European cheeses: holiday entertaining with the taste of travel

by Laurel Miller on

I work part-time in a cheese shop, and I’m also a contributing editor at culture, a consumer cheese magazine. I can’t help noticing that, despite a still-sluggish economy, people don’t want to do without their cheese. Especially if they’ve fallen for a specific type during their (usually European) travels.

Not everyone who bellies up to the counter is a globetrotter or a cheese geek, but they’re all eager to try new things and learn about the animals and cheesemakers responsible, and what, if any, cultural role certain cheeses play in their country of origin. It got me thinking: why not show Gadling readers how to do a bit of armchair travel to Europe via their local cheese shop?

Cheese has long been associated with revelry, in part because of its cozy compatibility with beer, wine, Champagne, and certain spirits. With the holiday season upon us, I put together a list of some delicious, versatile, affordable European imports that will make any small party more festive. The best part? You don’t need to be any kind of cheese wunderkind to put together a banging cheese plate (suggestions coming up).

[Photo credit: Flickr user cwbuecheler]

I usually allow about an ounce of each cheese per person, assuming there’s more food. If you’re throwing a big party, it may not be financially feasible to purchase certain products (and there’s nothing wrong with serving a mass-produced Gruyere or Gouda). Note that some styles of cheese are less dense than others, so depending upon price, you can get more dairy for your dollar.

If you can’t find these cheeses at your nearest grocery, Whole Foods (which have generally excellent cheese departments), or specialty shop, try online sources Murray’s Cheese, Cowgirl Creamery, Formaggio Kitchen, and Artisanal Premium Cheese. Click here for a national cheese retailer directory by zipcode.

In addition to picking some of my own favorites, I turned to one of culture’s co-founders, cheesemonger Thalassa Skinner of Napa’s Oxbow Cheese Merchant, for advice:

The Cheeses

France
Langres (cow): Traditionally served with Champagne poured over it (those decadent French!), this well-priced washed-rind is a little bit stinky, with a dense, creamy interior and tangy lactic finish. From the Langres plateau in the Champagne-Ardenne region.

Holland
Ewephoria (sheep): Nutty, rich, with a hint of crystallization, this butterscotchy Gouda will convert even the ambivalent into cheese aficionados.

Switzerland
Appenberger (cow): This buttery Alpine-style cheese from the Schweitzer Mittelland region has a faintly grassy tang. A surefire crowd-pleaser.

Italy
Robiola due latte (a blend of cow and sheep or goat’s milk): A rich, mold-ripened number with a slightly sour, mushroomy finish, from the dairy-rich Piedmont and Lombardy regions. Top imports include those by Perolari due Latti, Robiola Bosina, and Robiola delle Langhe.

Spain
Leonora (goat): A loaf-shaped, mold-ripened cheese from the northwestern village of León. Creamy, tangy, and delightful, with a blindingly white, dense, chewy interior.

Portugal
Azeitao (cow): Yeasty, full-flavored, with a slightly bitter finish; a beer-lover’s cheese. From the village of the same name, in the Arrabida Mountains, near Lisbon.

England
Stilton (cow): Colston-Bassett makes perhaps the finest version of this historic, earthy blue cheese. It’s a classic British holiday treat, produced in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire. Stichelton is the equally delicious, raw milk version; it’s a bit more fruity and crumbly. But for another British tradition, go for a robust Cheddar. Keen’s (cow) is buttery, with a horseradishy bite.

Ireland
Coolea (cow): This dense, buttery, Gouda-style from County Cork has a sharp, grassy finish. Unusual and delicious.

Belgium
Wavreumont (cow): A smooth, full-flavored, monastic-style washed rind. Trappist beer, anyone?

Cheese Plate 101

K.I.S.S.: This is a fun little acronym I learned in culinary school. It stands for, “Keep it Simple, Stupid.” A foofy, cluttered cheese plate with too many accompaniments just detracts from the headliner. You can keep sides as simple as some plain crackers or a baguette, or add toasted almonds, walnuts, or hazelnuts, and some preserves, or honeycomb or dried fruit or grapes or slices of pear or apple (in summer, use stonefruit such as peaches or cherries, or berries).

You can also go the savory route with dry-cured or green olives (Picholine are my favorite) and some salumi (add grainy mustard, cornichons, and a hearty rye bread for a winter supper). Forget the sundried tomatoes, pickled onions, pepperoncini, artichoke hearts, tapenade, stuffed peppers, or whatever else the local deli has in its antipasti bar. It’s overkill.

Stick to three to four cheeses that increase in intensity of flavor. You can do whatever you want: all blues, or all goat cheeses. For a diverse, well-rounded plate, try: One creamy/mild; one semi-soft or semi-firm with some kick, or a washed-rind/ surface-ripened; one hard-aged; one blue or something really punchy (taste this last, because the stronger flavors will obscure your palate). Your cheesemonger can help you pick things out and explain these terms to you, or click here for a glossary.

When pairing cheese with beer or wine, a rule of thumb is to match the intensity of flavor of the cheese to that of the beverage. The following are some suggestions for some of the more tricky, assertive cheeses.

Goat cheese: A good rosé will almost always work, as will a light German beer like Hoegaarden.

Big, stinky washed-rinds: Pair with sweet bubbly; the effervescence will help cleanse the palate and won’t compete with the flavor of the cheese. If you’re drinking beer, go with a light pilsner or lambic.

Blue cheeses: Go for a sweet dessert wine (not Port) or Lambic beer with fruit, such as framboise.

For additional cheese plate ideas, click here.

[Photo credits: Neal’s Yard, Flickr user foodmuse; Gouda, Flickr user manuel/MC; cow, