Celebrate Cheese - Vive le Fromage

People have been making cheese for at least 5,000 years.  If you know your Greek mythology, you’ll remember the cheese-loving Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey.  Legend has it blue cheese was created by accident 2,000 years ago.  Both Roquefort and Gorgonzola share a similar origin story.  Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” (see ◙ and watch [►]) was reportedly inspired by melting Camembert (you’ll never look at this surrealist painting the same way again).  It’s a pleasure to assemble a cheese board for tasting with guests.  We also enjoy cooking with cheese—if for no other reason that the fact that it is a popular ingredient in many recipes.  After searching repeatedly for substitutes for a particular cheese that we can’t find in local stores, we decided to put together our own cheese guide for the home cook.  In our humble opinion, this little guide goes a long way to help you make sense of all the cheese books out there.

Do the Ripe Thing

If you prefer to do your own research, a good place to start is World Cheese Book.  This lavishly illustrated book, edited by Juliet Harbutt, provides brief descriptions of over 750 cheeses around the world.  New Zealand’s Harbutt is a member of several cheese organizations in France.  American maitre fromager Max McCalman’s books are always a fun read; he likes to rate cheese on a 100-point system—just as some wine guides do for their subject.  Thanks to his pronunciation notes, we are reminded of the correct way to pronounce Gouda.  French affineur Roland Barthelemy’s “genealogical” approach in his Guide to Cheeses of the World makes it easy to see how different cheeses are related.  David Joachim’s The Food Substitutions Bible, as the name implies, is all about ingredient substitutions.

Click on the Legend/Resources tab below for a list of resources.  Click on the Festivals tab for a list of some of the cheese-related events around the world.  Click on the Calendar tab and follow our monthly cheese club.  If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area—or if you plan to visit—click on the Buy and Eat tabs and see where you can sample cheese in this part of California.

Moldy Goodies

Our research shows there is general consensus on two types of cheese:  fresh and blue.  Experts generally agree on what constitutes a fresh cheese; there is usually no mistaking what is a blue cheese.  The classification of all other cheeses is not as clear-cut.  One can certainly talk about the main ingredient:  the type of milk (cow’s milk being the most common) and whether it’s pasteurized.  Some authors use the type of rind as a guide; others prefer to focus on the processing method.  For the average person, we feel the least confusing choice is the texture of the interior (or paste).  So we have divided different cheeses into five categories:  fresh, blue, and for everything else, soft, medium, or hard.  In other words, we have decided to go with a combination of age, water content, and mold.  Keep in mind a cheese could fit into more than one category depending on its age.  There’s a sixth category that you won’t find in any cheese book—we like to think outside the box.

Just as we have a standard nutrition label for food products, there ought to be a standard label for cheese in this country.  If every cheese’s water content is specified, it would certainly make classification more objective.  In Italy, a cheese is considered soft if it contains 45 to 60 percent water, semi-hard if its moisture level is between 40 and 45 percent, or hard if it’s less than 40 percent.

Sheepshape

Some people swear by sheep’s milk cheese (ewe is the word for female sheep).  Sheep’s milk is what makes Roquefort stand out among all blue cheeses.  If you’re not familiar with this type of cheese, take our guide with you when you go shopping.  For those who enjoy lamb, try cooking with sheep’s milk cheese (you can’t go wrong with an Italian-style pecorino).

Raw Deal

Some cheese lovers feel strongly about raw-milk cheese.  These individuals believe it’s impossible to make great cheese from dead or pasteurized milk.  Since the U.S. government requires that all raw-milk cheese sold in this country must be aged at least 60 days, a number of the finest young raw-milk cheese from Europe would be considered contraband.  The French Brie available in America is the pasteurized version exported to countries like the U.S.  So for your next European vacation, you might want to schedule a little bit of cheese tasting.  According to Barthelemy, spring is the best time to sample a variety of cheeses in France.

Speaking of the cheese mecca…the production of raw-milk cheese in France continues to fall (its market share has dropped from 100 down to 10 percent in just 70 years).  Check out this 2014 Newsweek article.  Will raw-milk cheese suffer the same fate as analog (vinyl) audio or the pay phone?  Note that after hitting rock bottom in 2005, vinyl records have made a steady comeback.  Vinyl record sales in 2014 are the highest since 1990; turntable sales are up too.  So there may be hope for raw-milk cheese.

