Cashel Blue - Salty Drug Cheese

It's a long way to Tipperary... so it's a good thing 'houseofcheese' deliver! The Cashel Blue grabbed my attention as I trawled through the list of goods on the website. I think the main reason it did so though was because it had filled a little bit of trivia pub knowledge for me by informing me that Tipperary is actually a place in Ireland. I owed it one.  I appreciate I may never get asked that question but you never know! I have been asked where Casablanca is before...

It is produced in Ireland then, by husband and wife, Louis and Jane Grubb who begin the process by heating the milk (provided by their healthy Friesian cows) in a hundred year old copper vat! Nice. I love the distinct local methods, and how perfect is their name for what they do!? It's like me working in Dixons and being called Chris Fridgeman...

This is a bit of a funny one the Cashel. I wasn't amazingly keen at first. It is a blue in the same sort of 'flavour village' as Danish Blue, which is not one of my faves. But somehow it has grown on me. I keep finding myself wandering into the kitchen, pushing a knife down into the centre of it, and just lifting it sideways to break of some crumbles. It is a salty cheese, which is why I was uncertain in the first place I think. But its also very creamy and mild which compliments it well. It kind of reminds me of the weird capuccinos that we get from the vending machines at work. I don't like them completely, but some lingering aftertaste and  combination of chemicals just keeps me coming back for more. It's like its a drug cheese or something! I'm sure there must be places in Ireland where they sell it on street corners to cheese junkies that need another hit of salty-crumble. Or people that try to ween themselves off it by wearing a Danish patch on their arm.

I digress. I usually do. This is actually a nice cheese but I'm not convinced everyone would like it at first sitting. I think you discover more about it the more you try it - like a good painting. I am going to give it a 6. Not bad, but likewise not really my cup of cheese. And I don't need another addiction (football and cheese take up enough of my time!). 

The Chaource - Smooth and Mushroomy!

I started writing this cheese blog so that I had a record of all of the wondrous flavours that I have tasted and so that I could remember them and EAT THEM AGAIN! Having tasted this one tonight I wanted to log-on and capture thoughts about it straight away so that I would remember it - but now that I have got going and my fingers tap-dance across the keys, I realise that I will remember it... cos it's ace! The more memorable cheeses are starting to stick in my mind like a thick, slow-flow honey that's hard to get out of crevasses.

The cheese is named after the northerly French town in the Champagne region of France from whence it came, created by the Lincet family, and is enjoyed at all of the stages of its maturity. The first thing I noticed was the thick rind and smooth creamy cheese as you burst into it. I was impressed by the raw....I want to say muddiness... of it. But the best was yet to come.

It is very distinct in flavour with some light undertones of a nutty kind. As you get with a few of the brie-like cheeses ['bloomy' cheeses - the ones that have the white fluffy rinds], this had a chalkier, harder centre and was super smooth and soft around the rind (please see picture). Oh baby! This is apparently because of  its thick rind which delays the speed at which it ripens all the way through. Love that texture, but what really stood out for me was the tingly, slightly salty, and earthy type aftertaste. There is also a slight mushroom fragrance and delicate bitterness about it.  Loved it. Loved it. 7.5 out 10 for me on this one.

P.S. - it's also good on bread: