Pizza Cheese Redux

I've been making more pizzas from scratch lately and just thought I should add an update about this original pizza post. In short, we did it all wrong (with respect to cheese, anyhow).

Here are some things to watch out for if you're making your own pizza:
*) Don't put on as much cheese as we did. If you look at the image from the original post there's cheese everywhere. It ends up doing a couple of things that are bad: it really dominates the taste of the pizza and causes your crust to waterlog. You don't want that. If you are more parsimonious with your fromage - you'll get a more refined, tasteful pizza and your cheese will last longer. It seems best to cut your cheese into small cubes and place them around the pie. It really melts down nicely.

*) Watch out for cheeses in water. In the post both mozzarellas were shipped in water. This isn't a bad thing, but you need to be sure to dry off the cheese well before you place it on your pizza. I like to wrap the cheese in a towel and let it sop up some of the moisture before preparing it for the pizza. Again - the trouble here is that you don't want the crust to get waterlogged. That being said I think the flavor of "fresh" mozzarella is a little bit better (at least the Trader Joe's version).

*) In lieu of either cow or buffalo, consider a Burrata. Again - be sure to dry it off as much as you can, but the cream on the inside really makes for an interesting flavor on a neapolitan pizza.

Something I'd really like to attempt soon is preparing my own mozarella. As I recall, Charlie White used to make a damn good mozarella from scratch...

Say “Formaggio!”: FDM Takes Italy

Ahh, Italia. Cultural mecca, bastion of romance and passion. One pictures bustling city squares and impossibly idyllic countrysides. Allow me just a few more cliches here, because, hey, it’s Italy. And how can we talk about Italy without also mentioning the sound of opera, the smell of garlic, and the taste of tomatoes, oregano, and basil on a warm bowl of pasta al dente? Let’s face it: the place has got a lot going for it. It’s no surprise, then, that Italy is home to some of the world’s finest fromage. Aside from the obvious candidates like mozzarella and parmigiano, Italy has hundreds of other delicious cheeses on the menu.

There are a couple of things that every fromageophile should know about Italian cheese. One is that several of these cheeses are protected under the DOC label, which is crucial in preventing the dreaded cheese identity theft. Modeled off of the AOC of their French neighbors, the DOC label lets you know that you’re eating the real deal and not some overprocessed, mass-produced fromage impostor. Italy’s cheeses (again like their French counterparts) are also very specific to region and culture. And Italian people cherish their cheeses with amounts of gusto that would rival any Frenchman’s. But while the French subscribe to an all-encompassing, Vive la France! type of CheesePride, the Italians are much more, shall we say, regionalistic about things. In fact, each region values its cheeses to such a degree that it would be nearly impossible to visit one region and order up a cheese from a neighboring region.

With all this in mind, we held a modest Southern Californian FDM Summit with the goal of sampling Italian cheeses from a variety of regions. As is customary in fromage tasting, we went for the milder cheeses first.

Pantaleo [pahn-tuh-LAY-oh] is a rare goat cheese from the island of Sardinia. Off-white in color, its taste has been described as “fruity yet herbaceous”. It is uncharacteristically hard for a goat’s milk cheese and is aged for a minimum of 100 days. We tried it with honey, which was recommended, and a San Diegan IPA, which was not.

Piave Vecchio [pee-AH-vay VEK-ee-oh] is a cow’s milk cheese that hails from the Piave River Valley of Belluno, in the northern region known as Venetto. It’s aged for six to fourteen months and is yellowish in color. “Vecchio” means “old”, and one can even purchase a Piave Stravecchio (“extra-old"). The flavor intensifies with age, although it should be noted that an “extra-old” Piave resembles a young parmigiano reggiano. Fascinating! Our local cheese shop suggested pairing this fromage with an amber ale; our IPA was an intriguing substitute. We also tried grapes and olives with this fromage.

For our fromage finale, we sampled the Taleggio [tah-LEDGE-oh], an exciting cow’s milk from Lombardy. Taleggio is a member of the “washed rind” class of cheeses, which essentially qualifies it as a “stinky cheese”. As a DOC-protected fromage, its rind is embossed with a special mark so you know it’s authentically stinky. Our trusty cheese shop had nearly run out of this one, but they were kind enough to provide us with a couple of leftover scraps for a buck a pop. Not bad. In the interest of comparison, we also purchased a larger block of Tah-Ledge from a nearby healthfood conglomerate. Both taleggios were sampled with the remainder of our IPAs, a delectable pinot grigio, and the aforementioned culinary accoutrements. And also some bread.

Our Italian cheesetour was remarkable in several ways that should be noted here. For one, it marked the first FDM tasting in many a moon, which is decidedly a good thing. Second, it took us into uncharted lands and allowed us to learn about some very interesting (and very tasty) cheeses. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, two new members were initiated into the fold. A huge FDM welcome to Cookie Munster and Kurd Vonnegut! As for the other members, please enjoy our tasters’ reactions and comments as they are posted. And then? Why not go out and get yourself some Italian cheese and join the fun?

IT’S BEEN A WHILE: A Brief Note on Fromage-Related Elephants

I want to begin by offering the warmest of greetings to all fromageophiles near and far.

