Gołka, or Finally A Cheese In the Shape of a Barrel!

Sometimes you have to look far and wide to find your next cheese. As far as the local farmers market and as wide as will fit in your fridge. Sometimes the cheese comes to find you! That is the story of today's cheese; Gołka! Two brave travelers brought these Polish cheeses back from a recent holiday and, after initially being intimidated by the spiky-barrel shape right out of a Mario game, I finally dove in. Now, I freely admit that I don't speak or read a word of Polish, which made deciphering the label somewhat of a puzzle. Fortunately, as the old saying goes, I've been to the rodeo before, and this is my kind of puzzle. I employed every trick up my sleeve and determined that this is, indeed, a cheese. We were given one plain and one smoked, both fairly identical looking except for the coloration.

Origin: Poland
Milk: Cow, pasteurized? Conflicting Reports
Affinage: 2-3 months

Notes:
There is a sheep milk version of this cheese that I'm now itching to get my hands on. I guess both this and the cow versions that I tasted are typically holiday cheeses, name controlled even, and as a result only really to be had at certain times of the year. Also the curd is salted! Which, I mean, may go a ways to explain the flavor. Also some sources say this cheese is a raw milk cheese... but I believe my label said pasteurized? Hard to say.

Thoughts:
Plain:
Slightly squeaky and tart like a cheese curd. It is a primarily salty cheese, but develops as the fats break down to a grassy sweetness, like a raw cheddar. The beginning is a neutral milky flavor, but builds ever more as you chew until at the end notes of meat and onions pop up. Doesn’t taste like health food, rather it is heavy and savory and rich. Definitely tastes tart and wild like a raw milk cheese, but that label? My vote is on raw.

Smoky:
The smoky aroma wafts over the palate as you bite into it, and really presents throughout the entire bite. Just as salty than its unsmoked relative, but more balanced due to thesmoked treatment. The smoke is not that gasoline-awful-artifical flavor, but rather a complex and constantly evolving addition to the cheese. The texture of the smoked rind is also a nice variation from the otherwise one-dimensional paste. Make no mistake, this is also a hearty and meaty bite. It wants a crisp beer like cats want to knock things off tables.


Possibly the first Polish cheese on the blog? Very possibly. I'd buy (or be gifted) it again in a heartbeat though! That sheep cheese also sounds really good, and just the other day I was alerted to a whole range of balkan cheeses. Auspicious times are ahead for this Functioning Cheese Addict! 

Idiazabal, Sounds Awesome and Tastes Awesome

I have already spent a few posts extolling the virtues of high alpine cheeses, but the Swiss and French are not the only ones with an appreciation for high-altitude pastures. Today's piece hails from the proud Basque region of Spain, nestled into the Pyrenees. Another sheep's milk beauty, it was traditionally made high in the mountains in spring and summer, being brought down in mass when the first snowfall pushed the shepherds into the lower valleys. Idiazabal is sometimes smoked, though the degree is not specified by its name-controlled DO status, but it is always delicious.

Origin: Navarre, Spain
Milk: Sheep, unpasteurized
Rennet: Animal
Affinage: At least 2 months
Notes: The rind, which is edible but not pleasant, varies from a light orange, such as mine, to rich brown depending on how long it has been smoked. Mine had not been smoked very long, but then I'm not particularly fond of most smoked cheeses, so I'm not complaining. Something about the sticky, artificial and usually overpowering "smoked" flavor/aroma and the usually sub-par cheeses to which it's paired.
Thoughts: This cheese is refreshingly simple, but so thoroughly well made that it stands alone as a shining example of a few select characteristics. Although some aged versions of Idiazabal are used for grating, mine was young enough to cut nicely and still had some give and moisture to it. In the rich, fatty (remember sheep's milk is typically the fattiest than cow's or goat's milk) paste there are the usual nutty and grassy tones, but what characterizes this cheese is the raw milk. In this sense Idiazabal is tangy and a little bitter, generally sharper than you'd expect from such a young cheese, but very well proportioned. The hint of smoke was plenty for me, adding an additional dark layer to an already rich flavor. Bring this along on your next mountain stroll with some salted, cured meats or a fig jam and imagine you're bringing the herd down for the winter. Alternatively sit inside and watch a movie about shepherds and eat it, it'll probably still taste good.

Caution
The film The Good Shepherd doesn't actually have anything to do with sheep or cheese, just spies.
The film The Shepherd: Border Control has nothing to do with anything except Jean-Claude van Damme