CHEESE NOTES

Jersey Blue

The Cheese plate of the day. On the plate, from 4:00 clockwise: Grimisuat (Goat), La Bouse (Cow), Valais Alpage Gomser (Cow), A Filetta (Sheep, see my separate entry on this stinker), Petit Gaugry (Cow, basically an Epoisses), and Jersey Blue.

The Jersey Blue is a relatively new award-winning blue from Willi Schmid. I’d had it stateside previously, purchased at Stinky’s, and it was interesting to see it in the case at Fromagerie La Grenette. Despite it’s American-sounding nomenclature it’s actually a German cheese, named after the breed of cow whose milk goes into it. 

High-res Enjoying a raw milk, Corsican sheeps-milk cheese named A Filetta, I was reminded of the french Asterix comics of my youth, specifically Asterix en Corse. Asterix informed my young views of many thing, including the imagined deliciousness of wild boar (and my desire to eat an entire one off the spit), and I can remember wanting to smell a real Corsican cheese to see if it was really capable of defeating an entire roman legion through it’s odor alone. Regarding the cheese, it was probably moments past a point and oozing on the plate, a delicious, meaty, pungent, barnyardy, dirty-socky, floral, grassy cheese, and I loved it, but there was no denying that smelling it up close was like napalming your nostrils. My 2.75 year old nephew, upon catching a whiff of the odors emanating from the middle of the table, looked at me and asked, very seriously, “Uncle Matt, why do you like stinky cheese?”. Someone else quipped that they felt like they’d been kicked in the face by a sheep. This particular kick in the face is one I’ll happily take seconds of. This was purchased at Fromagerie La Grenette in Conthey. Unfortunately the photo was a little dark and blurry.

Enjoying a raw milk, Corsican sheeps-milk cheese named A Filetta, I was reminded of the french Asterix comics of my youth, specifically Asterix en Corse. Asterix informed my young views of many thing, including the imagined deliciousness of wild boar (and my desire to eat an entire one off the spit), and I can remember wanting to smell a real Corsican cheese to see if it was really capable of defeating an entire roman legion through it’s odor alone.

Regarding the cheese, it was probably moments past a point and oozing on the plate, a delicious, meaty, pungent, barnyardy, dirty-socky, floral, grassy cheese, and I loved it, but there was no denying that smelling it up close was like napalming your nostrils. My 2.75 year old nephew, upon catching a whiff of the odors emanating from the middle of the table, looked at me and asked, very seriously, “Uncle Matt, why do you like stinky cheese?”. Someone else quipped that they felt like they’d been kicked in the face by a sheep. This particular kick in the face is one I’ll happily take seconds of.

This was purchased at Fromagerie La Grenette in Conthey. Unfortunately the photo was a little dark and blurry.