Cheesy Christmas 2: Coulommiers

It’s Day 35 of lockdown … and Day 2 of a Cheesy Christmas.

Today’s cheese is one that we’ve purchased before at the local grocery store, so it wasn’t as much of a discovery as yesterday’s Coeur de Pomm.

I’ll tell you about it, but let me also relay a few cheese-tasting tips from the booklet that accompanied our cheeses…

Cheese Tasting

The good folks at LaBoxFromage suggest 3 steps to ensure a proper experience:

Keep Cool: Cheese should be kept in the fridge or an unheated space, between 6-8˚C (43-46˚F). Take it out just prior to beginning your meal so that, while you eat, it will warm up just enough (Reminder: typically the French serve cheese between the main courses and dessert).
Observe & Smell: First thing’s first, note the shape, the rind, the undercrust, the colour and the coating (if for example it’s been coated). What do you see? Next, get in a little closer and inhale slowly. What smell do you detect? Strong? Mild?
Taste: After observing and smelling the cheese, your mouth should be watering. Now’s the time to take a bite, BUT … go slow and, for your first bite, don’t immediately combine it with bread or crackers. You want to only taste the cheese. The flavours and aromas will change as you chew. The aftertaste may be something different altogether.

Looking for a more precise vocabulary for describing various cheeses? Food52’s article How to Talk About Cheese is a nice middle ground between ‘slightly high-brow’ and ‘not overly technical’.

Day #2: Coulommiers

Name: Coulommiers
A smaller but thicker, and lesser-known, ‘cousin’ of Brie cheese. Cheese.com suggests serving it with apples, pears or fresh berries, and like Brie, the white, bloomy rind is edible.
Region: Originally from the village of Coulommiers, in the Seine et Marne region. (South-East of Paris) It’s said that in 1930, there were 250 cheesemakers producing Coulommiers cheese in the village.
Milk: Cow’s milk, non-pasteurized
Our Score: 3.5/5
Not as high as yesterday, but again, likely because it wasn’t as much of a discovery. It was a bit of a ‘known commodity’ and Timo didn’t quite find the nutty aroma to his liking. Liz & I quite liked it though. Bite #2 went down with fresh baguette!