Past Newsletters

February 2007

Gourmet Cheeses for Valentine's Day, and Every Day!

Welcome to another month of fantastic cheese indulgence! And to those readers who received this month's assortment of fine cheeses as a Valentine's Day gift—welcome to the club! We hope you enjoy your very special gift!

This month's selections display the widely varying characteristics of world class, gourmet cheeses: from the buttery intensity of Gouda, to the fruity notes of St. Nectaire, to the spicy and certainly "impressive" aromatics of Limburger. We're proud to be able to bring these greats to your door this month!

2 Years of Farmhouse Aging: Boerenkaas Gouda

It's true that time-travel hasn't quite been perfected yet, but what's amazing is how certain cheeses seem to function as little time machines. Our first featured cheese will transport you back in time to a day when mass-manufactured cheese was but a dream; a time when quality and craftsmanship were the only qualities driving the cheese market. What you're about to taste is Gouda the way it was made 200 years ago! The cheese we shipped to you here is named Boerenkaas Gouda. Boerenkaas translates to "farmer's cheese" and guarantees that this cheese is made by hand using very traditional methods on a farm in Holland. Boerenkaas Gouda is specially aged for about two years, but it can be found as old as five years! Compare this with factory Gouda, the kind you might find at your local store, which is sold at typically only three to six months of age. When you taste the difference, you'll wonder how they could be considered the same cheese.

Gouda is a cow's milk cheese named after the town of its origin, located just south of Amsterdam and southeast of The Hague. Although sold all around the world, only a small amount is actually made in or around the village of Gouda. The name Gouda is not protected; thus, Gouda cheese can legally come from anywhere—it needn't even be from Holland. Most of the world eats Gouda made in large commercial factories, but fortunately there are still a very few dairy farms in Holland where this delectable, mouth-watering cheese is still made in the traditional way. You'll taste the difference immediately!

Queen Isabella offered Gouda to Columbus

You might not be familiar with the Dutch reputation for producing great cheese. In fact, few countries can compete with the eclipsing reputations of France, Spain and Italy. But Dutch cheese has been enjoyed for over a millennium! The Dutch have produced cheeses since before 400 AD, and have exported cheeses since the Middle Ages. By the 15th century, they were producing and exporting cheese on a very large scale. To put things in historical perspective, Queen Isabella offered Gouda to Columbus in the last decade of the 1400s.

In his description of The Netherlands, published in 1567, an Italian named Guiccardini commented that Dutch cheese and butter were worth as much as all spices imported from Portugal. We're not sure if this was his opinion or a statement of fact—either is quite conceivable—perhaps even more so upon tasting the Gouda we've sent you. Several cities in Holland still have Cheese Weigh-houses—wonderful sixteenth or seventeenth-century buildings where "weighmasters" used to inspect the cheeses offered at market. Even today, cheese markets are held weekly in many Dutch cities. Some are held just for the tourists (such as those at Alkmaar and Purmerend), but you can visit real cheese markets in Bodegraven, Woerden, and in Gouda, where a cheese market is in full swing each week during the summer, right in front of the old Weigh-house which dates back to 1668.

Tasting Notes

Aged Gouda is a traditional, creamy, hard cheese. The flavor is sweet, fruity and often quite nutty. As it ages, its flavor intensifies, becoming more complex. The aging makes the interior of the cheese a unique shade of gold and imparts a more intense caramelized flavor, a bit like brown sugar melted with butter. Smooth, sweet and mouthwateringly flavorful, you may even detect subtle hints of butterscotch. The texture, due to the longer aging, is harder than factory Gouda. Perhaps you'll find it an interesting alternative to Parmesan. Serve it before dinner with slices of lightly buttered Jewish Rye, or radishes with Flor de Sal Sea Salt. It's also great with fruit and wine.

The Sweet Nectar of St. Nectaire

While many cheeses out there have fruity essences, there aren't many with a flavor profile that is particularly dominated by fruit flavors. Although the names are not related, St. Nectaire (meaning sweet nectar) has a similar smell to that of an extremely ripe nectarine. It has a fruity aroma, rich texture, and a sweetness of flavor that we haven't discovered in any other cheese. You're certain to enjoy this uniquely fruity delight!

For centuries, St. Nectaire has been produced in the region of Monts-Dore in northern Auvergne. The Monts-Dore is known as "montagres à vaches", or "mountains for cows", as they provide summer pasture for herds raised primarily for the milk and production of cheese. This reputation as a cow-grazing homestead has made its way into French consciousness because many cheeses come from this famed region in the geographical heart of France. In the winter the land is covered with deep snow and when summer arrives it brings very high temperatures. Although this may sound punishing, the weather is actually ideal for wine and cheese-making.

St. Nectaire is made from the milk of Salers (pronounced sal'air) cows, which have played a critical role in cheese-making for many hundreds of years. Salers cows were named after a village from the middle-ages, situated in the heart of the mountains. They are a visually intriguing reddish-brown color and possess angled, lyre-shaped horns. The flavor of their famed milk is a result of both genetics and the rich and perfumed volcanic pastures they enjoy from April to October. These volcanic meadows are rich with phosphorus, potassium and magnesium, all of which are found in high concentrations in the Salers' milk, and all of which are integral to the final flavor of St. Nectaire.

