Week 8 – Irish Porter Cheddar and Winey Goat, guest starring Byron and Dominic

The boys came over late on Sunday for cheese night and to get caught up on our shows (Broad City is back, YAASS QUEEN! And is anyone else watching Vinyl? From the minds of Jagger and Scorsese it’s a period piece set in the 70’s revolving around an American record label. It’s some of the most beautiful and surreal television I have ever seen).

Byron was ever so kind and provided the wine and cheeses for the evening, picking out interesting and visually stunning cheeses. And delicious to boot. For this week, we had an Irish Porter Cheddar and Winey Goat (I swear that’s the name) paired with a Red Diamond Cabernet Sauvignon.

Irish Porter Cheddar:

Irish Porter Cheddar is a semi-hard cow’s milk cheese from the Limerick region of Ireland. To honor its region, here’s a limerick for you:

We once tried Porter Cheddar,

And exclaimed ‘it couldn’t be better!

We admired and chewed,

And nobody booed,

And it hit the spot to the letter!

Okay, so I’ll never be a poet, but you get the idea. The Cahill family has been producing this cheese since 1759, using unpasteurized cow's milk and porter beer. The mixture of curds and porter give it it's signature pattern, which kind of crumbles when you take a bite. Fun fact! This cheese is vegetarian friendly because a vegetable rennet is used in the cheese making process.

Wait, come again? No, you read that right. Most cheeses are not considered truly vegetarian due to rennet. Rennet is a complex of enzymes produced in the stomachs of ruminant mammals (animals such as cows or sheep that ferment plant-based food it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion). Rennet causes the proteins in the milk to form a curd and allows the liquid to separate and run off as whey.

Our thoughts:

Obviously it's beautiful. The rind (if you'd call it a rind, I don't know in this case) has a real waxy quality to it, but doesn't come across in the flavor. It tastes like a sharp cheddar, with the porter giving it rich, creamy, and sweet tones. Would pair great with a stout beer. The interwebz say that the cheese goes great in salads, which I can understand as its similar to a bleu cheese. Not that they taste the same (I don't really care for bleu much), but they are both a crumbly cheese with the right balance of sweet to tangy flavor.

Winey Goat Cheese:

At first glance this cheese looks very similar to the Ubriaco Al Vino from last week, however, that is where their similarities end. Whiney Goat Cheese is produced in the Murica (I know there's a 'Murica joke in here somewhere) region of Spain. The combination of grasses, shrubs, and herbs that the goat graze on in this region give this cheese is distinct flavor. During the ripening process, this cheese is washed in red wine, giving the rind it's purple coloring.

Our thoughts:

My initial reaction was that it tasted like Parmesan. And I've eaten a fair amount of Parmesan. By the handful. From the bag. Standing in front of the refrigerator. But enough about me. Byron noted immediately how much of the wine flavor the rind carried, whereas I didn't necessarily get that. I found the rind to be pretty mild while Byron thought it was "almost too sweet, like a cake'. (To be fair, the words 'too sweet' don't exist in my palate's vocabulary). The more I ate the more sour and creamy it began to taste. Dominic sat silently while breaking mouse size bites to quite literally nibble on.

On a different note, in my first post a made a list of cheeses I was not going to write about and I'm throwing that out the window. Byron asking me about what makes a cheddar got me thinking back to it. Just because it's a cheese that gets commonly eaten doesn't mean that- A. there isn't a new way to try it, or B. that there isn't interesting history behind it. Like, why does Swiss cheese have holes? Or, what exactly is cream cheese? Is it a cheese? For those answers you'll just have to keep coming back, or you know...Google it.

Earlier in the night Dominic was commenting on how much he liked the cheese, but since he doesn’t know anything about cheese ‘it could be the Hersey’s of cheeses and[he] wouldn’t know the difference’. So for Dominic’s secret guest this week he chose ‘the Hersey’s of actors’, James Franco.