Saint André, (See Cheesecake)

Right, so first things first. The astute and devoted reader of this blog will have noticed with the greatest of disappointment that there was no blog post yesterday. Blogger, the device through which I disseminate this dastardly delicious dossier, was effectively down for the better part of two days, rather throwing off the whole cheese-a-day scheme. No matter, for today you get three posts! One for today, one for yesterday, and a third because, who am I kidding; I thoroughly enjoy writing these.

Perhaps the biggest problem with bringing the great cheeses of Europe to the non-European table is the issue of quality control. The industrial revolution had devastating consequences for genuine cheesemaking traditions in Europe, but while the good stuff can again be found on a small scale the same cannot be said for what is exported in bulk. As a result we have cheeses such as today's Saint André; a cheese with flavor, texture, and good looks, but lacking a soul.

Origin: Normandy, France
Milk: Cow, pasteurized
Rennet: Vegetable
Affinage: Roughly 30 days
Notes: Here we see our first fake leaf, and even though this cheese is legitimately from France it still suffers from being, well, dumbed down for export. French cheese importing giant Ile de France is probably responsible for most of the French cheeses available at your supermarket, but for all the good they have done in spreading the word it has come at the cost of integrity of the cheese. Sure we can get Fol Epi, Saint Agur, Bleu d'Auvergne and other cheeses of French origin, but they are typically only facsimiles of the original. Worse yet, real-deal cheeses are often discontinued domestically to favor the more profitable export of these pseudo-cheeses. Oh PS it's a triple crème too.
Thoughts: The first thing you'll notice about this cheese, once you remove the paper leaf, is the texture. It is surprisingly dense for a triple crème, so much so in fact that it will hold its shape even at room temperature. Unfortunately, with the supermarket cheesecake-like texture comes a supermarket cheesecake-like flavor. While obviously very rich and creamy, Saint André is otherwise underwhelming. It is sweet and slightly salty but otherwise pretty one-dimensional. This combined with the dense texture means that it does not cover the palate as evenly as some smoother cheeses and, overall, there are just better "dessert bries" to be had. Don't get me wrong; this is not a bad cheese, and it will certainly be a crowd pleaser alongside sweet fresh fruit, but it lacks soul. The original notes from my tasting read "flavor is good but not incredible", and really it could be so much more.

Caution
Going the extra distance for the true essence of that one French Cheese might just mean flying to France for it. On the other hand, dairies in the US are making ever-better originals, and why pass up the cheese tours right in your backyard?  

Brillat-Savarin, So Good They Named a Man After It

"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are" -Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.

Leave it to the French to pioneer the gastronomic writing genre, sometimes stereotypes just write themselves. When today's hero walked the earth he certainly made his mark as a foodie. Between learning 5 languages, playing as a professional violinist, traveling and living in the US (to be fair it wasn't by choice; he was fleeing the French Revolution), and later serving as a judge back in France, Brillat-Savarin wrote the authoritative work on food snobbery: Physiologie du goût (The Physiology of Taste). For this, along with such quotes as 

"Those persons who suffer from indigestion, or who become drunk, are utterly ignorant of the true principles of eating and drinking", 

Brillat-Savarin earned the admiration of another giant in the French food scene; Henri Androuët. When Androuët created a decadent triple-creme brie in the early 1930s he named it after his hero, and so Brillat-Savarin was (re?)born. Another cream-injected, 75% fat dessert brie, this pasteurized cheese can be found with relative ease in the US and I've yet to meet anyone who's not a fan. 

Origin: Normandy, France

Milk: Cow, pasteurized

Rennet: Animal

Affinage: This cheese is ready to eat just as soon as the curd "blondes up", or becomes a smooth and sturdy paste. The process of getting it to America means you'll be lucky to find it in the 1-2 weeks stage, but it will be delicious at any age. Just avoid any dead pieces, identifiable by discoloration or a slimy rind.

