Week 2 – Extra-aged Gouda and Gruyere, guest starring Dana, Byron, and Dominic

This week, now armed with the cheese blog idea, we came better prepared with our taste buds sharp (hahah get it? Sharp? I promise this blog won’t be full of puns, I find them utterly cheesy. Okay, now I’ll stop.) and our maître fromager hats on (I literally just Googled ‘what’s a cheese expert called?’ The more you know!).

Also, quick break here before we get too into it, you might notice that Byron and Dominic get featured in a lot of these, they’re my next door neighbors and friends of like 15 years, so we hang out a lot. After I told them about the blog idea Byron very graciously offered to provide some art. You can thank him for my badass rat mascot, Francois, hopefully he’ll be popping up here from time to time. As the weeks go on I plan on having a revolving door of friends featured for cheese nights.

“This is the most adult thing I’ve ever done. Next up, a mortgage!’ - Dominic

Dominic bought a bottle of Spanish wine, and with that direction, I went to the store to find our pairing. After chatting with the cute guy behind the counter (was he wearing a wedding ring? Stupid latex gloves. Goddamn you health regulations! Also, it seems like a cruel joke that I’m at an age where I have to be looking for wedding rings anyway.) I landed on the extra-aged Gouda and gruyere to accompany our robust wine.

The Cheeses:

Extra-aged Gouda (top): The Gouda held together pretty well considering how crumbly it is. It’s a Dutch cheese, made from cow’s milk, extra-aged 3-4 years (a typical Gouda its aged anywhere from 1-3 years).

It’s distinctly salty and crunchy, which I thought was actual salt we were crunching on, when in fact it’s ‘cheese crystals’. Cheese crystals are made up of different substances, but largely comprised of calcium lactate (which is essentially, salt). Fun fact! Calcium lactate is also used in some mouthwashes, gum containing xylitol, cantaloupes, and some sugar-free foods.

To complement the salty flavor, the Gouda has sweet undertones. Out of the two cheeses we tried that night, this one was far and away my favorite.

Gruyere (bottom): Gruyère cheese is a hard cow cheese named after Gruyères, and hails from the cantons of Switzerland. A typical gruyere cheese is aged from 5-12 months, and is popular for baking, fondue, French onion soup, and chicken cordon bleus (to name a few).

The process of making Gruyère cheese sounds pretty unappealing to be frank. It involves curdling raw milk, salting with brine, and covering in bacteria. After that process, the cheese ripens for two months, turning every couple of days for moisture distribution. The longer the curing the more intense flavor produced.

Our Gruyère was ‘cave-aged’ for 12-14 months. Cave-aging is exactly what it sounds like. The cheese is placed in a cloth, and then taken deep into caves and are left there to cure. The longer it stays in the cave the more ‘earthy’ flavor the cheese will possess.

I’ve read a couple of descriptions online for Gruyère and it’s been described as ‘creamy, fruity, and nutty’. That was not our take away at all. In fact, our Gruyère was distinctly fishy in flavor. Dana used the word ‘umami’ to describe it and I don’t think I could have come up with a better word. Umami is a Japanese word that can be roughly translated as "pleasant savory taste" and is distinctly separate from the other sensory tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, and salt). The fishy flavor had the crowd divided, Byron and I did not care for this one as much as the others we’ve tasted.

We enjoy each other’s company, I swear.

“I really want to go to church tomorrow.” “Like, the hipster bar?” “No…like the Roman Catholic Church.”

Deep conversations between Dom and I.

Byron’s review:

Extra-aged Gouda: “Absurd, yet flaccid.” Gruyere: “Like a delicious cardboard, with hints of pulp.”

Byron should really have his own section of reviews. He is famously known for ‘Byron-isms’; trying to describe something in a positive way using the most un-positive descriptors. Once when we were kids he told me that the song ‘Creep’ by Radiohead reminded him of me. When I balked, he had to clarify–he was the creep. That one stuck with me.