[Welcome Nora, a veteran of the cheese world and an avid New York farmers' market shopper. She'll be trying her hand at the Cheesemonger series on Wednesdays and the NYC Farmers' Market Report on Fridays.]
One of France's most revered cheese conoscenti once told me that the best cheese I would ever taste would be made from raw milk. In his next breath he cautioned that the worst cheese I would ever taste would be made from raw milk.
If you don't know the back-story on raw milk cheese, this may make as much sense as someone telling you on your wedding date that it's sure to be the best and worst day of your life.
By nature of their very rawness, unpasteurized milk cheeses are more variable. They are rife with active bacteria, expressing the ever-changing dynamic of the land from which they come—for better or worse. Insider's tip: avoid the wheels from Bessie's romp in the wild garlic patch.
While their sub-par production earlier this year surely wasn't the worst cheese I've ever tasted — two words: yak cheese — Cobb Hill Farm in Hartland, Vermont, may now be producing one of the best.
Their Ascutney Mountain alpine-style cheese has emerged in recent weeks in perfect raw ripeness, showcasing like never before the uber-nutty and sweet winter (read: fatty and rich) Jersey cow milk (read: fatty and rich) from November 2006.
With only 30 cows, Cobb Hill farm is perfect demonstration of raw milk's sensitivity to small production cheesemaking. Thankfully for us, they excel at it.
Cobb Hill Ascutney Mountain is available at Murray's Cheese for $21.99/lb and Formaggio Kitchen for $23.90/lb. For a full listing of where to buy Cobb Hill cheeses in the Northeast, click here.
(photo: Formaggio Kitchen)
Interesting.
Does anyone know about Argentine cheese? I am going to be in Buenos Aires soon and would like to get my cheese on while I am there. I didn't find much by searching the web...thanks.
view guttersnipe's profile
A majority of the Argentinian cheeses (that we get in the US) are simply knock-offs of European varieties. In fact, most cheap Parmiggiano Reggiano comes from Argentinia. I am sure there's some great locally made cheeses, they just don't get exported. So let us know what you find!
Oh and congrats to Nora on a great article! Glad to see the cheese articles will continue.
view the cheesemonger's profile
Strange as it seems I never thought about the difference between raw and processed milk-cheese. Now I'll be keeping an eye out for some raw-milk fromage!
view Jim of ChewOnThat's profile