Fat Matter

Cheese is to milk what apple butter is to applesauce—think of cheese as concentrated milk. Since milk is the dominant ingredient, a cheese’s fat content is more or less determined by the type of milk used.  Skim milk, for instance, produces low-fat cheese.  To create a richer cheese, some producers add cream to the milk, resulting in what’s called a double-cream or triple-cream cheese.  In France, cheeses can be classified based on fat content, which is defined as the percentage of fat in dry matter (minus the water content).

 

Matiere Grasse (m.g.) or Fat in Dry Matter (IDM)

Category	Fat Content (Percent)	Cheese
Maigre (lean)	Less than 20	Mostly fresh cheese, plus skim-milk cheese such as Bergues
Allege (light)	20-30	Mostly softer cheese
Normal	40-50	Mostly harder cheese and blue cheese
Double creme	60-75	Mostly soft cheese, plus other double-cream cheese such as Boursin
Triple creme	More than 75	Mostly soft cheese

 

Note that even triple-cream cheese is not exactly ice cream.  The so-called foie gras cheese is not as high in fat as it appears.  When you factor in its moisture level, the amount of fat consumed per serving of a cream-enriched soft cheese may actually be lower than a harder cheese.  Keep in mind other countries calculate fat content differently.  As a fermented product, aged cheese poses less of a problem for lactose-intolerant people.  This is especially true of hard cheese, which goes through the longest aging period.

And the Award Goes To…

France and Italy are ahead of other countries in terms of quality, variety, and history.  For a small country, Switzerland has acquired quite a reputation (it helps to have a Swissophile like McCalman).  Did you know there’s one cow for every five people in Switzerland?  That’s a lot of cheese—and cow pies.  The U.S. and Germany are the biggest cheese producers.  As of 2011, the top five cheese consumers per capita are France, Iceland, Greece, Germany, and Finland.  The world of cheese is a dizzying array of looks, shapes, and sizes.  Real cheese is nothing like the sliced and individually wrapped processed cheese your mother put in your sandwich when you were young.  Some of them look like marble slabs (◙); others sport a wrinkled rind (◙) that resembles the skin of a Shar Pei.  Some look like caramel candy (◙) or chocolate truffles (◙) gone wild.

Walk into a cheese shop in France and you’ll spot a Morbier (◙) immediately because a wedge of this cheese could be mistaken for a slice of layer cake.  You’ll find a line of ash or chili in the center of other cheeses, but Morbier is probably the oldest one made this way.  A sliced Mimolette (◙) looks like a spray-tanned cantaloupe.  The straw gives Sainte-Maure (◙) that cheese-on-a-stick appearance.  After you cut open Humboldt Fog (◙), step back and admire the view.  It really looks like a Wayne Thiebaud painting (his series of cakes and pastries) come to life—that’s only fitting since it’s made by California’s Cypress Grove Chevre.

What is the most old-fashioned packaging?  Washington State University Creamery’s Cougar Gold (◙) comes in a can—unusual for an aged cheese nowadays.  Sardinia’s Callu de Cabreddu (◙) comes in the oddest package—if you can call it that—this cheese is encased in a baby goat’s stomach where it’s ripened (a cheese for the haggis aficionado?).  Another island, Corsica, whose local dialect is closer to Italian than French, also makes use of the kid’s stomach in the production of cheese.  Jonchee Niortaise, a fresh cheese sold locally in France, is wrapped in a mat made of water reeds.

The sexiest-looking cheese?  Spain’s Tetilla (◙).  Tete de Moine (◙) from Switzerland has the most interesting shape, thanks to the girolle grater.  Our vote for favorite name is Blue Monday—if you are a fan of New Order—a blue cheese originally created by Harbutt and a member of Blur.  Along similar musical notes, Woodcock Farm makes a sheep’s milk cheese called Ewe II.  Another great name is Cato Corner Farm’s Dairyere, a double pun on Gruyere and donkey.  The most expensive cheese is made with any kind of uncommon milk from such animal as moose or donkey.

It takes a lot of milk to produce a good-sized hunk of cheese.  So it’s no surprise that most large cheeses are made from cow’s milk (even though cows have the lowest yield of cheese) while goat’s milk is often used to make small cheeses.  Bouton-de-Culotte weighs less than half an ounce (14 grams) when ripened.  Goat’s milk is also a popular choice for fresh cheese because flavor develops faster than sheep’s milk.  By contrast, cheddar can weigh over 50 pounds (23 kilograms).  But one of the heavyweights of the cheese world is Emmentaler, which weighs in at 220 pounds (100 kilograms).

