Hallertauer Ziegenhof Kreuzkümmel 2yr, or Adventures in Buying Local

I've decided to work my way through some of Hallertauer's lineup, because it's not every day you have the privilege of getting to know a local goat dairy through its lineup. They claim over 100 kinds of cheese, impressive for an organic and natural goat dairy. Actually, that'd be impressive for an industrial sized setup. Many of these products are admittedly variations on a theme, fresh goat cheese with _______ on top. Some, though, are surprising, challenging, dare I say delightful?

I dare.


Origin: Oberbayern, Germany
Milk: Goat, pasteurized
Affinage: 2 years

Notes:  Crumbles beautifully into great gorgeous slabs of goat cheese. Great. Gorgeous. Slabs.

Thoughts: Ooooh, this is tasty. Where to start... Obviously the cumin seed is pretty pervasive here, but far from being a one trick pony it is a wonderfully complex cheese. This cheese has a lot to say, it fights its own battles. Starts off with a zing in the beginning, and is dry at first, but as the paste breaks down a buttery sweetness emerges. Hints of apricot pop up here and there, defying expectations. 


Don't you just love it when a cheese defies expectations? You know, all of those cheese expectations we have. 

Hallertauer Ziegenhof Goat Ricotta

How often do you get to talk about sustainable low-input dairy farming one day and the very next day discover a local goat dairy is 1) in existence and b) practicing just that!
Seldom.
Seldom is the answer.
All the more was my joy, then, when I re-stumbled upon a stand at my local farmer's market. The Hallertauer Ziegenhof stand is a cornucopia of high quality local cheeses and meats. A Cheesucopia. What quickly caught my eye, though, was the advertisement for fresh ricotta. You may recall from a recent post that I am an absolute sucker for fresh ricotta. What the recent joiner of the Functioning Cheese Community may not know, however, is that I also love Goat's milk cheeses. L.O.V.E. Love them. I'd never tried goat ricotta, only a phenomenal sheep's milk ricotta from Fruition Farms and the legendary Parma Ricotta to note, so starting a culinary tour of Hallertauer Ziegenhof's menu here was a no brainer.

Origin: Bavaria, Germany
Milk: Goat,
Affinage: fresh!

Notes: The beauty of sustainable dairy farming is the lack of need for many of the chemical inputs and antibiotics that are required to keep an industrial scale operation going. The idea is to balance the natural needs and outputs of different animals and plants in such a proportion that, for example, the mixture of animals fertilizes and aerates the ground where said animal's grazing feed can then grow. Or, say, pigs consuming the otherwise wasted whey, a byproduct of cheesemaking that pigs love and is healthy for them.

Thoughts: The first thing you notice upon biting in is that this is more a savory than a sweet Ricotta. The grain is fine and pleasant, like a magic trick where the grain is so fine it is actually creamy. This is more of a hay and grassy Ricotta, nowhere to be found is the typical sweet tang of goat’s milk. Still it lacks nothing, it keeps you coming back wanting more! It is complex but subtle, a full and complete bite by itself but also clearly a strong base for so many pairings. On your third and fourth bite you start to be bewitched by the luxury of the cheese and imagine you are tasting chocolate and other herbs, although you know it only goat’s milk! This has been made with love, and what a treat to find it here at the farmer’s market! 

I've been working on my ricotta toast game (#ricottatoastrevolution) but they usually don't last long enough to be photographed. I do love writing about and photographing cheese, but I love eating it even more. 

Obatzda, or Frischkäsezubereitung

Ja Hallo, einen schönen Guten Tag wünsche ich euch alle, liebe Leser. 

Heute bringe ich euch was sehr besonders, eine Frischkäsezubereitung aus unsere aktuelle Zuhause; Bayern! 

Ja, Bayern: wo die Kühe freundlich sind und der Käse herzhaft. 

Wie alle gute Deutschsprecher(leser) wissen, Obatzda gehört genauso viel zum Biergartenkultur wie... also, Bier. Und Gärten. Eine absolute Schatz an das Leben hier in Bayern ist, dass viele Nachbarläden ihre eigene Rezept dafür haben und dir auch frische Brezen dazu verkaufen wird. Also gönn dir! 

Origin: Bayern, Germany

Rennet: Animal

Milk: cow

Affinage: n/a

Notes: Comes in a tub. Orange. Orange with white splotches and other rando pieces of stuff in there, to be more precise. Smells pretty strong. Did I mention it gets spatula-ed into a plastic tub? Eaten traditionally with pretzels or good brown German bread. Home-made all over, your mileage may vary. 

Thoughts: Wowzers. It’s not every cheese you smell increasingly strongly before you take your first bite This one is powerful, though. If it were an animal in the wild, it’d have big colorful stripes or badges to ward off predators. Or, you know, some sort of pheromone producing gland.  Eaten alone (for sciences’ sake), it is overwhelming. Creamy, spicy (but not hot), a little warming in the aftertaste, almost a blue-cheese like funk, and that familiar sensation when you know you are now in 100% cheese breath mode. Usually this takes a lot of cheese eating, but with Obatzda, one bite is all you need. Now for some more orthodox tasting, spread on a pretzel. OK, so let’s talk about salt. Now, pretzels can have a lot of salt on them, sometimes you may be asked by your local baker if you want a normal or lightly salted pretzel, I’d put these today firmly in the 6/10 in their saltiness. This is important because salt also happens to be one of the few ingredients of cheese after milk. This particular ‘cheese’ also has some paprika and other spices added to it, so…. this is a very salty bite is what I’m trying to say. Those of you who know and love Germany will not be surprised by this. It is 100% normal here to bring a hardboiled egg as a snack with you on a hike, but only if you also bring a tiny single serving package of salt for to salt said egg after you’ve shelled it (Do you ‘shell an egg’? Peel an egg? Release an egg?). I digress. Obatzda! Dang this stuff is delicious. It is actually very very sweet and creamy, which acts as the perfect vehicle for the paprika and onion and, well, salt, providing a great contrast and basically making you want more and more. Salt and fat. Salt and fat. Garlic is in there, onions poke up here and there, but really this is classic bar food. Bavarian style. I love it. Cheese breath forever!!!

i bim bloß a gloana Kasbuam! 

