cheesemondays

[cheesemondays]

Happy Belated Canada Day! To celebrate it, we have Blyth’s Farms Cumin Goat Gouda 

Appearance: light yellow/beige, with cumin seeds all around it

Aroma: quite strong, came through the plastic wrap. For any Russian followers, smells a lot like Borodinsky Bread because of the seeds

Flavor: SO. MUCH. CUMIN. 

Yulia’s Notes: Once you pick the seeds out, it’s quite enjoyable and earthy and nutty. However, with the amount of seeds there, all I tasted was cumin. Such cumin. Much wow.

Dave’s Notes: It was hardly written on the package of what the cheese was. However within seconds of smelling it you know it's made with cumin. Throughout eating it that was all you knew. Not that it was a goat cheese, or that it was also Gouda. My best description of this is cheese is that this is a Black Diamond brand Gouda with a lot (read with emphasis on 'a lot') of cumin. Yulia disagreed with this though saying it was better than that entirely. All the while she was picking the cumin seeds out of it...

[cheesemondays]

Bellavitano Balsamic - a hybrid of Cheddar and Parmesan that was immersed in imported 6-year-old Italian balsamic vinegar

Appearance: light yellow, slightly darker than old cheddar

Aroma: Like the previous edition, smells like cheese or a bland cheddar. We should really work on our senses of smell.

Flavor: very mild and a little sweet. Could not taste the balsamic whatsoever. 

Texture: middle of the road, grainy, a little crumbly, but still very smooth.

Yulia’s Notes: definitely on the milder side of the cheeses that we tried. Quite melts-in-your-mouth in texture, but the lack of even the slightest hint of fancy imported 6 year old balsamic was disappointing. However, everything you see on the photos was eaten in under half an hour which says something :)

Dave’s Notes: This is the type of cheese you buy to try and impress a person with while out on a picnic. Something a bit more ‘fancy’ than normal cheddar and with all the bragging rights of fancy “Italian, balsamic” notes. Otherwise I found this cheese rather boring and too light... Although it was gone quickly.

[cheesemondays]

Award-winning Tania Toscana Sheep Milk Cheese (UK) (on the right, on the left is the XO Gouda)

Appearance: beige-yellow, almost translucent (if you cut it thin enough)

Aroma: smells like...cheese? Our inexperienced noses couldn’t really distinguish anything specific. 

Flavor: mild, slightly sweet and nutty. Has strong blue cheese aftertaste near the rind.

Texture: hard, non-crumbly. After being outside of the fridge, had “sweat” of fat on top of it.

Yulia’s Notes: My favorite so far! Mild, but flavourful, I could do without the blue cheesiness, but other than that, I could eat the entire wedge of it! 

Dave’s Notes: Thanks to a failed attempt of heating food up from the night before, I can say the texture is similar to that of over cooked feta. Which isn't to say is bad, it's actually quite nice. I found the immediate taste subtle but a light blue cheese taste after a few slices. I also found that every so often while eating a piece, I could almost imagine myself standing in the field of this cheese farm and eating the air. If that’s cheese lingo or not...

[cheesemondays]

Beemster Extra Old Gouda (lactose-free, because, apparently if the cheese was aged for more than 4 months, the lactose ages out. #themoreyouknow)

Appearance: cheddar-like, golden yellow, with natural rind

Aroma: sharp and a little earthy

Flavor: butterscotch and, perhaps, nutty aftertaste

Texture: crumbly and grainy near the rind (should have cut it off better)

Yulia’s Notes: having eaten Gouda pretty much all my life, this was nothing like any Gouda I’ve ever tried: the smell was powerful and I particularly enjoyed the aftertaste which was somehow smokey AND a little sweet.

Dave’s Notes: tastes almost identical to Cows Extra Old Cheddar (not an old cow’s cheddar); sweet and salty, almost like a dessert.

[cheesemondays]

Bothwell Red Wine Extra Old Cheddar

Nestled in New Bothwell, in the heart of Manitoba’s dairy belt, Bothwell Cheese produces more than two dozen cheese varieties using locally sourced ingredients and processes.

Appearance: light beige colour with burgundy veins throughout (marbling? Is that a thing for cheese?)

Aroma: bland (Dave's stuffy nose), cheddar and sharp (Yulia)

Flavor: old cheddar with a sip of red wine at the same time

Texture: unusually soft and crumbly for a cheddar, melts in your mouth

Dave's Notes: Overall I was having a hard time deciding whether the cheese with wine tasted as such or whether or not my knowledge of it having wine in it made me taste it there. I like cheddar, I like wine, this should have been a perfect match for me. Always a great option for a wine and cheese party though, two in one: can you get drunk off of it if you eat enough?

Yulia's Notes: I wish we had red wine to taste it with and not Seabreeze cocktails - what could have paired better with red wine cheddar other than red wine? Oh, and I guess Dave enjoyed it since there was a little piece of cheese left in his mustachio (even though as I am writing it he is writing that he was let down).