Stilton
How to Eat A Stilton? - Steve Turley
Adam Quinan Replies...
Astrid Bear Replies...
The American Way With Stilton - Charlezzzzz Muñozzzzz
The British Way With Stilton - Anthony Clover
How to Keep A Stilton? - Mary S.
Sara Waterson Replies
Cheeses of the World
Exotic Cheeses - Michael Mayer
Astrid Bear
Rowen
Jean A.
Larry Finch
Steve Wagner
Julie Hoffman
John Shepherd
Sarah Cousins
Stilton
How to Eat A Stilton? - Steve Turley
I received a small wheel of Stilton cheese for Christmas. I've read that it's traditional to pour Port wine into a Stilton. Jack mentions settling down to Stilton, Port and walnuts somewhere, doesn't he? How exactly is this done? I assume I dig into the wheel from the top, gradually forming a bowl into which I pour the wine. Do I then sip the wine as if I were eating soup; or dig out spoonsful of wine and cheese rather like eating ice-cream with chocolate sauce; or does the wine soak in and become part of the cheese; or is this all just a myth?
Adam Quinan Replies...
Unless you have a very bad Stilton and an even worse port, the best mixture of port and Stilton is to consume them separately and allow the mixing to take place internally.
The theory was, I believe, that if your Stilton had dried out then adding port would soften it up again as it would sit and soak into the cheese. Adding port to a fresh Stilton would make it excessively soggy and poor textured.
Astrid Bear Replies...
Joy of your Stilton, Sir! I agree wholeheartedly with Adam. Do not pour the port into the Stilton, pour the port and the Stilton into the man (and woman). I also wouldn't try to eke it out for too long, because it will go off and not taste so yummy. Nuts of all sort are a good companion, also try pears and apples. Stilton is great on toast for breakfast, in a ploughman's lunch for, well, lunch, and after dinner.
The American Way With Stilton - Charlezzzzz Muñozzzzz
Port poured atop Stilton: good or bad? Lissuns are not in agreement. One must determine these things for oneself. One must experiment: that's the scientific method. That's the American Way.
Yesterday, there being for the moment no properly crusted Stilton in the night lunch, I took a brick of Cheddar from the third shelf of the refrigerator. Having no port, I took three cans of well-chilled Coors. I poured the Coors over the Cheddar and let the entire degustation age in a salad bowl for half an hour, slowly coming to room temperature. Then I ate it with a two dozen carefully selected Ritz crackers (the kind you can find only in Doylestown's five best supermarkets,) cutting the cheese with an electric carving knife, decanting the Coors out of the soup bowl and into a coffee cup. Serves one. Several thousand calories per serving. Not very good: perhaps I should have aged it longer.
The British Way With Stilton - Anthony Clover
Possibly [people] are unaware that in Britain a really good Stilton is bought in a shape as large as a small drum, so there is no way it can be eaten at one go. So that it keeps well and moist thereafter, there is a tradition whereby one pours a small amount of port into the centre scooped out at previous meals and covers it with a lid. This continues until it is all eaten up. It is therefore the natural thing to drink port with it at future meals - just as you suggest, the port goes with its intrinsic tanginess. Indeed, some people aver that this is the only way to indulge in even the best of Stilton and that it improves over time under this treatment.
How to Keep A Stilton? - Mary S.
We had a Stilton for Christmas, and it was noble. But there was some left over, which I brought home with me.
Now, this cheese with the fine blue mold veining is growing a brownish-reddish mold on its outer surfaces, which looks pretty nasty. It tastes pretty much the same, though - the bits I've ingested by accident.
Will this red mold hurt us? Should I try to shave it all off? Please don't say I have to dump the whole cheese.
Sara Waterson Replies
Shave it, Mary. It is good for months yet.
My old Grandpa, who used to have a whole Stilton sent down to Devon on the night train from Derbyshire each Christmas, would keep eating this till the next was due at Easter. [ A decent Stilton is about 18 inches in diameter and two foot high].
His great delight [using the ivory-handled silver scoop] was to serve a portion which was crawling with maggots, and scoff at us softies who recoiled in horror... He claimed it didn't reach the right pitch of flavour till it had a few crawlies in it; he just picked 'em out and pushed 'em to the side of the plate. He was a very famous doctor by the way.