St. Nectaire, like the Salers cows from which it comes, also has an interesting color. Its grayish-purple rind is covered with white, yellow and red mould spots, a result of the wild grasses that the Salers cows eat during summer and autumn. A whole cheese is only about eight inches in diameter and weighs about four lbs. If you are yearning for a creamy, milky cheese, St. Nectaire is just what you'll want. It goes extremely well with fruits, raw vegetables, olives, bread and salami. For a fantastic combination, serve St. Nectaire on buttered bread along side a steaming bowl of soup; dip the bread and cheese in the soup and enjoy!

Take solace in the fact that the St. Nectaire you are enjoying is as authentic and genuine as a cheese can be. This is assured by the fact that it is an A.O.C. cheese. In Europe, traditional food is a serious business, one that governments are committed to protecting. France was the first country to initiate this type of regulation. On May 6, 1919 it passed the first law for the Protection of the Place of Origin (A.O.C. or Appellation d'Origine Controlee). This law specifically defines the place of origin for a product, including province, region and commune. Italy and Spain have since followed suit, and are the countries from which you will most commonly see these designations.

Tasting Notes

A full-tasting cheese, slightly acidic and spicy at the same time, its supple white dough melts in your mouth and unleashes its flavors with a touch of salt, walnuts, and spices. The texture is semi-soft with small eyes in the paste. The flavor is a wonderful combination of a summer pasture and sweet, fruity milk flavors, and it has an unmistakable smell of dark, damp cellar and rye straw, on which it is stored during the ripening process. St. Nectaire is an excellent choice for a cheese board, and makes an outstanding quiche.

"Honey, What's That Smell?"

Concerned family members may wonder what pungent aroma has taken residence in your kitchen this month. It's the unmistakably potent scent of that fragrant cheese we have come to know and, depending on who you talk to, love or hate: Limburger; a cheese that has a habit of introducing itself by loudly announcing its arrival with its powerful aroma.

We won't try to dress it up—this is a STINKY CHEESE, and one that tends to polarize people. Truth be told, this is a cheese that folks either can't live without, or can't live with! When you opened your box of cheese this month you probably noticed the aroma straight away. Limburger is what is known as a "washed-rind" cheese, meaning that it is quite literally washed by hand. The young cheese is constantly washed or "rubbed" with a brine solution that stops the growth of mold while simultaneously promoting the growth of the edible bacterium linens. This bacterium, known in short as b-linens, is where the astounding aroma comes from, and it also creates the burnt-orange colored rind.

If you've ever had an authentic Trappist Ale from Belgium, you will have noticed that it is a rather strong beer indeed. Likewise, it seems that the Trappist Monks also liked their cheese quite strong in flavor, as they where the first to make this exceptional cheese. Limburger originated in the Belgian province of Liège and was first sold at markets in Limbourg, hence, the name.

In the 1800s cheese makers in Germany fell in love with Limburger. These days they are so captivated with it that most Germans—and even some Belgians—believe Limburger to be a German cheese! In the United States Limburger also owes its popularity to the Germans, since German immigrants started making the cheese when they emigrated.

But please, don't be put off by the aroma, or the fact that you normally don't enjoy Limburger. In other words, don't judge a book by its cover, or in this case, a cheese by its aroma. As is often the case in the states, folks who have determined what kind of cheese they enjoy (and those they do not) have come to such conclusions based on having tasted locally available, grocery-bought, factory cheeses. Our gourmet, international cheeses are sought out through painstaking searching. They are selected because they represent the finest that their style has to offer—made with traditional methods and the finest ingredients.

Tasting Notes

This cheese is really quite delicate in flavor once you remove it from the rind, the source of its unique "power" (and which is edible by the way, but not something we're going to suggest everyone try as it will make the flavor of your Limburger much stronger). The smooth, sticky, washed rind is reddish-brown with corrugated ridges. The yellow interior hints at sweetness but the taste is predominantly spicy and aromatic with an intriguing sweet undertone: a bona fide treasure if you can get beyond the smell! Good accompaniments are tinned fish cooked with onions and butter, crackers, fruits and vegetables. Serve it with plenty of German, or German-style, beer.

Looking for great world-class beers? Want to learn more about the many styles of beer, and with what foods (cheeses included) to enjoy them? Ladies, are you looking for a great thank you gift for your thoughtful boyfriend who sent you your cheese club subscription? We've got you covered. Just visit our website at www.monthlyclubs.com for more information on our three unique beer clubs, any of which are sure to make a great treat for yourself, or a wonderful gift for someone else!

Culture Corner
Cheese	Pronunciation	Recommended Wine/Beer
Gouda	GAOW-duh	Riesling, Champagne
Saint Nectaire	SAN-neck-TARE	Chinon, Bourgueil, Côtes du Rhône. For something different, try it with a Japanese plum wine
Limburger	LIM-ber-guhr	Beer. Try it with a good Schwarzbier, (we like Einbeck), or a German dunkel (dark) lager.