Vive la Difference

The French are so serious about their favorite cheese, Comte, that they grade it on a scale of zero to 20.

 

Category	No. of Points
Taste	3-9
Paste (color, feel, mouthfeel)	0-5
Appearance of the cut and eyes	0-3.5
Rind (texture, color)	0-1.5
Overall appearance	0-1
Total	20

 

Any Comte that scores below 12—or if it receives a zero in one of the four non-taste areas—is sold as Gruyere de Comte (not to be confused with Swiss Gruyere).  The highest-rated Comte carries a green label; the rest has a red label.  In the U.S., the only graded food that comes to mind is beef (prime/choice/select).  America is the land of hamburger, fries, and milk.  France is all about cheese, wine, and bread.  Perhaps this explains why a French astronaut took Picodon (a small goat cheese) aboard the space shuttle in 1996.

That’s Why They Call It Cheesecloth

Making your own fresh cheese is actually very simple—you will need cheesecloth for this.  Check out America’s Test Kitchen’s recipe for saag paneer or Indian-style spinach with fresh cheese (episode #1322, 2013).  By the way, this PBS cooking show recommends Formaticum Cheese Bags to keep your cheese fresh in the fridge.

Cream of the Crop

The list below includes a select group of over 600 classic cheeses and some of the most popular cheeses around the world (dating back centuries in some cases).  When we talk about a cheese that’s made by only one vendor or in the case of a specific brand, we provide the name of that company.  Since this Web page is handmade in the U.S., we dig a little deeper into American cheese makers.  Because we have the home cook in mind, we decided to highlight all the cheeses that melt beautifully when cooked—not dissolve into nothing or turn oily and separated.  Blue cheese is known for its strong aroma and taste.  There are other cheeses that are even more pungent than the typical blue.  We highlight these for the adventurous connoisseur.  If the smell of fermented herring (surstromming) and durian doesn’t bother you, then these wedges are made for you.

Family Affair

We believe Barthelemy is onto something when he files cheeses under different families.  For example, it makes sense that some of the washed-rind cheese recipes developed at monasteries centuries ago should be lumped together.  Curiously, he places only two of the six prominent Loire Valley chevre (Pouligny-Saint-Pierre and Valencay) in the same family.  Since he is French, he must be aware of the subtle differences among these young goat cheeses.

Barthelemy’s classification is understandably Francocentric.  Indeed, of the 48 families outlined in his guide, only 12 are of non-French origin:  four from Italy, three from Switzerland, two each from Spain and the U.K., and one from the Netherlands.  We’ve no doubt he’s an expert on European cheeses, but how well does he know North and South American products?  A lot of people consider Monterey Jack an American original; he puts it in the cheddar family.  To be fair, he treats France’s beloved Comte as part of the Swiss Gruyere family.  Let’s see if we can all work together and improve on this family tree for cheese (they are in boldface in our directory).

A Taste of History

Food recipes and dining habits change over time.  You’d have to go to places like France and China to find classic recipes that remain popular today.  Other countries have very short food memory.  An American menu or cookbook from 100 years ago would seem like foreign language to Americans.  Who makes aspic anymore?  The situation with cheese is a different story because many classic recipes have survived.  As long as the same milk sources are available, what’s produced today could very well taste like the original recipe made centuries ago.  That’s why when you put a piece of classic cheese in your mouth, you are tasting history.  So we try to identify those cheeses that can be thought of as heritage cheeses.

One thing we wanted to clarify is whether the name of a cheese should be capitalized.  If it is based on a place or a person, it usually is capitalized.

Armchair Cheese Tasting

Until someone fills the void by making a cheese documentary, videos of cheese are largely found in cooking and travel shows.  (Rick Sebak, are you reading this?)  In Season 8 of Rick Steves’ Europe (first aired in 2014), he once again shares with viewers another memorable meal in France.  After he and his friend have sampled escargots, shrimp, duck, and lamb, the owner comes out with a wooden tray full of a dozen cheeses in all their glory.  This being the Loire Valley, goat cheeses are well represented.  Don’t miss “France’s Loire:  Chateau Country” (episode #803) on PBS.  For the record, the restaurant in question is L’Epicerie in Amboise.  You’ll catch a glimpse (◙ and ►) of Sainte-Maure, Selles-sur-Cher, Valencay, Pouligny-Saint-Pierre, Feuille de Dreux, Langres, Reblochon, Maroilles, Pont-l’Eveque, Saint-Nectaire, Murol, and Fourme d’Ambert.  C’est formidable indeed.

