It’s early morning here in my little home in East Vancouver, the kettle rumbles in the kitchen, a chihuahua snuggles in my lap, and a cheese mellows on my desk-slowly coming up to room temperature for my enjoyment. One should eat cheese at room temperature, and I do hope that everyone knows this and isn’t doing anything as gauche and heinous as eating cheese right out of the fridge!
Today is brought to you by Le Mont-Jacob, a washed rind soft cheese made of pasteurized cow’s milk (Holstein!) from Jonquerie, Quebec. This charming cheese is the 2011 “washed rind” winner in the Canadian cheese grand prix. My favorite fact about this cheese: underground pipes running below the street transfer the farm’s own milk directly to the fromagerie! I don’t think the pipes running under my house carry milk…
This washed rind cheese is pale yellow in appearance with a lightly mottled (and highly edible) rind. Which reminds me, do eat the rind with these cheeses, darlings. My daughter cut hers off the other day to throw it out and it made me weep. The rind is an integral part of the cheese expereince, it’s not the wrapper, it’s part of the cheese! To ignore the rind would be akin to removing the epidermis of a lover before embracing them-really, so innapropriate!
I digress, forgive me, gentle readers… The cheese gets lighter in colour in the interior until it reaches a butter-like hue. It’s semi-firm, but also, semi-soft, it looks like it might enjoy being melted on something. This cheese has an enjoyable, cheesey smell, not overly raunchy, but inviting. It’s rind is sticky-which I always feel is a good sign.
Here goes…
Alrighty, Canadian cheese Grand Prix judges, good call. This is a delicious cheese. It’s not overly mellow and does have a sincere cheese flavour. That being said, it’s quite a kind cheese: no rot, no uric acid, no overt penicillin. The rind (which I eat, being a good person) adds a depth to the experience as it’s ever so slightly sandy, and I don’t know why-but I do enjoy that. This cheese melts pleasantly and
travels around my mouth. It’s not oozy or overly soft, it has tensile integrity and could keep itself together on your cheese plate.
Bravo, I give Le Mont-Jacob 4 out of 5 stars which includes a bonus mark for having the milk travel in an underground pipe to the fromagerie.
My Blog of Cheese 