Saturday, September 3, 2011

Red Dragon, Now Without Hannibal Lecter

Get it? Like the movie? Oh the humor.
Just like the dark hero/villain of everyone's favorite serial killer series, today's cheese is both sophisticated and stylish while still being fiery and ruthless. Ok, maybe ruthless is pushing the boundaries of acceptable adjectives for food stuffs, but bear with me and you'll see just what I'm talking about.
Red Dragon is, in this humble blogger's eyes, one of the more delicious cheeses to come out of Her Majesty's pastures. I have before decried the evils of adding blah extras to blah cheese and ending up with a blah product, but today's addition passed the delicious exam. A tough exam at that.
Origin: England
Milk: Cow, pastuerized
Rennet: Vegetable
Affinage: 3-5 months
Notes: The proverbial fire behind the proverbially red dragon's proverbial breath here is a potent cocktail of brown ale and whole mustard seed. For those of you keeping track at home that makes the score delicious.
Thoughts: In appearance it might resemble Leyden of posts past, but do not be deceived like so many greenhorns on the pilgrimage to cheese paradise. It's flavor profile, surprisingly unhindered in texture by the whole mustard seeds, is full, bold, and unashamedly English. The mustard seed definitely takes the lead role here, providing a steady and complex heat throughout, but the ale makes its own cameos here and there, poking through as it were to make its meaty and sweet voice heard. A subtle moistness in the paste begs to be cut into small slices and savored, and indeed even a small piece of this cheese will carry all of the delectable flavor. The cheese itself, unquestionably the shy flavor of the group, is however present in the creaminess and ever-present base upon which the others build their house. Flavor house. You know the one.


Take heart fellow seekers of the killer curds!
Things here at Functioning Cheese Addict have been taking a relative back seat to classes and life's other slings and arrows but as the dust begins to settle I bring tiding of great cheese. Soon I will once again be gainfully employed in the great cheese hall of Longmont Cheese Importers in Colorado, so I might just start posting cheeses you can actually find in the US again. 

PS If you're reading this from across the sea and the novelty of being able to find European cheeses strikes you as old hat, just pause and be thankful for your geographic good fortune. Eat some real French Brie for your brethren here in the USA, suffering as it were under the yoke of USFDA pasteurization laws. 

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