In 2014, Globe Trekker produced “The Story of Cheese” (synopsis and trailer) as part of its “Planet Food” specials.  It’s a compilation of past cheese segments stitched together with new footage shot in England to create a coherent narrative.  The presenter is U.K. chef Rosie Lovell.  You’ll meet Harbutt and travel to France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, Lebanon, and Turkey.  Philippe Olivier’s passion for raw-milk cheese will bowl you over.  Check your local PBS station schedule for the next rerun.

In the second of three episodes of Food: Delicious Science (►), a 2017 documentary from BBC, we learn the flavor of each cheese is mostly determined by how it smells.  So how can Epoisses smell so bad but taste so good?  The answer is something called backward smelling.

Have It Your Whey

We cannot guarantee our directory is up-to-date at all times.  In the meantime, we want all you cheese heads to send us the names of three cheeses/brands that you feel should be included below.  You’ll get extra points if you can come up with unexpected substitutes (bottarga/botargo, anyone?).  And tell us what we should work on next.  Obvious subjects include wine/beer, coffee/tea, pastry/dessert, and fresh produce.

Memo to Cheese Producers

The Bay Area has its share of foodies as well as a sizable wine-and-cheese crowd.  The world-renown Wine Country (Napa and Sonoma) is, after all, right here in our own backyard.  The Judgment of Paris wine tasting in 1976 helped put California wine on the map.  Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse and Peet’s Coffee started an epicurean revolution in the 1970s.  Thanks to its agricultural heritage, the Bay Area is also home to artisan cheese makers.  So instead of waiting for retailers to come to you, click on the Where to Buy tab below and you’ll see a list of potential companies you can do business with.  Click on Bay Area Stats and check out the size of this market.

If anybody would like to take advantage of this site’s prime real estate, check out our sponsors program and drop us a line.

Celebrate Cheese - Vive le Fromage

People have been making cheese for at least 5,000 years.  If you know your Greek mythology, you’ll remember the cheese-loving Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey.  Legend has it blue cheese was created by accident 2,000 years ago.  Both Roquefort and Gorgonzola share a similar origin story.  Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” (see ◙ and watch [►]) was reportedly inspired by melting Camembert (you’ll never look at this surrealist painting the same way again).  It’s a pleasure to assemble a cheese board for tasting with guests.  We also enjoy cooking with cheese—if for no other reason that the fact that it is a popular ingredient in many recipes.  After searching repeatedly for substitutes for a particular cheese that we can’t find in local stores, we decided to put together our own cheese guide for the home cook.  In our humble opinion, this little guide goes a long way to help you make sense of all the cheese books out there.

Do the Ripe Thing

If you prefer to do your own research, a good place to start is World Cheese Book.  This lavishly illustrated book, edited by Juliet Harbutt, provides brief descriptions of over 750 cheeses around the world.  New Zealand’s Harbutt is a member of several cheese organizations in France.  American maitre fromager Max McCalman’s books are always a fun read; he likes to rate cheese on a 100-point system—just as some wine guides do for their subject.  Thanks to his pronunciation notes, we are reminded of the correct way to pronounce Gouda.  French affineur Roland Barthelemy’s “genealogical” approach in his Guide to Cheeses of the World makes it easy to see how different cheeses are related.  David Joachim’s The Food Substitutions Bible, as the name implies, is all about ingredient substitutions.

Click on the Legend/Resources tab below for a list of resources.  Click on the Festivals tab for a list of some of the cheese-related events around the world.  Click on the Calendar tab and follow our monthly cheese club.  If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area—or if you plan to visit—click on the Buy and Eat tabs and see where you can sample cheese in this part of California.

