Gorgonzola Dolce

Haven’t we all at one point or another fantasized about eating cheese out of an ice cream cone? You think to yourself “It’s milk and cream just like ice cream, why wouldn’t I eat it out of a crunchy cone? And the cone is just like a sweet cracker!” Or are you telling me that I am alone in this dream?

Would it surprise you if I told you that I have eaten cheese out of a cone? Probably not. Those of you know how long I’ve been doing this for must imagine that by now I’ve probably jumped Scrooge McDuck style into a swimming pool filled with triple crème brie. So cheese in a cone feels pretty tame.

But I digress, this isn’t meant to be a love letter to the myriad ways of eating cheese. This is a post about Gorgonzola Dolce—the most unctuous, glorious of blue cheeses. To understand my love for this cheese we need to go back almost 25 years to my first encounter with this cheese—I knew nothing of blue cheese or even cheese in general. I was working in a fancy restaurant in Cape Cod and as a vegetarian there was only ever one thing on the menu I could eat for my shift meal—pasta. And more often than not it was pasta tossed with Gorgonzola dolce.

Buddy, I’m telling you, there’s nothing more awakening to a 19 year old’s palate than rich, creamy pasta with just that bit of blue funk to it. This was something novel and I really wanted to understand the magic behind it. Unfortunately it was going to be 15 more years before I really began to understand what was really going on.

Customers approach our counter and often ask for “gorgonzola” in generic terms when they’re looking for a blue cheese. It’s as recognizable a name in cheese as brie or cheddar. There are two major families of Gorgonzola—a harder aged one and the milder creamy stuff I’m on about—so we quickly direct the conversation in the appropriate direction. You’ll notice my eyes lighting up if we take off in the sweet, luscious direction of Gorgonzola Dolce.

Want to know all the fun facts about how this cheese is made and its history and where it comes from? You can ask the robot overlords. I’m here to connect you with a craving you didn’t even know you had. I am here to transform your eating expectations for cheese.  Maybe I am here to indoctrinate you into a cheese eating cult that eats cheese out of a sugar cone (I refuse to acknowledge that cake cones exist).

If you’re looking to dip your toes into the world of blue cheese, this is your cheese. Are you wanting something to spread on your apples with a dollop of honey? This is your cheese. Are you burned out on the Instagram phenomenon of “jarcuterie” and want to start your own trend? Here you are. Come and indulge in the most pleasurable of cheeses and leave your food inhibitions behind.

Children in Italy know that it’s cool to eat blue cheese out of an ice cream cone

The Pairing: What Goes With Summer?

The artisan cheese movement within the United States has grown exponentially over the last few decades. Not long ago, domestic, small batch farmstead cheeses were hard to find, and when they were being made, supply was extremely tight, or quality was suboptimal. As each year has passed, more and more cheeses have hit the market, and quality continues to improve. For this week’s pairing, we’re highlighting one of the pioneers of our country’s artisan cheese movement, David Major. After graduating from Harvard in the early 80’s, David set out on a mission to save his family’s 250 acre farm, located in West Westminster, Vermont, and it’s tiny herd of sheep. His solution: Cheese. After a series of early struggles in cheesemaking of his own, David travelled to the French Pyrenees to learn from the world’s best sheep’s milk cheese producers. Today, with over 30 years of cheesemaking experience under his belt, David and his family shepherd a herd of anywhere between 300-700 sheep, on the oldest sheep dairy in the country, Vermont Shepherd Farm, milking an average of 200 ewes, twice a day, beginning each year in April. Vermont Shepherd’s flagship cheese is, Verano, which in Spanish translates to “Summer,” which points to the fact that this cheese is only produced while the herd is foraging on fresh pasture. While cows and goats may be milked all year long, sheep milk is seasonal, beginning only once lambs are weaned-off their mother’s milk in early spring, and lasting not longer than November. Because of this, production of Verano is exceedingly small, landing at somewhere between 10-30, 7 lb wheels a day. A rich, earthy cheese with a moist ivory paste, Verano exudes flavors of brown butter, salted caramel, and hearty herbs like fresh thyme and mint. For this week’s wine pairing, we’ve chosen a selection from California’s Central Coast, Union Sacre Pinot Blanc. As we paired this cheese and wine, we found fruit notes in the wine to bring out an underlying sweetness within the milk. Additionally, mouthfeel was improved for both, providing a delicate balance on the palate, as textures married perfectly. Some pairings are good, but others are great. The pairing of these two elevate one another in a way you’re sure to enjoy.

