Val d'Armance, or The Thunderdome!

What do you do when your favorite cheese store is out of your desired curd? These are the moments, ladies and gents. The real nitty gritty, where the rubber meets the road, where the men are separated from the mice, where the toppings meet the pizza, where the wheat and the chaff meet at a fork in the road and before you know it you turn around and there's three more rabbits in the the pen then there were this morning. And are you ready to handle that!!?! I didn't think so.

This is the Thunderdome.
This is The Avengers in getting all avengery in whatever movie comes out in 2065 or whatever.
This is Snake Plissken escaping from NYC. Or LA. Or something.
This is
This is....
This is a pretty rough situation!

This is also why you want to have a top notch guy as a cheesemonger. When you say 'hey, where is the delicious young Époisses I had the other week' and he says 'we're all out' and you say 'aw man!!!' then he can say 'don't worry though we've got you covered try this instead it's similar and fantastic.' And that. That is how we get to Val d'Armance.

Origin: Champagne, France
Milk: Cow
Affinage: 3-4 weeks


Notes:  This one was a fairly young example, not yet fully eaten up into creamline and funk. Now, I'm not against funk. I can get down on some funk. But to get all the layers of flavor and complexity that is hidden there, it helps to have a cheese that doesn't already resemble soup.


Thoughts: Looks so funky, tastes so sweet. Butter-sweet. How does this taste so sweet? How does a washed rind cheese get away with tasting so sweet? Don't get me wrong, there are other things going on here as well. Mushrooms and garlic, our old friends, are at it again playing their familiar duet, but the guy with the megaphone in the room is Mr. Sweet. This tastes like how late spring days feel. This tastes like how loamy earth smells. There are even notes of black pepper that bounce off the buttery sweetness! The rind has a delightful texture and melts in your mouth, what more could you want?!



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