Moldy Goodies

Our research shows there is general consensus on two types of cheese:  fresh and blue.  Experts generally agree on what constitutes a fresh cheese; there is usually no mistaking what is a blue cheese.  The classification of all other cheeses is not as clear-cut.  One can certainly talk about the main ingredient:  the type of milk (cow’s milk being the most common) and whether it’s pasteurized.  Some authors use the type of rind as a guide; others prefer to focus on the processing method.  For the average person, we feel the least confusing choice is the texture of the interior (or paste).  So we have divided different cheeses into five categories:  fresh, blue, and for everything else, soft, medium, or hard.  In other words, we have decided to go with a combination of age, water content, and mold.  Keep in mind a cheese could fit into more than one category depending on its age.  There’s a sixth category that you won’t find in any cheese book—we like to think outside the box.

Just as we have a standard nutrition label for food products, there ought to be a standard label for cheese in this country.  If every cheese’s water content is specified, it would certainly make classification more objective.  In Italy, a cheese is considered soft if it contains 45 to 60 percent water, semi-hard if its moisture level is between 40 and 45 percent, or hard if it’s less than 40 percent.

Sheepshape

Some people swear by sheep’s milk cheese (ewe is the word for female sheep).  Sheep’s milk is what makes Roquefort stand out among all blue cheeses.  If you’re not familiar with this type of cheese, take our guide with you when you go shopping.  For those who enjoy lamb, try cooking with sheep’s milk cheese (you can’t go wrong with an Italian-style pecorino).

Raw Deal

Some cheese lovers feel strongly about raw-milk cheese.  These individuals believe it’s impossible to make great cheese from dead or pasteurized milk.  Since the U.S. government requires that all raw-milk cheese sold in this country must be aged at least 60 days, a number of the finest young raw-milk cheese from Europe would be considered contraband.  The French Brie available in America is the pasteurized version exported to countries like the U.S.  So for your next European vacation, you might want to schedule a little bit of cheese tasting.  According to Barthelemy, spring is the best time to sample a variety of cheeses in France.

Speaking of the cheese mecca…the production of raw-milk cheese in France continues to fall (its market share has dropped from 100 down to 10 percent in just 70 years).  Check out this 2014 Newsweek article.  Will raw-milk cheese suffer the same fate as analog (vinyl) audio or the pay phone?  Note that after hitting rock bottom in 2005, vinyl records have made a steady comeback.  Vinyl record sales in 2014 are the highest since 1990; turntable sales are up too.  So there may be hope for raw-milk cheese.

Fat Matter

Cheese is to milk what apple butter is to applesauce—think of cheese as concentrated milk. Since milk is the dominant ingredient, a cheese’s fat content is more or less determined by the type of milk used.  Skim milk, for instance, produces low-fat cheese.  To create a richer cheese, some producers add cream to the milk, resulting in what’s called a double-cream or triple-cream cheese.  In France, cheeses can be classified based on fat content, which is defined as the percentage of fat in dry matter (minus the water content).

 

Matiere Grasse (m.g.) or Fat in Dry Matter (IDM)

Category	Fat Content (Percent)	Cheese
Maigre (lean)	Less than 20	Mostly fresh cheese, plus skim-milk cheese such as Bergues
Allege (light)	20-30	Mostly softer cheese
Normal	40-50	Mostly harder cheese and blue cheese
Double creme	60-75	Mostly soft cheese, plus other double-cream cheese such as Boursin
Triple creme	More than 75	Mostly soft cheese

 

Note that even triple-cream cheese is not exactly ice cream.  The so-called foie gras cheese is not as high in fat as it appears.  When you factor in its moisture level, the amount of fat consumed per serving of a cream-enriched soft cheese may actually be lower than a harder cheese.  Keep in mind other countries calculate fat content differently.  As a fermented product, aged cheese poses less of a problem for lactose-intolerant people.  This is especially true of hard cheese, which goes through the longest aging period.

And the Award Goes To…

France and Italy are ahead of other countries in terms of quality, variety, and history.  For a small country, Switzerland has acquired quite a reputation (it helps to have a Swissophile like McCalman).  Did you know there’s one cow for every five people in Switzerland?  That’s a lot of cheese—and cow pies.  The U.S. and Germany are the biggest cheese producers.  As of 2011, the top five cheese consumers per capita are France, Iceland, Greece, Germany, and Finland.  The world of cheese is a dizzying array of looks, shapes, and sizes.  Real cheese is nothing like the sliced and individually wrapped processed cheese your mother put in your sandwich when you were young.  Some of them look like marble slabs (◙); others sport a wrinkled rind (◙) that resembles the skin of a Shar Pei.  Some look like caramel candy (◙) or chocolate truffles (◙) gone wild.

