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RUSTIC BLUE
Available in half wheel (2 lbs.)
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Gold Medal, World Cheese Contest
Best American Cheese, World Cheese Contest
Flavors: A complex cheese which adds a new dimension to the world of blue cheeses. This is best described as an old-fashioned cheddar with the charm of blue. Judges have characterized it as nutty & chocolate, but it defies classification with other blues. Ed Behr (The Art of Eating) calls it "better than most Stilton" and Steve Jenkins (The Cheese Primer) says he "loves it". Laura Werlin (The New American Cheese) says that "they call it Rustic Blue, but the cheese is more elegant than the name suggests".
Aromas: Musty, fruity, cheddary, blue
Texture: Drier than most blue, never "wet". More like a crumbly cheddar.
Uses: Excellent melting cheese - the heat releases the smoky natural rind flavors. This blue cheese actually browns when toasted. Can be used as a table cheese (at room temperature), in fondues, pastas, steaks & burgers, home fries, crostini with figs or apricots, etc.
Make: Raw, non-homogenized, high-quality cow's milk is cultured, renneted with vegetarian rennet, curd cut, salt added and milled by hand. The curd is shoveled into forms and the forms flipped several times during the day to evenly distribute butterfat and drain whey. Curds knit overnight at room temperature in the forms.
Affinage: New cheeses are taken from the hoops, the surfaces smoothed and rolled in salt and aged for several weeks in the first aging cave. Then, the cheeses are pierced with stainless steel rods, and aged in a second aging cave to develop blue veining. After coring the cheese to determine proper bluing, the cheeses are transferred to a third aging environment for several months. In this third environment, the natural rind and complexity of flavor develops.
Awards:Gold Medal, 2002 World Cheese Awards, London, England
Best American Cheese, 2002 World Cheese Awards, London, England
Special Judge¹s Award, 2002 Mountain Cheeses Olympics, Saint-Vincent, Italy
Silver Medal, 2002 World Championship Cheese Contest, Madison, Wisconsin
Bronze Medal, 2001 United States Championship Cheese Contest, Madison, Wisconsin
Gold Medal, 2000 American Cheese Society Annual Competition, Napa Valley, California
Recently described in: Bon Appetit, Country Living, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post.
Famous orders: Conan O'Brien (at his wedding).
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