Challerhocker!

By Jared Kaufman, Minneapolis Monger

Until a few nights ago, I had never seen Lord of the Rings. I know, I know. I’d seen the online jokes — “One does not simply walk into Mordor” or “You! shall! not! pass!” — but never knew their context. As I watched Gollum scarf away his precious inside his cave, my first thought was “Wait… That reminds me of the Challerhocker Boy!”

 Perhaps you’ve seen him, too: The unsettling, vaguely demonic-looking child peering out from the burgundy label in the center of our cheese case, grubby fingers gripping an edge of brick. I suppose it’s apt; the name Challerhocker translates roughly to “sitting in the cellar” or “cellar dweller.” And I see why the boy would feel protective over the cheese: It’s so delicious.

 Challerhocker’s texture is fudgy, custardy, with just a little bite. Right from the get-go, you get deep notes of roasted hazelnuts and alliums and woodsy sweetness. It’s approachable but still a step up in complexity among its Alpine cheese family. It’s a gateway cheese. Even though I was reminded of the cheese from a mainstream hit, I’ve often heard Challerhocker described as more of a cult classic, like Rocky Horror or The Princess Bride. It might fly under the radar, but once you’re in, oh — you’re in. 

 And you can get funky with pairings, too. My classic drink recommendations are dry, nutty white wines like chardonnay and fino sherry, or reds like nero d’avola. But try switching things up and serving Challerhocker with ciders or toasty Belgian ales, or even cocktails like old-fashioneds or boulevardiers. Challerhocker is also one of my go-to cheeses for almost any sweet or savory jam pairing, since it’s unbelievably versatile.

 So who is the Gollum-like Challerhocker Boy that protects this delightful cheese? Let us descend into the cellars of cheese history to explore.

 The man responsible for Challerhocker, Walter Räss, started out by making Appenzeller, a traditional Swiss recipe that’s a little firmer and funkier and made from the milk of native Brown Swiss cows. In 2001, he was asked a favor: His brother-in-law had just imported a herd of Jersey cows to Switzerland, and could Walter work his cheesemaking magic with their milk?

 This was not an easy ask. Jersey cows’ milk is higher in butterfat content than Brown Swiss cows’ milk is, and Walter was already skimming some fat off the Brown Swiss cows’ milk to make his Appenzeller. But he mixed the Jersey cows’ milk with rennet and yogurt-based cultures his wife, Annelies, had made; added additional cream; tossed the 15-pound test wheels into his cellar; and hoped for the best.

 Three months later — it wasn’t right. Walter said the wheels were “hard, with little taste.” He left them to dwell in his basement for even longer. After another half-year, the cheese had softened and developed its trademark custardy, floral earthiness. It was perfect. Walter came up with 15 potential names for his creation and took the list to his town’s architect-slash-painter, which every good village should have, to help him decide. 

 It was this creative Swiss genius, apparently, who drew the wild-eyed child that graces every wheel of Challerhocker the world over. “It is a young man who works in the cellar or aging room,” Walter says. “He holds the stones from the wall and calls up: ‘The cheese is ready to eat.’”

 Or, as Glenn Hills of Columbia Cheese, which imports Challerhocker, put it: “Imagine someone in their parents’ basement playing World of Warcraft. That can be a Challerhocker.”

 To us, it’s the perfect cheese for this season — not only because it warms you up on cool fall days and pairs with pretty much anything you throw at it, but also because Challerhocker Boy makes for a deliciously spooky jack-o-lantern.

Photo and artwork by former F44 Monger, Alex Pears

Pasamontes Manchego

by Sophia Stern, Minneapolis Monger

It’s no secret that the cheese case at France 44 (or any cheese shop) can be overwhelming to navigate. We tend to gravitate towards cheese styles we’ve heard of or tried before: cheddar, gouda, brie, and, often, manchego. Buttery and balanced, herbaceous and tart, manchego is the perfect mix of comfort cheese and dynamic flavor. This week, we’re featuring this familiar favorite and highlighting why, out of the plethora of manchego makers, Pasamontes 3-month and 12-month raw milk manchego has a place in our case. 

