When someone sends you a box of sexy, wrinkled cheese in the mail, it feels very special. It feels like visitors from another planet have asked you to become their pen pal, or — better yet — a host family for their children. Children who arrive in hover crafts.
Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery packs their delicate morsels in small balsa-wood travel carriers. I received some in the mail as samples and marveled at their construction: the little boxes (what can I build with them?) and also the cheeses inside. Each goat cheese looked like a lilliputian barn animal with a fleecy rind.
Let me lay out the facts because I can get a little woo-woo when I talk about these cheeses. They are like fairy mushrooms, like toad stools…see, there I go.
Fact: Cheesemaker Allison Hooper of Vermont has established herself as a geotricum genius. She’s devoted her whole life — and I’m not being dramatic — to creating a perfect environment for French-style goat cheeses with wrinkly rinds. You should really read her story.
Fantasy: Allison Hooper develops faux fur coats made from geotricum — chinchillas everywhere celebrate.
Fact: Bonne Bouche (above) recently won a World Cheese Award (2011) and a Sofi Award at the Fancy Food Show (2012).
Fantasy: Lancôme hires Allison Hooper to develop a goat cheese face mask that makes wrinkles look more etherial. Women over 60 everywhere embrace their age lines.
What struck me about these cheeses was their pristine taste. Bonne Bouche (above) has an ashy elegance, but it’s definitely a fearsome cheese. Even menacing. Were it any larger than the size of my palm, I might have flinched. Inside, however, the paste was ice white, like packed snow, and it gave off the aroma of milk and lemons. The taste matched. It was all lemon cream with a pleasantly yeasty tang along the rind.
I let this cheese sit around in my crisper for about two weeks, and amazingly, it looked as beautiful on the day I served it as the day it arrived. (I kept it around on purpose — I wanted the interior to break down and turn piquant. It developed an oozy creamline just under the rind that was perfect.)
Coupole (above) was equally flawless. It was like eating shaved ice — cool and bright. The rind looks formidable, but was veil-thin and sweetly gummy, like the exterior of a mochi ball. At a party, I served it with a jar of Meyer Lemon Marmalade, and the combination was extraordinary.
A few days later, I wanted more sexy, wrinkly cheese, so I set off for Downtown Cheese in Philadelphia, where they have a lovely selection of Frenchies. I chose a Chabichou, a classic French goat cheese that I knew Allison Hooper must have eaten in her girlhood when she studied in France.
The Chabichou was an interesting contrast. The rind was thicker. Not by much, but it was noticeable. The smell called to mind Coupole. In fact, had I been blindfolded, I’m not sure I could have detected a difference. I broke out the lemon marmalade and marveled.
Then I set about to finding a proper way to store my Chabichou. An improvised cheese dome made from a Ball Jar? Why not? I feel Allison would approve.
—
Bonus track
It wouldn’t be right not to show you what these cheeses look like on a plate, sliced and ready to serve. Tell me they’re not alluring, wrinkles and all.
Comments are closed.