OK so livarot is a french name controlled washed rind cows milk cheese. it comes in a little box and it was expensive. i usually try to keep my cheese purchases to around 5$ a week, but I splurged on this one because it was one of the brands specifically recommended by the cheese primer guy. I was a little worried because it had a little sticker on the bottom with a date and some french words, and the date was almost a month ago. I decided to eat half of the little wheel for breakfast the next day...
Chapter One.
the first thing I noticed when I unwrapped the cheese was that the rind was extremely slimy. Since I am somewhat of a neophyte cheese enthusiast and I thought that I read somewhere that a slimy rind meant an over ripe cheese i got more worried.
Then I smelled it.
It reeked of ammonia. I had read that this cheese was particularly pungent, but I was convinced this cheese had gone profoundly bad. But, i thought, maybe I am wrong, so I cut it open and cut off the rinds and had a bite. It tasted just like it smelled. Bleach. I was getting infuriated by this point, but I thought maybe i hadn;t cut enough of the rind off. I preceded to have a taste from the very center of the cheese, and that tasted OK. I was so effected by the vileness of the first bite that I ignored that experience and threw the rest of the cheese into the trash in disgust.
I was mad about having been sold a rotten cheese so i took the container back to the store I had gotten it (whole foods, west Burnside street, Portland) and explained my predicament. The cheese counter guy explained that Livarot is supposed to have a slimy rind and that the other 4 cheeses that he had in the counter were not bad (they had the same sticker with the same date) I was very embarrassed, but the man said that whole foods will give you full store credit back if you don't like something because they want you to try new things. I was amazed, i went over to the customer service counter without a receipt and nothing but an empty container and they gave me full credit got the cheese. (which i immediately turned around and spent on some taleggio ciresa and some fiscalini bandaged cheddar.) How cool is that?
Chapter Two
I get home.
The Livarot has been in my trash for about 5 hours now, and I decide I better have another taste. I fish it out. Onion skin is stuck all over it. I have a bite it tastes pretty good, but the smell gets to me again so I put it back in the trash. The taste stays with me though, and about 10 minutes later I am back in the trash nibbling on it again. Again back in the trash. Once more I go and scoop a finger full of the cheese out of the rind and throw it away again. At this point I am thinking I better put it back in the fridge and eat the rest, but I decide it has been sitting out to long and that would be a bad Idea. I try to read. I can't concentrate because I keep thinking about the cheese.
the moral of my story is basically that Livarot is like fine mustard in that you must keep its gasses out of your sinus in order to enjoy.
Oh ya, and it's best kept in the trash...
-Miguel