Walk into a cheese shop in France and you’ll spot a Morbier (◙) immediately because a wedge of this cheese could be mistaken for a slice of layer cake.  You’ll find a line of ash or chili in the center of other cheeses, but Morbier is probably the oldest one made this way.  A sliced Mimolette (◙) looks like a spray-tanned cantaloupe.  The straw gives Sainte-Maure (◙) that cheese-on-a-stick appearance.  After you cut open Humboldt Fog (◙), step back and admire the view.  It really looks like a Wayne Thiebaud painting (his series of cakes and pastries) come to life—that’s only fitting since it’s made by California’s Cypress Grove Chevre.

What is the most old-fashioned packaging?  Washington State University Creamery’s Cougar Gold (◙) comes in a can—unusual for an aged cheese nowadays.  Sardinia’s Callu de Cabreddu (◙) comes in the oddest package—if you can call it that—this cheese is encased in a baby goat’s stomach where it’s ripened (a cheese for the haggis aficionado?).  Another island, Corsica, whose local dialect is closer to Italian than French, also makes use of the kid’s stomach in the production of cheese.  Jonchee Niortaise, a fresh cheese sold locally in France, is wrapped in a mat made of water reeds.

The sexiest-looking cheese?  Spain’s Tetilla (◙).  Tete de Moine (◙) from Switzerland has the most interesting shape, thanks to the girolle grater.  Our vote for favorite name is Blue Monday—if you are a fan of New Order—a blue cheese originally created by Harbutt and a member of Blur.  Along similar musical notes, Woodcock Farm makes a sheep’s milk cheese called Ewe II.  Another great name is Cato Corner Farm’s Dairyere, a double pun on Gruyere and donkey.  The most expensive cheese is made with any kind of uncommon milk from such animal as moose or donkey.

It takes a lot of milk to produce a good-sized hunk of cheese.  So it’s no surprise that most large cheeses are made from cow’s milk (even though cows have the lowest yield of cheese) while goat’s milk is often used to make small cheeses.  Bouton-de-Culotte weighs less than half an ounce (14 grams) when ripened.  Goat’s milk is also a popular choice for fresh cheese because flavor develops faster than sheep’s milk.  By contrast, cheddar can weigh over 50 pounds (23 kilograms).  But one of the heavyweights of the cheese world is Emmentaler, which weighs in at 220 pounds (100 kilograms).

Vive la Difference

The French are so serious about their favorite cheese, Comte, that they grade it on a scale of zero to 20.

 

Category	No. of Points
Taste	3-9
Paste (color, feel, mouthfeel)	0-5
Appearance of the cut and eyes	0-3.5
Rind (texture, color)	0-1.5
Overall appearance	0-1
Total	20

 

Any Comte that scores below 12—or if it receives a zero in one of the four non-taste areas—is sold as Gruyere de Comte (not to be confused with Swiss Gruyere).  The highest-rated Comte carries a green label; the rest has a red label.  In the U.S., the only graded food that comes to mind is beef (prime/choice/select).  America is the land of hamburger, fries, and milk.  France is all about cheese, wine, and bread.  Perhaps this explains why a French astronaut took Picodon (a small goat cheese) aboard the space shuttle in 1996.

That’s Why They Call It Cheesecloth

Making your own fresh cheese is actually very simple—you will need cheesecloth for this.  Check out America’s Test Kitchen’s recipe for saag paneer or Indian-style spinach with fresh cheese (episode #1322, 2013).  By the way, this PBS cooking show recommends Formaticum Cheese Bags to keep your cheese fresh in the fridge.

Cream of the Crop

The list below includes a select group of over 600 classic cheeses and some of the most popular cheeses around the world (dating back centuries in some cases).  When we talk about a cheese that’s made by only one vendor or in the case of a specific brand, we provide the name of that company.  Since this Web page is handmade in the U.S., we dig a little deeper into American cheese makers.  Because we have the home cook in mind, we decided to highlight all the cheeses that melt beautifully when cooked—not dissolve into nothing or turn oily and separated.  Blue cheese is known for its strong aroma and taste.  There are other cheeses that are even more pungent than the typical blue.  We highlight these for the adventurous connoisseur.  If the smell of fermented herring (surstromming) and durian doesn’t bother you, then these wedges are made for you.

