Frequently Asked Questions...

D

o I eat the rind?

first and foremost, eat what you want.  Some people don’t enjoy the rind because its flavor is more concentrated or its texture provides too much of a contrast.  Our general guidelines: If you’re not sure, eat your cheese from the inside out.  The flavors will be stronger closed you get to the rind, and if you don’t like the paste just beneath the rind, you probably won’t like the rind itself.  When deciding whether or not to eat the rind, we think of skins versus crusts. Skins are meant to be eaten, crusts are optional.

Types of Cheese: Fresh, bloomy, washed-rind, some blues.

Skin: If the rind is soft and appears to be a cohesive part of the cheese, even it it’s blanketed in a downy coat of mold or covered in a thick, glistening smear of orange, go for it. For cheese like Brie or Taleggio, much of the aroma and flavor come from the mold or the bacteria of the rind.

Types of Cheese: Semisoft, firm, some blues

Damp crust: If the rind is thick, ridged, and smells like wet earth, you’re less likely to enjoy it.  The rinds on Tomme de Savoie or Saint-Nectaire tend to taste like their aromas: wet straw, earth, hay. They’re rustic, to say the least.  Also, with a thicker rind, which can feel gritty in the mouth, there will be a marked textural contrast.

How can I best store cheese?

 Our number one recommendation is to buy smaller pieces of cheese more often, because a reputable cheesemonger is better equipped to store cheese. That said, here are our guidelines for home storage.

Wrapping

Most references will tell you never, never wrap your cheese in plastic wrap. And with good reason. If you’re like us, you buy a bunch of cheese, put in your fridge and forget about it for two weeks. By then, the cheese has been tightly wrapped, never seeing the light of day, never getting any fresh air, and it has died of suffocation. Seriously. Cheese is a living food. It needs to breathe. The rind on bloomy and washed rind cheese cannot survive without oxygen. The exposed surface of Parmigiano-Reggiano will get sweaty and then dry out without fresh air.

But for most people at home, what are our choices?

We say: Be realistic.  Wrap first in wax paper to protect the surface of a cheese, and then in plastic wrap or foil to ensure it can’t dry out.  Promise not to forget about the cheese.  Change its wrapping every couple of days, which also give an excuse to nab a small bite. 

Foil alone is okay for higher-moisture blue cheeses. 

Storage and Aging

The vegetable drawer is slightly warmer and moister than then rest of the fridge, and so provides a less hostile environment. Plus, it prevents cross-contamination of flavors and aromas with other food with in your fridge.

Special cheese cellars and refrigerators are a hot trend right now, but we’ve had respectable success “aging” cheese the old fashioned way. Take a plastic storage container, line it with a damp paper towel, and poke holes in the lid for air.  It’s the perfect abode for a cheese that’s not quite ripe.

Shelf Life

The life of a cheese depends on the type.

Here is a rough guide by type:

Fresh:             7 days

Bloomy:           10-12 days

Semisoft:        14 days

Washed rind:   10-14 days
Firm:              14-20 days

Hard:              up to a month

Blue:               10-14 days

If your firm or hard cheese develop blue or green surface mold, the cheese is not lost. Simply scrape off and enjoy. That same surface mold in a store is a sign that the cheese has been sitting around for too long after being cut.

If you have a bigger piece of cheese, you may want to cut off a thin slice that was next to the foil or wax paper/plastic wrapping. We call this “facing” and it simply exposes new, fresh cheese underneath.

Old cheeses won’t hurt you, it just won’t taste as good as it could.

Excerpted from:

The Murray’s Cheese Handbook by Rob Kaufelt.