Editor’s Note: We recently launched a series on great value cheeses. Certified Cheese Professional David Phillips chooses some of his favorites that are well priced. Our first installment featured Mimolette, Widmer Extra Aged Brick and Hornkuhkäse. Can’t find the cheeses in your local store? Ask your friendly cheesemonger to carry them!
Glacier Penta Crème: High Five this Blue
What happens when you add five canisters of cream (about twice that of a double crème) to a standard blue cheese recipe? Well, for Carr Valley Cheese, Co., La Valle, Wis., a special cheese called Glacier Penta Crème happens. The first time I tasted this cheese I was dumbfounded. “Is this a cheese, or a blue-veined butter?” Technically, it’s a cheese, of course, but it might be the most buttery cheese I have ever tasted, with a nearly identical texture to a well-made butter. Flavors of yogurt and pepper are right up front, and backed by the sumptuous, silky texture. Carr Valley calls Penta Crème “revolutionary.” Indeed, and it carries a reasonable price (less than $20 a pound) for such an unusual and high-quality cheese. The serving and cooking possibilities are exciting. My mashed potato recipe is about to get a cheesy upgrade.
La Dama Sagrada: That Sacred Lady
La Dama Sagrada photo credit Forever Cheese
Customers often ask me for goat cheese crumbles. It must be in a lot of recipes, but I rarely carry it. Often I bite my tongue rather than asking the customer if he or she owns a fork. Recently, I convinced such a customer to try La Dama Sagrada grated onto the flatbread pizza she was making. This raw-milk hard cheese comes to us from Spain, via specialty cheese importer Forever Cheese. It’s made in much the same way as Manchego, Spain’s most famous cheese export. The difference is that La Dama Sagrada is made from Murciana goat’s milk, whereas Manchego is always made from the milk produced by sheep of the Manchega breed. The two cheeses have a nearly identical texture and appearance. But of course a cheese made from goat’s milk has a very distinctive flavor. Some call it tangy, and the term “barnyard” often comes into play. La Dama delivers all that goat’s milk flavor and aroma. It features a smooth texture studded with crunchy tyrosine crystals. Its similarity to Manchego suggests a trifecta or a quad tasting featuring those two cheeses along with Iberico, a Spanish mixed milk cheese which also has characteristics in common with the two, and/or Zamorano, another sheep cheese from Spain.
Limburger: Worth a trip
How do we describe value? Low price, sure, and a quality cheese of course.
But how do you calculate the travel cost to New Glarus, Wis.? Chalet Cheese Cooperative, in nearby Monroe, has been the only U.S. producer of Limburger for many years, but now the company has a storefront shop in the southern Wisconsin town that is dressed up like a Swiss village and makes a big deal of celebrating Christmas.
Where I work in Chicago, we have a handful of customers who love the famously stinky cheese (editor’s note: read more about limburger). We are able to sell it at a decent price. At the New Glarus shop, you can get a 6-ounce piece for just $10.99. And if you DO visit New Glarus, be sure to visit the Glarner Stube, where you can have a big schnitzel with a cold beer and be regaled by authentic yodelers. Can’t make it to Wisconsin? Just ask your local cheesemaker to carry Limburger and help keep this cheese tradition alive.