Last week I had the unique opportunity to attend a cheese class sponsored by the Cow Girl Creamery, led by the world famous affineur, Jean d"Alos. In a series of posts, I would like to share with you the amazing insight I gained from this fascinating man. The first, appropriately, is his method of tasting cheese.
English, aparently, is a lousy language for describing cheese. We at the Cheese Diaries struggle with this every day. It's hard to break out of "sharp", "tangy", "creamy" etc, and that's why we have to resort to words like "barnyardy." Jean d'Alos pulled out the official cheese descriptive word chart: in french, 83 different standardized words exist to describe Comte alone.
Here are the critical steps to fully experience cheese, and I do mean experience. You've got to dive in and engage yourself.
1. See the cheese.
Look at the colours, the texture, and note your initial impressions. Is it a rich golden colour? Does it look dry? Is it uniform in colour and texture? Is the cheese ripened all the way it? Or perhaps it has already dried out on the exterior, in the case of soft cheeses, probably means that the taste will be inferior. In official tastings, the tasters wear bland colours, and the event takes place in a muted setting. The colours that we see around us can evidently affect our ability to taste.
2. Feel the cheese
Take a small piece between your fingers. Mash it up, squish it, see how it feels while you do it. Is it dry and hard? Or crumbly? Perhaps it's creamy and and gooey, as a room-tempered soft cheese should be. This step is also important because it warms up the cheese further, releasing its qualities into the air.
3. Smell the cheese.
Note the aroma. Obviously, in official tastings, the participants would not wear perfume or strongly scented hygene products. What does the aroma feel like? Is it animally? Remember that the rind will very often have different properties than the cheese itself, so be sure to sniff both.
4. Taste the cheese
Put the piece of cheese you've warmed with your fingers onto your tongue, but do not chew! Instead, flatten the cheese up against the roof of your mouth with your tongue, and experience the cheese as it surrenders its pleasures to you. This process further warms up the cheese, releasing its aromatic qualites. You can feel the smell of it filling your nasal cavity from the inside like a delicious warmth. Our sense of smell and taste are so closely related, that smelling it in this manner will enhance your taste. Spreading the cheese across your tongue allows full contact with your hungry buds, awakening and engaging them all. Furthermore, this process oxygenates the cheese, further enhancing its flavors. And finally, I suspect that your amylase in your saliva begins to digest as it mixes with it, releasing more flavor and unlocking the cheese's secrets.
The fifth sense that is lacking here is the sense of hearing. I suspect that silence would enhance the experience, allowing you to concentrate on the cheese without any distraction.
And as for other senses? Well, I suspect there's a great deal of intuition involved. I bet when Jean d'Alos sees a good cheese, he can feel it.
Posted by anne at November 13, 2003 11:30 AM | TrackBack