The reason United States consumers gravitate towards this Spanish sheep cheese is due to a successful marketing campaign by the Spanish government. While many US cheese consumers had heard of brie or parmesan, there was a hole in the market for sheep cheese, especially from Spain. Before the turn of the millennium, the United States imported minimal sheep cheese, except for pecorino from Italy. The US also lacked domestic sheep milk production until the early 1990’s when Vermont Shepard pioneered domestic sheep cheesemaking with their signature Verano. Capitalizing on this gap in the US cheese market, the Spanish government picked an ideal star with manchego. Most manchegos are buttery and accessible, with slightly nutty and grassy notes that aren’t too aggressive, ideal for the curious American palate, unused to the oddities and craveability of sheep milk.

Pasamontes, like all PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) manchegos, is made with the milk of Manchega sheeps in their native region of Spain, Castilla-La Mancha. All sheep milk is high in butterfat, but Manchega sheeps, bred to yield ideal milk over wool or meat, produce particularly tangy and fatty milk perfect for making balanced and craveable cheese. Most importantly, their milk tastes of the land they graze on. This makes the animals and land inseparable from the cheese they create. The La Mancha region is the largest natural region in Spain. Centrally located, the plains of La Mancha, 2,600 feet above sea level, have little rainfall and extreme temperatures from frost in the winter to scorching heat during the dry summer. There are few trees in this arid landscape, but a bounty of herbs, grasses and flowers, which the Manchega sheep graze upon in their pastures. 

María Dolores Pérez-Guzmán Palomares is the 5th generation of the Pasamontes family to head the Pasamontes creamery. María makes her manchegos in the same place her great-grandmother started making Pasamontes in 1896. She sources her milk from five local flocks in La Mancha, keeping the shepherding and cheesemaking separate. This system allows the farmers to focus their attentions on the intense upkeep of their animals, while María and her cheesemaker can attend diligently to the tricky cheesemaking process. Pasamontes also keeps their cheesemaking milk raw, ensuring the unique qualities of the land shine in their dynamic, rich cheeses. They ladle the curds of their raw milk into natural fiber molds made of esparto, which gives the Manchego rind its district basket-weave pattern. Unlike other waxy manchego rinds, the Pasamontes rind is completely edible. 

Pasamontes is not the somewhat mild and occasionally dull manchego you may have tried wrapped in plastic from the grocery store.  Both ages of the Pasamontes manchego have a yogurty, lactic flavor and an herbaceous finish. Pasamontes 3-month is higher in moisture, offering a semi-firm ‘bounce’ to the cheese. At room temperature, the cheese quickly melts in your mouth. While buttery, the grassy, earthy flavors of the milk are strong in this younger cheese. Pasamontes 12-month is much firmer, the flavors far more concentrated in this low moisture form. The 12-month eats like a less-sweet Parmigiano-Reggiano, with extreme nuttiness and high acidity. Both cheeses are perfect for eating by themselves, but would also stand out in any recipe. As we head into Autumn, manchego is a great ingredient for baking dishes like quiches and pairs particularly well with potatoes and leeks. Otherwise, try using manchego instead of parmesan in a chorizo-based pasta dish. If you’re looking for a wine pairing, a fruity red is a good way to go.

Pitchfork Cheddar

Photo courtesy of Neals Yard Dairy

by Sam Schonberg, Minneapolis Monger

In a nation whose cheesemaking is dominated by the word “tradition,” it is rare for something new to break through. Seven years ago, the Trethowan brothers did just that.

In the English county of Somerset, cheddar reigns. The town of Cheddar itself is rather small, but its namesake can be found across the area. There is even a specific style of cheddar that is name protected by the British government, called “West County Farmhouse Cheddar” style. These cheeses must be made in this small region of England, and they must be made using traditional production and aging techniques, all of which must occur on the farm itself. Today, there are less than a dozen creators whose cheddars fall in this category. Some of the Trethowan’s most prominent cheddar-making neighbors, the Montgomery, Westcombe, and Keen families, have all been making cheddar since the late 19th or early 20th centuries on their ancestral farms. That two brothers, Welsh ones at that, inserted themselves into this hive of tradition and began making a cheddar that rivals the others, is a small miracle.