You can keep eating a Stilton till it walks, so long as you have the stomach for it. Of course they had a North-facing larder with a netted window.... And who knows what horrors the modern habit of wrapping cheese in cling-wrap plastic might breed?
Cheeses of the World
Exotic Cheeses - Michael Mayer
Exotic cheese - well that depends on whether they know cheeses. Why not a good blue - Roquefort, Blue de Bresse, Stilton, Gorgonzola. Of course there are now lots of very good Australian cheeses (anything from Tasmania is good, and anything from King Island is wonderful), but I don't imagine they are widely exported. For a change why don't you try a Norwegian cheese that doesn't happen to be Jarlsberg. Try Gjetost, or, if you don't like the people you have invited, why not Gammelost. Gammel means 'old'.
Astrid Bear
I just had relatives visiting from Denmark, and put together an all-American cheese course with the help of the local Whole Foods. A Humboldt Fog blue from California, a Sally Jackson goat cheese wrapped in chestnut leaves from Oregon, the most amazing brie-like thing from upstate New York, plus something else yummy. It was all great, and impressed the relatives.
I'm not saying that this was any sort of comprehensive list of great American cheeses, just what we had that night. A good local cheese is Cougar Gold, made by students at Washington State University's Creamery, a somewhat "aggie" college on the east side of Washington. A tasty cheddar type, it's unique for coming in a can, which, although it needs to be refrigerated, gives it great keeping qualities (up to years). Once the can is open, of course, it keeps as well as any other cheese.
Rowen
Don't forget Iowa Maytag Blue Cheese! One of the great cheeses of the world!
Jean A.
I am particularly fond of Cabot cheeses, made in Vermont.
As a matter of fact, Cabot cheddar was voted the world's best cheddar at least a couple of times ( I believe) in competitions in, of all places, England!
Larry Finch
Well, I admit Cabot is pretty good, and I used to get it all the time.
Until we discovered a cheese shop a few towns away, with Farmhouse Cheddar. At about $30 a pound it is a bit more expense than Cabot, but the difference is amazing (and worth it). Farmhouse Cheddar is a type of cheese, not a brand.
Their regular cheddars (4 years, 8 years, and 12 years) are also worth the trip and the cost. Then there's Parano (but in the fall only; in the spring it is rather insipid).
Steve Wagner
When it comes to cheddars, I've never had better than the bandaged cheddar from the Bleu Mont dairy, just outside Madison, WI. The bandaged gouda is also something to remember. You can check them out here: Bleu Mont Dairy Company
Julie Hoffman
Doctor Maturin y Domanova might also have been very taken with the delicious Mahon Artisanal cheese I discovered this past weekend. "M*h*n", I asked the cheese monger, "would that be from M*h*n of the Balearic Islands?" "No, it's from mainland Spain", the cheeky bugger told me. Well he was wrong and needed to read his own computer sticker print out for this is what it says:
"Mahon Artisanal, Spain, Minorca, produced from raw cow's milk
An aged cow's milk cheese from the Balearic islands of Spain, similar to aged goudas or dry jack, other examples of young cheeses turned spectacular with age. Buttery yet piquant, with salty and meaty flavors backed with a sweet nutty nose. Eat alone or topped with olive oil, black pepper and tarragon in the traditional manner."
Now, I've not tried it in the traditional manner but alone, it is a wonder, sure.
Some other salty old lissuns have surely mentioned it on list before, but it bears bringing up again and come to think of it....it would taste mighty fine with a wee smokey dram to go along. And toasted, ah, something to try on Saturday when it is grey and raining as they promised.
John Shepherd
I do love my cheese, a very hard cheddar, NY style, and of course Gorgonzola, and for Christmas, I am given a hermetically sealed hunk a hunk of burning love called Limburger.
Sarah Cousins
My favourite cheese is Wensleydale. Gruyere (not the kind in the little foil packages), and the Brie that pours out of the rind. Also really good Gouda, but probably not as good as Jaap gets.
Which it's the Patrick O'Brian list of the world!