake mixture into it.
6. Peel, core and slice the apples and slice the cheese. Place a layer of sliced apple on top of the cake mixture, then a layer of cheese, then a second layer of apple.
7. Pour over the rest of the cake mixture and bake for 1-½ hours at 325?.
8. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool then brush the top with honey and sprinkle generously with demerara sugar.