Notes: When one comes across a rich, intense flavor such as Brillat-Savarin one must find other similarly bold flavors with which to pair it, lest the one overshadow the other. My advice for this cheese "confection" is to find the biggest, ripest, sweetest strawberries around, cut them in half, make a Brillat-Savarin-strawberry sandwhich, and then drizzle a balsamic vinegar reduction over the lot. You may want to sit down for this. 

Thoughts: My notes from when I first tried Brillat-Savarin begin with "This is possibly the best brie I have ever come across". A sign of inexperience, to be sure it has been dethroned whether or not it ever rightly held the crown, but it did not receive this high praise without grounds. Nor would I hesitate even today to call it one of my favorite all-time cheese, and here's why. The next line in my description reads "impossibly creamy and milky", but even that falls short of fully explaining just how rich this cheese is. The clean, grassy aroma tickles the nose and is also present in the wickedly sweet paste, which you will want to spread on just about anything within reach. At room temperature, or when aged, it gains a hint of complexity with the odd savory tones, but even in its relatively one-dimensional young stage it is an absolute delight and will surely be a hit at any party. A rare example of doing one thing well enough to appease the critics, this cheese was destined for dessert alongside sweet, fresh fruit and a bottle of Champagne.  

Caution

If one day I am murdered with a (famously fatal) cheese overdose, check first to see who's been buying Brillat-Savarin in bulk. Don't worry, though, I would have died happy.

Explorateur, it's Out Of This World!

The year was 1958 and the space race, launched the year before by the Russian Sputnik Satellite program, was already heating up. The American government was furiously working on the Explorer satellite program, the American people were building bomb shelters, the Russians were learning Spanish and working on their swimsuit tans, and somewhere in France a cheesemaker had the inspiration to capture the moment as only he knew how; he created an epic cheese. 

Explorateur, named either for the American space program or the space race itself depending on which side of the Atlantic you wake up on, was one of the first cheeses to be made under the "triple crème" designation. It earns this decadent title when full cream is added to the milk before the curdling process, the end result being a cheese with 70% or higher butterfat content per solid mass. The "per solid mass" bit is important as a lot of what makes up bries, even these triple crème or dessert bries, is whey, the watery product left behind when milk curdles. This means that what you're eating isn't actually 70% butterfat, but to be honest it tastes so good you probably wouldn't care even if it was.

Origin: Isle de France, France
Milk: Cow, pasteurized
Rennet: Animal
Affinage: 4-6 weeks
Notes: 70% butterfat wasn't enough, so they turned it to eleven and made Explorateur 75% butterfat. Forget about counting calories. Make your peace with God and dive in. 
Thoughts: The particular variety that I bought was on the aged side of its short life, but considering all of the soft French cheeses have to make that Atlantic crossing and then clear customs, I'll take what I can get. The good news is that, being a surface ripened cheese, Explorateur just continues to ripen right up until you cut into it, meaning mine was bursting with flavor when I brought it home. 75% butterfat translates roughly into the texture of ultra-dense cream cheese, but instead of a heavy and simple spread Explorateur delivers an experience that redefines decadent. The paste is milkier and sweeter than fresh goat cheese and just melts on the palate, simultaneously rich but airy. What sets this apart from the other dessert bries is how the flavor develops, and here I am thankful that I bought an older cheese. The nutty, mushroomy goodness that is so desirable in standard bries comes from out of nowhere and dominates the flavor briefly before the sweetness of the cream takes over again and persists into the aftertaste. The rind, a delicate blanket of scrumptious white mold, delivers an additional tangy kick in its old age but would be considerably tamer in the first weeks of the cheese's life. The key with pairing these (seriously) heavy hitters is cutting through the cream with champagne and some fresh fruit. Alternatively just call in sick from life and take a bath in the stuff. 


Caution
Bathing in cheese would be disgusting.

Disgustingly expensive. Just imagine how much wine you'd have to buy, and then you'd need a small produce section worth of fresh fruit, a half dozen baugettes, a gallon of fruit preserve, I mean we're looking at 4 figures easy. Try to get a deal on the baguettes.