Family Affair

We believe Barthelemy is onto something when he files cheeses under different families.  For example, it makes sense that some of the washed-rind cheese recipes developed at monasteries centuries ago should be lumped together.  Curiously, he places only two of the six prominent Loire Valley chevre (Pouligny-Saint-Pierre and Valencay) in the same family.  Since he is French, he must be aware of the subtle differences among these young goat cheeses.

Barthelemy’s classification is understandably Francocentric.  Indeed, of the 48 families outlined in his guide, only 12 are of non-French origin:  four from Italy, three from Switzerland, two each from Spain and the U.K., and one from the Netherlands.  We’ve no doubt he’s an expert on European cheeses, but how well does he know North and South American products?  A lot of people consider Monterey Jack an American original; he puts it in the cheddar family.  To be fair, he treats France’s beloved Comte as part of the Swiss Gruyere family.  Let’s see if we can all work together and improve on this family tree for cheese (they are in boldface in our directory).

A Taste of History

Food recipes and dining habits change over time.  You’d have to go to places like France and China to find classic recipes that remain popular today.  Other countries have very short food memory.  An American menu or cookbook from 100 years ago would seem like foreign language to Americans.  Who makes aspic anymore?  The situation with cheese is a different story because many classic recipes have survived.  As long as the same milk sources are available, what’s produced today could very well taste like the original recipe made centuries ago.  That’s why when you put a piece of classic cheese in your mouth, you are tasting history.  So we try to identify those cheeses that can be thought of as heritage cheeses.

One thing we wanted to clarify is whether the name of a cheese should be capitalized.  If it is based on a place or a person, it usually is capitalized.

Armchair Cheese Tasting

Until someone fills the void by making a cheese documentary, videos of cheese are largely found in cooking and travel shows.  (Rick Sebak, are you reading this?)  In Season 8 of Rick Steves’ Europe (first aired in 2014), he once again shares with viewers another memorable meal in France.  After he and his friend have sampled escargots, shrimp, duck, and lamb, the owner comes out with a wooden tray full of a dozen cheeses in all their glory.  This being the Loire Valley, goat cheeses are well represented.  Don’t miss “France’s Loire:  Chateau Country” (episode #803) on PBS.  For the record, the restaurant in question is L’Epicerie in Amboise.  You’ll catch a glimpse (◙ and ►) of Sainte-Maure, Selles-sur-Cher, Valencay, Pouligny-Saint-Pierre, Feuille de Dreux, Langres, Reblochon, Maroilles, Pont-l’Eveque, Saint-Nectaire, Murol, and Fourme d’Ambert.  C’est formidable indeed.

In 2014, Globe Trekker produced “The Story of Cheese” (synopsis and trailer) as part of its “Planet Food” specials.  It’s a compilation of past cheese segments stitched together with new footage shot in England to create a coherent narrative.  The presenter is U.K. chef Rosie Lovell.  You’ll meet Harbutt and travel to France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, Lebanon, and Turkey.  Philippe Olivier’s passion for raw-milk cheese will bowl you over.  Check your local PBS station schedule for the next rerun.

In the second of three episodes of Food: Delicious Science (►), a 2017 documentary from BBC, we learn the flavor of each cheese is mostly determined by how it smells.  So how can Epoisses smell so bad but taste so good?  The answer is something called backward smelling.

Have It Your Whey

We cannot guarantee our directory is up-to-date at all times.  In the meantime, we want all you cheese heads to send us the names of three cheeses/brands that you feel should be included below.  You’ll get extra points if you can come up with unexpected substitutes (bottarga/botargo, anyone?).  And tell us what we should work on next.  Obvious subjects include wine/beer, coffee/tea, pastry/dessert, and fresh produce.

Memo to Cheese Producers

The Bay Area has its share of foodies as well as a sizable wine-and-cheese crowd.  The world-renown Wine Country (Napa and Sonoma) is, after all, right here in our own backyard.  The Judgment of Paris wine tasting in 1976 helped put California wine on the map.  Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse and Peet’s Coffee started an epicurean revolution in the 1970s.  Thanks to its agricultural heritage, the Bay Area is also home to artisan cheese makers.  So instead of waiting for retailers to come to you, click on the Where to Buy tab below and you’ll see a list of potential companies you can do business with.  Click on Bay Area Stats and check out the size of this market.

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