I generally stick the cheese lover’s adage that “the stinkier the cheese is, the better.” Well, when I found that raw milk Epoisses I mentioned a while back at the Beverly Hills Cheese Store, I thought I’d stumbled on a gold mine. Feeling exuberant, I left the cheese shop with Justin and Brian and headed straight for the Barney’s. Upon my arrival, I was thrilled to learn that the shoe department had quadrupled its floor space. And there was a sale! Justin and I wandered through the Manolo Blahniks, and sat down to try on some Christian Louboutin pumps and some Marc Jacobs flats. The salesgirl brought me several sizes, along with some suggestions. As she knelt to set the boxes down, her smile abruptly froze.
"Ibroughtthesizesyouwantedplussomeothersyoumightlike,” she muttered, and abruptly rushed off. I shrugged my shoulders and began opening the boxes. I pushed the bag of cheese aside, and a funky, sweaty odor wafted forth from within its diaphanous cellophane membrane. Freed from the confines of its cooler counter, the Epoisses had begun to warm up to room temperature. “Whatever,” I said presumptuously, and stood up. “These anorexic types don’t eat, so what would they know about food,” I declared, and flounced off to the third floor, leaving Justin trailing behind me. Once I filled my arms with clothes, I shoved the cheese bag his way, and hurried into the fitting rooms. As soon I emerged, Justin was waiting for me, looking slightly green. He made sure that I got the bag back. “The stench had intensified” was all he would say. By now, starlets, metrosexuals, botoxed trophy wives and hipsters in trucker hats were giving us a wide swath. And the perfume counter manager definitely gave me the evil eye. “I don’t know about this, Connie. I’m kind of scared” said Brian. “Oh, come on,” I replied overconfidently. “This just means it’ll be good.” I should have listened to them both.
Upon my return to the Bay Area, the Cheese Diaries held another tasting to compare various raw milk and Japanese Camemberts Anne brought back from her trip, along with the Torta del Casar, and of course, the raw milk Epoisses. It's difficult to find a raw milk Epoisses even in France, due to a previous listeria scare, according to Max. So of course, we were all anticipating this cheese. Following a general cheese tasting guideline of going from mildest to strongest, we tasted the Camemberts, then the Torta del Casar. Finally, we arrived at the Epoisses. I opened the box. To say that it was strong would be an understatement. It was slightly desiccated, and soggy, not really a good sign for an Epoisses, which should be bulging and moist, but not wet. I started to carve out little slices for the tasters. Now, an Epoisses should be very runny, so runny in fact, that it is usually served with a spoon. This one was kind of hard, and had the texture of a dried-out Camembert. Everybody agreed that it was by far, one of the strongest smelling cheeses any of us had come across. We tried to nail the scent… Anne said it smelled like yeasted bread. C(h)ristine said it reminded her of mothballs, and her husband, Ari, a cheese newbie said it smelled like their “dog’s armpit.” I kept telling myself, “the stronger it smells, the better!” We tasted it – it was salty and funky with an overpowering barnyardiness. Like a barnyard gone wrong, or whose stalls hadn’t been changed in a very long time. Max pushed it away, and declared it was “far too advanced” for his tastebuds. Anne wrinkled her nose, and said straight up, that she didn’t like it. It lacked the balance and smoothness of the standard thermalized Epoisses (by Berthaut) we were accustomed to. Ari said that the more he ate it, the more he liked it. “Maybe that’s because it’s killing your tastebuds,” responded Julianne. Christine and I kept trying to like it, but in the end, I threw in the towel. Maybe all the traveling, temperature changes and extended affinage affected this Epoisses, but whatever the cause, it remained Epoisses gone wrong.
Posted by connie at February 27, 2004 12:42 PM | TrackBack