It certainly has been a while, and we have all been busy little cheese lovers. Some of us have changed geographical location; some of us have gotten married; others have developed mild obsessions with pizzamaking. I think we’re all aware that FDM activity has, shall we say, diminished slightly over the last year or so. One might wonder if this has become some kind of elephant in our collective cheese room, filling us with dread and fear that something has been lost, that new posts might go unanswered, that the fires of fromage may be waning. But can this really be?

Granted, there has been an undeniable lack of fromage-centric postings as of late. But does this necessarily indicate a lack of desire for said postings? Dare I say: NAY! Quite the contrary – in fact, I would venture to guess that fromage is still alive in our hearts and minds (not to mention our mouths and stomachs). As Ricky R. so aptly put it in his crowd-pleasing post entitled Taking Back the Curd, we must remember that there is always a natural ebb and flow to the world of amateur cheese tasting and, though we may not always find the time to write about it, “the spirit [of FDM] is still alive and strong!” (Ricotta, 2007). Indeed, Ricky, indeed.

That said, I come to you today with a message of hope. Let me assure you: there is fromagey activity curdling away in this land. I, for one, have been scheming to develop and explore an as-of-yet uncharted realm of fromage study and plan on publishing my results within the next week or two. If that’s not enough to pique your curiosity, I have received intelligence that another FDM member is working on a new and exciting soon-to-be-published cheese-themed post. I hope that you all look forward to these posts as much as I do. As a token of my deep affection for FDM, I have created a mosaic-like artwork – a fromage quilt, if you will – based loosely upon the nine listed FDM members. Enjoy and I’m sure we will all meet again soon in the hallowed halls of fromagedumois.

Who will take New England? A tight race between two cheeses.

As election day gets closer, we decided to take a poll on three artisinal New England cheeses: Vermont Dandy (sheep's milk, upper left), Bartlett Blue (cow's milk, upper right), Hillman Farms Chevre (goat's milk, lower left). Three average Joe the Plumbers gathered on an unseasonably warm fall day in Boston to focus on the issues: taste, texture, and price.

Taste

The consensus among the tasters was that the Vermont Dandy (Townsend, VT) was a fairly run of the mill sheep's milk cheese. The tasters felt that it lacked the sharp and buttery taste of a rich Manchego.

Hillman Farms (Colrain, Massachusetts) chevre captured the attention of all the tasters. It was an exceptionally creamy and flavorful chevre, but without bearing the burden of excessive tanginess or sourness. It's unique among chevres that the tasters have tried, and it was the favorite of two out of the three tasters.

Bartlett Blue (Greensboro, VT) was the favorite cheese of the other taster. It was mild for a blue cheese, without the overpowering taste of many roqueforts and gorgonzolas. The taste was complex with a satisfying aftertaste. Even one taster who claimed "I do not like Blue cheese!" enjoyed the cheese after tasting it.

Texture

The Vermont Dandy was semi-soft, and a little grainy, with a non-descript rind. Hillman Farms chevre was very soft, with almost the consistency of a bagel cream cheese spread. While the first two candidates appeared soft, the Bartlett Blue presented a hard facade, perhaps in an effort to distinguish itself from the others. Like a Stilton Blue, this was a hard cheese, but not aged and it did not crumble. In the end, the texture of the Hillman Farms chevre was the only one that moved the tasters.

Price

At $29 / pound, and with the run of the mill taste of a grocery store sheep's milk, we felt that it was not worth issuing fromage-backed securities in order to raise capital.

Bartlett Blue was a delicious cheese, but the cost was $25 / pound, perhaps out of range for Joe the Plumbers to consume on a regular basis.

With gas prices falling, we think we can afford Hillman Farms chevre at $19 / pound. It is an unique, enjoyable chevre which we would certainly buy again.

Summary

Overall, the tasters thought it was a very tight race between the Bartlett Blue and the Hillman Farms Chevre. Ultimately, on election day, you will decide who the winner is.

cow v. buffalo: a dispatch from the field

While traveling in DC it turns out that Cheese Whiz has been working on handmade, slow rise pizza crusts. He suggested we make the pizza with said crusts. I suggested we work Fromage in and do a taste test of cow mozzarella against buffalo mozzarella just to see if neophytes can taste the difference. So off we went to the massively yuppie and overpriced "Dean and Deluca" to find buffalo mozzarella. We got seven ounces of "freshly imported all natural" Bufala mozzarella, made from the water buffalo for $12. We also got eight ounces of "Dean and Deluca" cow mozzarella for $5. Interestingly, although about the same weight, there was much more of the cow mozzarella, almost two to one. Already there's a significant difference in density (four to one in cost!).

In terms of the raw product, the buffalo was clearly superior both in taste and smell. The cow mozzarella was almost tasteless, while the buffalo was sharper, cleaner, and full of flavor. When I laid it on the pizza there was also a distinct texture difference. The cow was rather stringy while the buffalo was sort of mushy. Purposely we made the pizza simply: just tomato sauce and cheese.

We laid it on the stone at 500 degrees and waited a few minutes. When the pizza arrived, there was also a clear difference between the cheeses. The cow was much brighter white in the end. The real question though: after baking is the buffalo as delicious? Sadly, no. The buffalo was certainly better tasting: richer, fuller, and with more depth. But neither of us thought that the cost difference outweighed the taste difference.

In short, the difference between the raw and cooked cheeses did not outweigh the cost difference. However, we certainly think that a delicious sandwich / caprese salad could benefit greatly from fresh buffalo mozzarella.

Viva la Fromage!