Montagnolo, The Other Cambozola

I'll save you, dear reader, the drawn out rant about quality control and corporate greed and instead dive right on into the review. Same company, same concept, let's see if it's the same cheese. 

Origin: Bavaria, Germany

Milk: Cow, pasteurized

Rennet: Animal

Affinage: 4-5 weeks

Notes: Uses Penicillium Camemberti and Roqueforti 

Thoughts: The flavor of this blue-brie is not too far different from that of the Cambozola, both start with a very creamy and rich texture of the brie and the tang of the blue only comes in later. This one, however, has a distinctly meaty flavor that develops towards the end and finishes with the characteristic aftertaste of brie that bites at the roof of the mouth. In this respect alone it is worth trying even if you've already tried Cambozola, but don't go looking for miracles. To be quite honest both cheeses fall short of a good slab of Gorgonzola Dolce which, in my mind, fulfills the same requirements but infinitely better. 

Cambozola

Being a cheese hipster does not make you cool. Actually, being an anything hipster does not make you cool, yes this means you on your fixed gear bike. The difference here is that trying to be a cheese hipster will find you relatively hidden cheeses like Montagnolo that may or many not be good while you miss the masterpieces like Gorgonzola. Being a fixie hipster just gets you glared at.   

Cambozola, They Did What?

Imagine the old Reese's Pieces commercials. "You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!" exclaims little Freddy. "You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!" exclaims little Frankie. Then they throw both away and go and buy a Reese's Cup, roll jingle. 

This is kind of like that. Imagine one Bavarian says "Du hast deine Camembert mit meine Gorgonzola gemischt!"[translation: I say old chap you seem to have sullied my Gorgonzola with a piece of your fromage de Camembert, what about that then]. The other replies "Du hast deine Gorgonzola mit meine Camembert gemischt!" [translation: Is that so my dear sir? A thousand pardons but I fear I must inform you that you as well have most certainly introduced an alien portion of your Gorgonzola to my honest fromage de Camembert]. Then they throw both away and go start a cheese company, enter Cambozola. 

Truly a mix of cheese and clever marketing campaigns it is one a select group of cheeses; the Blue-veined Bries. Sound Frankenstinian? It is. Sound terrible? It's not actually, in fact for being a factory lovechild of a market gap and some bloke with a business degree it's not bad at all. Though to be fair that's kind of like saying that, for being pumped full of more drugs than the world may ever fully understand, Charlie Scheen is fairly coherent. 

A little back-handed? Maybe. But the producers of Cambozola aren't looking to dethrone Camembert, Gorgonzola, or any established cheese, they're looking to make a buck. And I'd imagine they've made a few. 

Origin: Bavaria, Germany

Milk: Cow, pasteurized

Rennet: Animal

Affinage: 5-8 weeks

Notes: There's a double crème version as well, but this one has the full honest 75% fat content. 

Thoughts: While definitely veined with Penicillium, the triple crème of the Camembert both balances and compliments the sharpness of the blue nicely. A delicious mix that is great for spreading and pairing, the concept works surprisingly well when played out in curd form. There is nothing delicate or refined about this cheese, and it even lacks the honest rusticity of other hearty cheese, but for some reason it's still a huge hit at parties and sells like pizzas in a town that didn't formerly have anyone selling pizzas. 

Caution

Beware of funky names like Cambozola, not every producer is fortunate enough to have found a combination and recipe that works. In fact, if you want truly high quality product just buy Camembert and Gorgonzola and eat them separately, or maybe alternate. Easy as that. 

StuZi Weichkäse m. Kräuter, This is Horse Cheese

Today I'll skip the big huge intro as the tips section pretty well goes over the backstory to today's cheese. Suffice to say this: Horse cheese. I am reviewing horse cheese. Well, it's mostly Goat cheese actually but a boy will take what he can get, and 33% horse cheese is 100% more than I've ever had before. So celebrate, for tonight we dine on horse!

Origin: Bavaria, Germany

Milk: Goat and Horse, unpasteurized

Rennet: Animal

Affinage: A matter of weeks

Notes: This is the "Weichkäse", or what I'd compare closes to an unbrined feta consistency, and the one I bought is suspended in sunflower seed oil with herbs de Provence for an extra kick. Yum, and all this for only 50% fat per solid content.

Thoughts: As with most weichkäses, the initial tones to come though from this are salty salty and also salty. The flavor develops considerably, though, and as the perfectly firm but meltable paste breaks down on the palate a whole range of flavors hits in a simultaneous barrage of “what am I eating again”? Don’t get me wrong, it tastes great, but it’s not your typical cheese, no surprise there. The heavy and earthy flavor of the horses milk, with that tart kick and a character I could only describe as brooding, comes in strong and is soon joined by the lighter more floral accents of the herbs de Provence. Intensely creamy with a touch of the more familiar goaty sweet tang towards the end, this cheese is in a category all its own. The horse category, I suppose.  

Caution

Please do not think I condone eating horses. Unless, you know, they're out of everything else at the supermarket.   

Also, how is this the first German cheese I'm reviewing? Crazy.