The cheese board
I spent a little time tasting some cheeses today and decided that we needed a cheese tasting and commentary section on the web-site. If you find a cheese that you think is good, bad, over-priced, or in some way special to you; then please let us and our readers know about it.
Here is my first entry: Ardi Gasna
This cheese has an interesting flavour for me because of a cheap dish that Dave and I used to make during our college days that we called "goop" - it was just a cheap nacho-flavoured macaroni and cheese dish. With my first bite of this cheese the memory of that dish came flooding back - it actually took a couple more bites before the actual taste of the cheese would over-power the memory.
Ardi Gasna (Basque for sheep cheese) comes from the Basque region of France and is a firm andy creamy cheese, sort of like Fontina, that melts well (though at $22/lb. it is a bit pricey for this purpose); tastes really good in turkey sandwiches (good to know for after Thanksgiving); and has a sweet and spicey flavour from the minced Espelette chile bits that were mixed through the cheese before it was shaped. The rind is edible but does not do much to enhance the flavour of the cheese once it is ready to eat.
While it is a good eating cheese there is nothing about this cheese that makes it note-worthy for the cheese snob. Were it not for the memories that came back when I first bit into it I would not have brought it home and tried it out in the kitchen - though now that I have I am sure that I will go back to it from time to time for chicken and turkey sandwiches for some of my work lunches.
I got this from the cheese counter at my local New Season's grocery store.
(Espelette is not spelled correctly on the label.)