Pitchfork cheddar was immediately a hit. Like all other West County Farmhouse Cheddars, it’s bandaged in cloth and aged in a cave to mature. The wheels weigh around 50 pounds, and provide rich aromas of turned earth and broth upon opening. The texture is delicate, for a clothbound cheddar. There are no sharp corners or tyrosine crystals to be found. It simply sinks into your teeth, like fudge on a hot day. The flavor is immediately bright, brighter than most clothbounds. The earthiness is still there, but it is supplemented by big buttercream notes. The savoriness of a spring onion is present, as well as the occasional hint of vanilla. 

I would encourage all to enjoy this with a crisp cider, or a more delicate pale ale. My favorite food pairings are apple slices, rye crackers, or maybe even a drop of maple syrup.

Garrotxa

Photo by Dio Cramer

by Austin Coe Butler

The story is familiar: A traditional style of cheese, usually made by hand in small regional villages, faces the threat of near extinction before being brought back from the brink by a humble few. Maybe that threat of extinction comes from the exodus of villagers from the countryside to the cities. Maybe it is crushing post-war quotas that demand the factory production of cheeses that are easily mass produced. Maybe it is simply a change in tastes. Many cheeses have faced this fate: Monteboro, Wrångebäck, Red Leicester, maybe Limburger is facing it right now. But while the story is familiar, this cheese might not be, and it offers us an unfamiliar twist on this tale – Garrotxa.

Garrotxa (gahr–ROH-chah) is a semi-firm goat’s milk cheese with a bloomy rind from Catalonia. Catalonia is located in the northeast of Spain (or not, depending on who you ask), but for our purposes, let’s just say it is at the foot of the Pyrenees mountains along the cool, humid coast of the Balearic Sea. The cheese is named after the comarca or county of Garrotxa where it is made in the province of Girona, just north of Barcelona. During the modern production quotas instated by the Franco dictatorship, Garrotxa, like many other small, unscalable traditional Spanish cheeses, nearly went extinct in favor of Manchego. But in the early 1980s a group of urban hippies, the neorurals as they called themselves in Spanish, left the cities for the country. Captivated by rural life, they started communes and cooperatives and learned trades. Among the neorurals were Toni Chueca and Rosa Heras who moved into a countryside bauma (Catalan for a den or shelter) in 1979 and began Fromagte Bauma, the first modern producer of Garrotxa, bringing the cheese back from the brink.

But here’s where that familiar story of death and rebirth changes – when the neorurals began making Garrotxa, they made something different, something that was their own creation. What separates contemporary Garrotxa from its ancestral form is its most conspicuous feature: that beautiful, intimidating bloomy rind or pell florida in Catalan. In the past, Garrotxa had no mold or real rind – it was a young, fresh goat cheese that was consumed within days of production. The humid climate of Garrotxa county at the foot of the Pyrenees and off the coast of the Balearic Sea is an ideal environment for Penicillium molds, especially P. glaucum, the more mild sibling of Penicillium roqueforti that gives Stilton and many other blues their distinctive blue veining and spice. P. glaucum gets derives its species name from “glaucous” meaning dull, bluish-gray, green, and it is easy to see why. The rind on Garrotxa is a gorgeous gray suede. Traditionally, mold on Garrotxa was seen as a defect or sign of spoilage, but the neorurals encouraged it, finding that the mold  was beneficial to the cheese as a ripening agent that tempered the natural acidity of goat’s milk, lending a little sweetness and subtle flavor to the cheese. Garrotxa is now aged for a minimum of twenty days in the abundant caves found naturally occurring in the mountainous and volcanic landscape to encourage this creation of this bloomy rind. 

Concealed beneath this rind is a surprisingly mild cheese with delicate citrus notes, slightly tangy, acidic goatiness similar to chèvre but with a buttery, melt-in-your-mouth creaminess of a cow’s milk cheese like brie. This cheese is a great gateway to goat cheeses and incredibly versatile. Pair it with a traditional wine from Catalonia like Priorat or something less traditional like a Txakoli white or Isategi unfiltered cider, a rustic loaf of bread, stone fruit and pears at the peak of their season, fresh figs, and hazelnuts on a picnic to welcome the coming season. Its low salt makes it an excellent option to have with jamón ibérico and Marcona almonds. Enjoy Garrotxa as a dessert cheese with a sherry like fino or amontillado. There’s no wrong way to eat this cheese. Don’t let this unfamiliar name or intimidating rind stop you from trying a new cheese. It just might become your new favorite.

