Do you love cheese? Do you love having tiny ceramic trays that are too shallow to hold potted plants, too small to be water dishes for your pet, and not nearly 1980s enough to be one of those light discs from TRON? Rejoice and be glad, today is your day!
Originally produced using only goat's milk but now made almost exclusively cow's milk, St. Marcellin is a smelly, goey, flavor-packed delight. Not only that but it is such a fragile, young cheese that the 3.5oz (100g) disks are often packaged in terracotta pots for shipment and storage. If it's old enough when you buy it it'll be runny and delicious already, but younger cheeses can be placed, pot and all, in the oven on low until runny. That plus a crusty baguette and it's like Dunkaroos for adults.
Origin: Dauphine, France
Milk: Cow, pasteurized
Rennet: Animal
Affinage: 2-4 weeks
Notes: You take the sticker off before baking. I mean, the paper won't hurt you, it certainly can't be any worse than the wax rinds found on a lot of cheeses. I couldn't even put a figure to how much wax I've eaten in my pursuit of trying every part of the cheese, and some of those looked very edible. Harmless, really.
Thoughts: There are not enough ways to express how mushroomy this cheese is. I want to melt it all over my next steak. I want to cut up tiny bits of steak and put them in the pot and bake the whole thing. I want to make a Philly/French-Cheese-Steak sandwich fit for a king. St. Marcellin has 40% fat per solid matter, so it's seriously creamy, and every single bit of fat in there (in this case much less than 40% of the whole because it's such a water-rich, young cheese) carries the flavor evenly and decadently over the palate. Salty, milky, and surprisingly meaty for such a young and non-washed rind cheese, St. Marcellin packs an intense flavor for it's petite size. Seriously, this and a baguette are all you need, except for maybe a Beaujolais or a IPA to wash it down.
Caution
If you're thinking of using the pot as a candle holder, be advised that cheese has a lingering aroma. Nothing says "cheese addict" like the competing scents of "Bahama Breeze" and "Weeks Old Cheese"
Originally produced using only goat's milk but now made almost exclusively cow's milk, St. Marcellin is a smelly, goey, flavor-packed delight. Not only that but it is such a fragile, young cheese that the 3.5oz (100g) disks are often packaged in terracotta pots for shipment and storage. If it's old enough when you buy it it'll be runny and delicious already, but younger cheeses can be placed, pot and all, in the oven on low until runny. That plus a crusty baguette and it's like Dunkaroos for adults.
Milk: Cow, pasteurized
Rennet: Animal
Affinage: 2-4 weeks
Notes: You take the sticker off before baking. I mean, the paper won't hurt you, it certainly can't be any worse than the wax rinds found on a lot of cheeses. I couldn't even put a figure to how much wax I've eaten in my pursuit of trying every part of the cheese, and some of those looked very edible. Harmless, really.
Thoughts: There are not enough ways to express how mushroomy this cheese is. I want to melt it all over my next steak. I want to cut up tiny bits of steak and put them in the pot and bake the whole thing. I want to make a Philly/French-Cheese-Steak sandwich fit for a king. St. Marcellin has 40% fat per solid matter, so it's seriously creamy, and every single bit of fat in there (in this case much less than 40% of the whole because it's such a water-rich, young cheese) carries the flavor evenly and decadently over the palate. Salty, milky, and surprisingly meaty for such a young and non-washed rind cheese, St. Marcellin packs an intense flavor for it's petite size. Seriously, this and a baguette are all you need, except for maybe a Beaujolais or a IPA to wash it down.
Caution
If you're thinking of using the pot as a candle holder, be advised that cheese has a lingering aroma. Nothing says "cheese addict" like the competing scents of "Bahama Breeze" and "Weeks Old Cheese"
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