Cheese digest

As regular readers no doubt noticed, the cheeseblog took a break. But that doesn't mean I stopped eating cheese. Far from it. In fact, one of the best cheeses to date was something I sampled in the last month. To get us back up to speed, I'm providing briefer-than-usual cheese-tasting "blurbs," starting with my birthday purchase...

Cheese No. 16 - Frère Jacques

Killing time in Yorkville before catching a matinée of The Lives of Others on my birthday, I wandered into Pusateri's and picked out a nice piece of cheese on April 10th that ended up being quite tasty. I picked it sort of randomly: it looked good and the price was right. Turns out, it's another cheese with religious connections. This semi-soft cow's milk cheese is produced by Benedictine monks at the Saint-Benoit-du-lac Abbey in Quebec. According to the Abbey's website, "Saint Benedict said that to be a true monk, one must live by the work of one’s hands. Such work is meant to provide for the needs of the monastery and to maintain a happy balance of mind and body....The monks of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac assure their living above all by a cheese-factory, an orchard, a cider-factory, a farm and a store where their products are sold." These monks have been running a cheese factory since 1943!

Cheese No. 14 - 3-year-old Cheddar

I couldn't resist taking at least one photo of mouse and cheese - too goofy. Forgive me. According to my notes, I ate this mini-block on April 11th. The only other thing I wrote down was that it was "not as strong as the X-Old." Guess it wasn't that memorable.

Cheese No. 15 - Eweda Cru

I broke out the Eweda Cru on April 13th, this was the day I had to switch rooms, which was kind of traumatic in that I had to compress two rooms into one and give up my office. I thought eating some cheese might settle my stomach (but then I chased it with vitamins and coffee...) Anyway, I wrote down that the cheese was crumbly, slightly powdery, and not very "sheepy" at all. In fact, it reminded me of Asiago more than anything. It had a nice flavour: not so sharp, not that salty either - the website says "Comparable to: Young Pecorino Romano (but not as salty)" and a "traditional hard cheese."

I did find some time to poke around on the Ewenity Dairy Cooperative's website, mostly because I was curious about the raw milk thing. Essentially what this means is that the cheese is made from unpasteurised milk, which is okay because it's aged for just over 2 months. (Under Canadian law, any cheeses less than 60 days old must be pasteurised.) I also learned that sheep's milk contains more calcium, zinc and vitamins than other milks, which I suspect has to do with what the sheep eat. According to the website, the "main feedstuffs" of the co-op's sheep are "pasture (grasses, legumes, herbs and "weeds") and hay (dried pasture). At certain times of the year, the sheep are fed grain (barley, corn, oats or soybeans) as a supplement."