Uplands Pleasant Ridge Reserve

by Austin Coe Butler

Many of the world’s great cheeses are named after the places they are made–Stilton, Manchego, Roquefort, Parmigiano–and for good reason. Traditional and artisanal cheeses are inseparable from the climate, culture, and land they are made on. Chemists can analyze cow’s milk and tell by distinct terpenes if they have been grazing on the flora of the Asiago Plateau. Roquefort’s iconic blue-gray crumble is the marriage of the saprotrophic fungus Penicillium roqueforti that is endemic to the Combalou caves the cheese is aged in and the milk of the ewe’s that graze the surrounding fields. To put it simply, making cheese includes the geology and microbiology of a place (and everything in between). Pleasant Ridge Reserve is another cheese named its place of origin, a long, rolling ridge in the Driftless Region .

The Driftless Region takes its name from the absence of “drift” or glacial deposits of sediment and erratics (large boulders) left during the retreat of glaciers. Resistant hills to the northeast and the basins of the Great Lakes diverted glaciation three times from the region, sparing it from being scraped flat by thousands of feet of ice and resulting in the region’s characteristic landscape: hills, dramatic bluffs, rock outcrops, and valleys that were deeply trenched by streams carrying torrents of meltwater when the immense glacial lakes to the north shattered their dams of ice. North of Dodgeville, Wisconsin is one of these long, rolling ridges named Pleasant Ridge.

At the base of this ridge is Uplands Cheese Company where Pleasant Ridge Reserve is made. Pleasant Ridge Reserve is a cow’s milk alpine-style cheese in the alpage tradition. From May to October, the closed, crossbred herd of cows tended by Scott Mericka are rotated to a new acre of pasturage every day, and every day Andy and his staff make a batch, approximately 96 wheels, of Pleasant Ridge Reserve. Each day, right before dinner as the cows are coming out of the barn having just been milked, Andy walks the pasturage they’ve grazed and notes what’s growing. Maybe one day the cows dined heavily on orchard grass and mineral lambsquarters; the next day on sweet red clover, bitter dandelions, and meadow fescue. This pasturage results in rich, raw, minutes-old milk that is always complex and different from the previous day’s and is why Andy makes cheese seven days a week, adjusting the salt and rennet in the vat according to the milk, using his hands to feel the texture of the curd, and coaxing the cheese towards different flavors and textures. After the curd is separated from the whey, pressed into molds, and rubbed with salt, the wheels are then aged between ten and fourteen months, and every week every wheel is washed by hand. (Andy says the cheese makes good company in the winter.)

This cheese is a celebration of the seasons and that ephemeral yet essential expression of the land captured in crystalline French: terroir. Each batch and wheel of Pleasant Ridge Reserve is a perfect moment in the pasture and in the dairy. Every season’s cheese is different. Every batch is different. What will this year’s cheese taste like with it’s hot, dry weather? What will next year’s cheese? These are the joys of cheesemakers, mongers, and eaters to ponder. But if each batch is different from the next, how do you choose which one to buy?

Batches of Pleasant Ridge aging in Uplands’ own cellars (Photo by Maura Rice)

Every year around March or April, staff from France 44 drive down to Dodgeville to visit Uplands Dairy and have dinner with Andy and his family. We sample five wheels from five different batches. Tasting these batches side by side is a truly remarkable experience. Each wheel is incredibly complex and balanced between the sweet and savory, but the differences, while subtle, are significant. Some have a gentle, fruity sweetness, others are malty and toasted. In some, the texture is granular, while in others it’s fudgy, toothsome. For all these qualities, Pleasant Ridge Reserve has received many accolades–it is the most awarded cheese in the United States–though none of these awards make it taste better.

Andy Hatch preparing wheels of Pleasant Ridge for the F44 staff to sample (Photo by Maura Rice)

During a year when many people have struggled, especially small farmers and cheesemakers, there’s been a vital sense of urgency to sell cheese from the people we know and are close to. Pleasant Ridge Reserve has been in the cheese case here at France 44 since day one. We know Andy and his family. This year we did not have dinner with Andy and his family. We did not go to Dodgeville. We retreated to the vacant dining room and lay the five wheels side by side and sampled them. This year we selected the batches made on July 14th and 28th. Come see why we thought these two batches were special.

