Week 11 – Vella Dry Jack guest starring Dominic and Byron

I’m a weeks behind and severely slacking as my (two) readers pointed out (just kidding, I know that there are more than two of you out there right? Right?!). As I write this today, we are on the 13th week of the year, and I owe you two more posts.

A week ago Wednesday, I was in the mood to get hammered. Not because I was sad, or angry, or any other reason except that I felt like getting shitty. I had told the boys to come over Wednesday evening, and panicked Thursday morning that I had forgotten about cheese night and blown them off. It wasn’t until I brought up FB Messenger to apologize profusely that I realized that we did do cheese night, it was the entire evening that I forgot. So bear with me if this post is as hazy as my memory serves.

Dominic had picked up a Dry Jack and quince paste for cheese night. Now, I never do research on the cheese prior to trying them to avoid any predisposed notions on how and what it should taste like, so I was surprised to learn that the Dry Jack is an extra aged Monterey Jack (okay, I know that it has Jack in the name but that doesn’t mean well…jack).

There are several stories on how Monterey Jack got its name, one being that the Borondas family in Rancho Los Gatos poured their milk into a vice-like device that pressed the cheese as it was being made. They called that device a jack. The Borondas then sold their cheese to David Jacks, who had a local store.

David Jacks began shipping cheese out Monterey, California in 1882. He label his boxes with his last name, and the city of origin. People began asking for Jacks Monterey, eventually the ‘S’ was dropped and it became known as Monterey Jack.

Dry Jack came along by accident. In 1915, a wholesaler from San Francisco stored, and then forgot about, several wheels of fresh Monterey Jack. When he rediscovered the forgotten wheels, he found that the cheese now had a rich nutty flavor, and soon found an audience in Italian-American communities.

To be considered a Dry Jack, the Monterey cheese has to be aged at least seven months, and up to two years. Ig Vella’s father, Tom, began making Dry Jack in the 1920’s. He rubbed the cheese with a signature mix of oil, cocoa power, and black pepper, giving the rind purple-brown color. It’s this same recipe used to this day.

Quince, is a pome fruit, in the Rosaceae family (that also encompasses apples and pears) that is bright yellow, and has a similar pear shape. Quince paste is made by combining the pulp of the fruit and sugar. Traditionally quince from Portugal, Italy, and Spain, and is popular in many South American countries.

Our thoughts: I’ve never had quince before and thought that it tasted just like Haw Flakes (which, if you’ve never spent time in Hawaii you’ve probably never had, but it’s a popular Chinese sweet snack). The sweetness of the quince paired really well with the sharp and nutty flavor of the Dry Jack. I got a distinctly spicy flavor out of the cheese, one that the boys did not pick up on, and I attributed that to my inebriated state. However, after reading out the favors in the rind, it was definitely the pepper that I was picking up on.

Anyway, I never know how to end these, so here’s a photo from what we were watching on cheese night (YAASS QUEEN!).