Fromage Me: Of Delicious Mouldy Cheeses

J & I meant to go for a walk last night until it started raining; but we were determined to get out of the house after spending an entire lazy Sunday afternoon glued to our computer screens and clicking away incessantly at our virtual farms on Farmville, Facebook, our new found hobby. Tsk tsk tsk…..

So we drove to the nearest Woolworths and decided to stroll through every single aisle just to pass time. And what ended in my basket? Two types of cheeses; stinky but oh so lovely blue cheese and creamy white double brie. I only bought the latter because J looked hesitant when I excitedly waved a blue-veined mould infested cheese in his face. I swear there was a slight gulp of trepidation there. He is slowly (creepingly slow) warming up to eating blue cheese because hey, apparently the same bacteria used to encouraged the edible mould growth on the cheese is the same that causes foot odour! Ok, I have probably killed your appetite with that description but think of it as Durian to westerners, damn stinky to most but a delicious delicacy to us; it’s a pretty similar case with blue cheese. It’s an acquired taste and fortunately my aunty introduced me to the wonderful world of mouldy cheeses when I was 14. Surprisingly, I fell in love with the blue cheese pretty quickly even though my cousin described its smell as being akin to a squished ant. (Don’t ask) 😆

Let me recount a funny blue cheese moment when I first came to Melbourne. That very same cousin (who in fact loves blue cheese) came to visit me at a share-house I was living in at that time with 8 other girls. I can’t remember if he brought the cheese or I bought it, but we couldn’t wait to tuck into cheese on crackers, in my room! Now, the window was open and Room 8 is right next door. We unwrapped the mouldy thing and were practically oohing and aahing with each bite. Then came a knock on the door and a very disturbed expression on my housemate’s face. (My cousin is hidden from her view) “Hey, do you smell that? Something stinks! Urghhhh..What is that smell?” I shrugged my shoulders and replied innocently “I don’t know?” And there she went looking for the source and I chided my cousin with something like “Crap! next time, we have to take our blue cheese outdoors!” Heheheheh…

Back to my cheese purchase, I bought both blue cheese and brie from the King Island Dairy brand. King Island is located between Victoria and Tasmania and I picked the award winning Roaring Forties Blue Cheese and the Cape Wickham Double Brie. I enjoyed both cheeses tremendously. The blue cheese draws its pungency from the blue-vein mould which is accompanied with a long creamy, crumbly texture and almost a sweet, nutty flavour. I complemented this with pear slices and pungent micro mustard cress which J is growing in our teacup and saucer pot . The brie was light and well-balanced in flavour, beautifully creamy and slightly soft in the centre. I had this with tuna in olive oil and one kalamata olive and a little bit of cracked black pepper.

I think I was momentarily, blissfully content sitting by the sun-kissed window eating my lunch of fromage to the sounds of George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’. Indeed it was; just me and my cheese. Mmmmm….