Widmer's Six-Year Cheddar

Photo by Dio Cramer

Third-generation cheesemaker Joe Widmer can boast of more bonafide cheese lineage than almost anyone in America (and even most in Wisconsin). Joe’s grandfather John Widmer, a Swiss-born immigrant, began making Brick cheese in 1922, a tradition the company upholds to this day. Tradition is ingrained at Widmer’s; Joe still works from the same milk vats his grandfather purchased; he presses his cheese with the same real bricks. Along with six siblings, Joe was raised in the quarters above the cheesemaking room, where he resides to this day. It makes, he would tell you, for a short commute. 

The story of Widmer’s begins with Brick cheese, a true Wisconsin original; first created in 1877 by another Swiss immigrant, John Jossi, who found himself living amongst the largely German population of 19th-century Wisconsin. Having married into the cheesemaking business (as one does in Wisconsin), Jossi modeled his new creation after the German Limburger, but used bricks to press out the whey for a firmer, milder cheese. Jossi’s Brick was a hit amongst the funk-loving Germans and a key player in the burgeoning Wisconsin dairy scene that would eventually become the fifth largest dairy production market in the world. 

Joe Widmer pressing some Brick (Photos courtesy of Joe’s dad Jim, who passed away in 2019)

While Brick was the flagship of Widmer’s, the cheese lost popularity in the mid-20th century and now stands largely unknown outside of the Midwest. Today, Joe Widmer is the only cheesemaker in America still producing Brick using traditional techniques. However, in the past several decades, the Widmer’s name has become synonymous with excellent aged cheddars. 

Two cheesemakers cheddaring (stacking the curd to drain whey) some future Widmer’s cheddar (Jim Widmer)

Though best known for their Four-Year Cheddar, we love the Six-Year for its perfect balance of buttery richness, assertive acidity, and unexpected creaminess. While some turophiles may balk at an orange block of cheddar (the pigment comes naturally from annatto seed), we consider Widmer’s amongst the best cheddars we’ve tried. Pair a chunk of Widmer’s Six-Year with a juicy IPA or a big Cab.

Your Global Shipping Primer

Ready for your crash course in trans Atlantic cheese shipment? Here we go!

Step 1: Five weeks before our scheduled arrival date we email our cheese importer our order.. Cheese is imported on a file system—52 files per year corresponding to the 52 weeks.

Step 2: Our importer starts the process by sending the order to France where the cheese is eventually consolidated at an enormous market called Rungis. There it is consolidated with our British farmhouse cheeses and any of the other European cheeses we pre-order

Step 3: Time to set sail! The cheese is in a refrigerated container for it’s voyage across the Atlantic. The cheese then lands at the port of Newark in NJ

Step 4: Our cheese hitches a ride to a warehouse in Long Island City New York where it meets up with some other products we’ve ordered. All of that product is consolidated onto a single pallet just for us!

Step 5: A truck cruises by that warehouse on a Friday morning and brings our pallet BACK to a different warehouse New Jersey (oh the tolls!). At that warehouse it is place with a truckload of pallets bound for the Midwest

Step 6: Early on a Tuesday morning the most enormous 18 wheeler you’ve ever seen arrives in our parking lot. We climb in and unload 1,000-2,000 pounds worth of product from the back of the truck.

If everything goes according to plan we receive cheese four weeks from the time we send the email. This results in cheese that is actually a little on the young side (don’t tell anyone but we get our cheese faster/fresher than anyone in the cities).

Of course I am here to tell you that there are so many ways this can go wrong and 2021 has been filled with the most shipping challenges we’ve ever encountered. COVID-19 delays, staffing shortages at the port, congestion at the port, rough seas, lack of freight, lack of truckers. You name it, we’ve seen it. Oh, and once the cheese is picked in Europe, we own it . Doesn’t matter if our ship gets lost in the Bermuda triangle—we’re paying for that cheese.

But look again at that picture up there. It’s totally worth it when you can sell someone an absolutely perfect piece of soft French cheese—there’s just nothing quite like it.