Ziegentrüffelkäse, or The French Cheese With the German Title

Hello dear readers! Today’s cheese is a lesson in egalitarian cheese eating. The bright lights and fancy names, DOP this and AOP that, it can all distract one from the bottom line of the whole enterprise: does it taste good? At our weekly farmer’s market the cheese stand always has an overwhelming selection, and this tempting number was on sale. Now usually I shy away from cheeses with truffle added. Cow or goat, European or American, ‘truffle ______’  is all too often code for mediocre cheese that someone is trying to spice up with (usually equally mediocre) truffle shavings. 

But, you know, it was on sale. 

It had no name but ‘french truffle goat cheese’. This is like calling your store brand cola ‘tasty-cola’. But whatever.

Origin: France

Rennet: ?

Milk: goat, pasteurized

Affinage: 4 months

Notes:

The snow white paste is absolutely riddled with black truffle shavings, and the yellow rind holds a paste that is surprisingly crumbly, like a mature cheddar.

Thoughts:

Really good! First you get a rich rush of creamy and tangy goat cheese, then a second wave of umami goodness when the truffles hit the palate. The cheese has notes of sweet cream and caramel, making for a decadent flavor when combined with the truffle. This is easily one of the best truffle cheeses I’ve ever had, and brother I have had a few. The smallest morsel is packed full of flavor, every bite a roller coaster of delightful goodness.

There are a few weeks every year, during Advent, where our local farmers market and therefore our cheese stand disappear, only to be replaced by a (admittedly very charming local) Christmas Market. Sure, you can get pottery and candied almonds and mulled wine and fried dough and Wurst and ornaments and more mulled wine and knitted scarves and cured pork and gingerbread.... but you can't get cheese. You show me a Christmas celebration without cheese and I'll show you a celebration that needs to go back to celebration school and learn to celebrate better. 

Gewitterkäs, or LIGHTNING CHEESE (!!!!!)

Today’s cheese has a different name depending on what country and language you happen to be buying it in. The cheese itself, that is to say the label in the home country of Switzerland, says Gwitterchäs. This is of course Swiss German for Lightning Cheese. Swiss German, in German, is called Schweizerdeutsch. In Schweitzerdeutsch, though, you don’t say Schweitzerdeutsch, you say Schwizerdütsch or Schwiizertüüsch, and you don’t say Gewitterkäse you say Gwitterchäs. That is, if you’re speaking Schweitzerdeutsch/Schwitzerdütsch. If you’re speaking Deutsch which is to say German than you say Gewitterkäse unless you’re speaking a local dialect in which case it might be more like Gwitterkäse or Gewitterkäs or Gwitterkas. Really it’s a wonder this cheese ever made it all the way over to my local cheese stand in Munich. München. Minga. 

Origin: Toggenburg, Schweiz

Milk: Cow, heated but not pasteurized

Affinage: 5 months

Notes:

Made, as the story goes, when a lightening storm hit the dairy and the recipe for a different cheese was mistakenly altered, resulting in this very buttery ‘mistake’. 

Thoughts:

Smells sweet like caramel or buttered toast. There is an earthy wildness to it, with notes of garlic and a texture that melts in your mouth. The more you eat the stronger there develops a theme of green onions, all carried along on a wave of heavy cream. The aftertaste has the raw milk tang we all know and love. It tastes fresh and vibrant, something you want to eat with a hearty beer. A slight peppery bite now and then due to the raw milk. 

You know what they say: 'Washed rind best rind'. 
They're always saying that.  

Ziegenperle, or... Goat Pearl?

I do not mean to preference German, Swiss, and Austrian cheeses of late, it just so happens that they are consistently on strong discount at our local cheese stand. I will also freely admit that I am on a long-term hunt for a fitting replacement for Cypress Grove's Midnight Moon, still an easy top five cheese. When I see that clean white paste I get my hopes up and... well let's just say a fitting replacement eludes me. So here I am, at the cheese stand, and joy of joys an aged goat cheese is on sale! How was the Ziegenperle? Let us see.

Origin: Switzerland
Milk: Goat, not raw and not pasteurized but heated
Affinage: 8-10 weeks

Notes: The wheel is regularly rubbed down in wine yeast during the aging process. So... let's hear it for wine yeast!

Thoughts: This cheese confuses me. Although it is high in butterfat the paste is chalky, salty, and, well, chalky. Chalk on chalk. Chalk all the way down. You do get some notes of hay and a hint of sweet cream, but the overwhelming flavor from the goat's milk is the zing and bite of the unpasteurized milk. This cheese attacks strong from the start and keeps your mouth puckered through to the end. Honestly, this is a little off putting by itself. The solution? Don't eat it by itself. The cheese breaks apart into an avalanche of small crumbles when you so much as look at it, and indeed it could make a fitting topping for pasta or roasted vegetables such is the strength and intensity of the flavor.  It needs at least a hardy bread to match it, but eaten right it is quite good. A little goes a long way!


I am admittedly not very well acquainted with the particulars of Swiss German, so it may be that I'm missing something in the translation... but Goat Pearl is a strange thing to name your cheese, is it not? Even Pearl of the Goat or the Pearly Goat... I'm just not sure those are better. 

Grantrento, or the other other grating cheese

Quick! List off for me all of the grating cheeses that you know!

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If you said ‘parmesan’…. I’m not mad I’m just disappointed. 

If you said 'gouda'... ... ... I actually am mad. Also disappointed. 
If you said ‘Parmigiano Reggiano’, ‘Grana Padano’, or ‘Pecorino Romano’, then you probably like a little bit of pasta with your cheese.

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Others? 

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Yes, apart from some brave newcomers these three have classically had a pretty handy corner on the market. I didn’t even know to look for today’s cheese, Grantrento, in fact we stumbled upon it when we popped into a dairy on our last trip to Italy. Nestled in the Val de Non in the mountains of northern Italy, surrounded by dramatic canyons, vineyards and apple orchards, one finds this little gem. Grantrento. Looks like a grating cheese. Smells like a grating cheese. Made like a grating cheese. But can it hold its own??

Origin: Trentino, Italy

Rennet: animal

Milk: Cow, unpasteurized

Affinage: 12 months or more

Notes:

This would to me be an argument for always going into every local dairy you come by and just having a go at whatever they’re selling. 

Thoughts:

In comparison to your more well known King of Cheese, Grantento is rather more peppery and less salty. A charming crunch and well balanced fattiness makes this a winner by itself or as a garnish. Towards the end you get notes of baked mushrooms and the raw milk tang is pleasantly present in every bite. It is not a replacement for King Parm, but after eating it on pasta and cheese boards for a few months in different constellations I would happily stock it in the Functioning Cheese Refrigerator. If only because it meant I got to keep on visiting Italy to buy more! 

Not a bad place to grow apples and make cheese! So many apples. Much more apple than cheese. That's why the valley is known as the Big Apple.  Land of 1000 Valleys. Valley of 1000 Lands.