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A cheesy question

#1
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12/14/05 at 8:03pm
  • Joined: November 2000
  • Location: Rochester, NY, USA
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I have never really been a strong cheese lover. I feel badly at times because so much effort is put into creating so many types of cheeses. Cheese fanciers talk about cheese with the same glazed over eyes that Mark gets when talking about French wines.
I have tried to expand my horizons about cheese, but have a hard time getting past the taste of so many that I wonder if I am missing something. Am I just a cheese eunuch? I taste Bleu cheeses and to me they taste like the sterile gauze in a Drs. office. in fact most of the cheeses I taste that are strong taste to me like sterile gauze. Is it simply the mold that has that sterile taste? Why am I eating mold anyway?:confused:
I'd like to get that dewy look in my eyes too, but unless you can tell me something like "Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus" type thing about cheese I may be doomed to a life of medium Chedder.
Tell me there's hope.

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#2
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12/14/05 at 10:50pm
  • Joined: October 2001
  • Location: Fond du Lac, WI
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I'm going to leave that one all alone, though I don't know if everyone else will, and leave the answering to Mr. McGee.:lol: :rolleyes: :lol:

From Man's sweat and God's love, beer came into the World-Saint Arnoldus
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#3
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12/15/05 at 12:07am
  • Joined: December 2005
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Very interesting! There is an off-flavor in many fermented products that’s commonly called “Band-aid” or “doctor’s office,” and I wonder whether that’s what you’re smelling. You may be exceptionally sensitive to that group of compounds. Have you tried things like gruyère or comté, or tete de moine, which are mainly ripened by bacteria rather than molds? How about parmesan? There may be a bunch of cheeses that will work fine for you.

Harold
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#4
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12/15/05 at 8:03am
  • Joined: July 2002
  • Location: Bellingham, WA
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Mr. McGee, Chrose complained about what he tasted in some cheeses, but you wrote about what he might be smelling. I know--at a VERY elementary level--that the sense of smell plays a crucial role in the sense of taste. But could you explain a little more about how the complexities of these types of cheeses could contribute to smells that might affect the way they taste to one person or another?
And, along the same line, do "simple" foods have a narrower range of tastes or taste-differences?

Emily

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#5
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12/15/05 at 9:33am
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  • Location: Rochester, NY, USA
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An excellent follow up. My wife claims to love Limburger. She said if you can get past the smell, the cheese itself is actually very smooth and tasty. My father brought home some Limburger once when I was a kid. My mom made him eat it outside. He put it in the fridge and she almost killed him! I caught a whiff and you will never find it in my house. If Sheila wants it she can eat it outside too!

My latest musical venture!
http://myspace.com/nikandtheniceguys

http://nikentertainment.com
"I'm at the age when food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact I've just had a mirror put over my kitchen table." Rodney Dangerfield RIP

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#6
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12/15/05 at 3:51pm
  • Joined: December 2005
  • Location: Washington State
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A nice cream havarti, perhaps...

I'm having flashbacks to the Monty Python "Cheese Shop" sketch. I believe Havarti is also a bacterial instead of mold cheese. The Cream Havarti is very mild and buttery. Great after dinner or as a snack on Swedish flat bread. Mmmmmmmm..........

Praties
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#7
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12/16/05 at 12:47am
  • Joined: December 2005
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Let's start with some definitions.

The sense of taste is what is mainly experienced in the mouth, and includes a small number of sensations: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami or savory (the taste of MSG), pungency (peppers, mustard).

The sense of smell is experienced in the nose through our odor receptors, and they can detect thousands of different substances.

When we talk about the “taste” of a food, we’re usually talking about the combination of taste and smell. I prefer to use the word “flavor.”

People are born with very different sensitivities to both taste and smell sensations. They will often have different impressions of complex foods like cheese and wine, which have sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory substances as well as hundreds of different aroma molecules produced by the microbes that ferment the original milk or grape juice. In simpler foods with simpler flavors, there are fewer possible differences in our perceptions of them.

Harold
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#8
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12/17/05 at 3:28am
  • Joined: April 2005
  • Location: Seattle, WA via Italy, the region of Piemonte, the city of...
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As a kid I never ate cheese, I think my parents were either lactose intolerant or there was just a lack of good cheese.

Now that I live in Italy, the cheese course is an official course that comes after the main course and before the dessert. I was shocked at the types of cheese you can get in one place. See this link since it has a photo of the famous cheese carts, it's the last photo.

http://gia-gina.blogspot.com/2005/08...rte-dalba.html

Now that I have tasted so many types I can actually name the ones I like and have preferences for aged vs. not aged, goat, sheep or cow's cheese etc...My advice, got to a good gourmet shop and buy a tiny bit of different types, keep tasting them, once a week maybe until you either get fed up or broke.

P.S. I have also tasted the Band-Aid taste when I eat blue cheese, try gorgonzola dolce (sweet) not piccante (strong and peppery). Try it plain for on top of a nice piece of just grilled with a bit of olive oil, ciabatta. Happy Tasting.
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#9
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12/17/05 at 3:31am
  • Joined: April 2005
  • Location: Seattle, WA via Italy, the region of Piemonte, the city of...
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I forgot to tell Harold that I love you book and it's on our Kitchen Bible's shelf.

Buona giornata!
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