5 Cheese Tasting Mistakes
Well-made cheeses aren’t exactly cheap, and should be savored. Avoiding these common mistakes will not only increase your enjoyment but also your appreciation of fine cheese.
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1. Serving cheese that is too cold
Everything we eat or drink is affected by temperature. Generally the lower the temperature, the less flavor and aroma it will reveal. Conversely, the warmer a food gets, the easier it is to pick up on aromas and flavors. Think of potato salad, loaded with vinegar or mayonnaise dressing, raw onion, chile peppers...all foods that are intensely flavored because the cold potatoes don’t taste like much. Now think about all those ingredients mixed into a bowl of hot mashed potatoes. Nowhere near as appetizing, right? That’s because hot foods increase the aromas and flavors you can perceive. Now those same ingredients become overwhelming and unpleasant.
This is relevant because cheese is usually stored in the refrigerator, which keeps it cold to stall spoilage. If you taste when it just came out of the refrigerator, the same principle applies. You aren’t getting all the aromas and flavors just yet. Let the cheese sit out for around an hour at room temperature. This gives it enough time to shake off the chill that will keep you from really getting to know it.
2. Tasting before smelling
When you like (or dislike) a food, around 70% of that assessment comes from...your nose. It’s true! Aromatic information plays a huge role in forming an opinion on what you’re eating or drinking. Ever notice that when you have a cold you can’t really taste anything? It’s not because your tongue shut down. It’s because your sinus cavity is stuffed up, blocking aromas from being noticed.
Fully appreciating food or drink begins with taking a deep whiff to focus on channeling all those aromas to your brain. Cheese is an incredibly aromatic food, offering up layers of scents that can be as subtle as fresh cream or as assertive as roasted cauliflower. Make sure to take a sniff or two before eating it to get the most complete impression possible.
3. Rejecting cheese with a scary rind
One common mistake made in tasting cheese happens even before the first bite is taken. When encountering cheeses that are particularly aromatic people tend to jump to a conclusion, and it’s usually not a good one. It’s the smell.
Certain cheeses can be quite aggressive when it comes to aromas. Certain methods of production, regional styles of cheese making, and even the milk used, can make the resulting wheel of cheese exude aromas of roasted onion, cauliflower, compost, and other intense smells.
In most instances, those aromas making us cringe and wince are concentrated on the rind of the cheese, a result of the cheesemaking technique. Washed-rind cheeses are usually the big culprit. These cheeses are gently moistened with liquid during maturation. Brine is the most common liquid used, but others like beer or wine may be used as well.
This application of liquid changes the surface of the cheese. Instead of the usual bacteria and mold which grows on drier wheels, these higher-moisture environments favor a particular orangey-reddish bacteria called brevibacterium, although others may be present as well. As it grows, it emits a sulfuric compound that is responsible for that intense scent. Cheeses like Epoisses from France come wrapped and packaged, only making matters worse - as they are unwrapped, concentrated aromas are pulled from the confined space, testing the conviction of the consumer.
One of the great rewards for persevering through the gauntlet of a washed-rind cheese is the subtle, delicious center. The same bacteria creating such a fuss on the outside of the wheel usually transform the interior into a decadent, savory treat. Keep in mind that it includes the rind itself! Most people assume the rind is inedible. As long as it’s not wrapped in cloth, dipped in wax, or has some other kind of added material, it’s naturally occurring and can be eaten. Give it a nibble, and you might just be pleasantly surprised at how flavorful the rind can be.
While it’s natural to be slightly taken aback at these stinky cheeses, or any cheese with a funky-smelling rind, it’s important to remember that perception rarely carries over to the cheese’s interior. Don’t judge a cheese by its rind, and more often than not you’ll be rewarded for it!
4. Eating cheese too quickly
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When you come across a piece of cheese that really lights up your palate, it’s easy to get lost in the pleasure. All those delicious flavors and textures consume your full attention and before you know it, the piece is gone!
There’s nothing inherently wrong with gobbling up a piece of tasty cheese. (I do it myself more than I care to admit.) It does mean, however, that you’re not getting the full range of characteristics being presented. Cheese is a phenomenally complex and nuanced food, worthy of attention and patience.
Bite off a small piece of the cheese. Let it rest in your mouth for a few moments to warm it up slightly. This will release more flavors and soften the cheese, making it coat the interior of your mouth more. Slowly chew it, taking note of how it feels as you do. Does the cheese melt or does it stay firmer, requiring more intense action to break it down? Is the cheese extra-creamy from additional milkfat? Can you taste the salt used in making it?
If you can take just a little extra time to slow down and really experience the cheese you’re eating, a whole world of information opens up to you, adding to the pleasure of eating it!
Photo by Elisa Michelet on Unsplash
5. Dismissing one style of cheese
It is generally held true there are seven different styles of cheese - fresh, bloomy-rind, natural rind, semi-soft, hard, blue, and flavored. That’s it. For the hundreds and hundreds of varieties of cheese made in the world, only seven styles.
But don’t make the mistake of clumping all the cheeses of a particular style together, presuming they will all be alike, nearly to the point of interchangeability. Chabichou de Poitou, Selles-sur-Cher, and Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine may all be natural-rinded cheeses from the Loire Valley in France, but they each have a distinctive character to them. Gruyère d’Alpage AOP from Switzerland and Comté from the Jura in France may both be giant wheels of amazing alpine cheese, but don’t ever say they’re basically the same. (Especially to the French, and especially to the Swiss. Not good.)
Cheese styles exist to help organize the world’s cheeses by using common physical or processing traits, bringing order to the delicious chaos. To assume you won’t like any other semi-soft cheeses because a particularly assertive Pont L’Eveque made your nose wrinkle is to lose out on the amazingly rich and cakey center of a Langres. It’s likely you will find a cheese you like in every style so keep tasting and of course, enjoying.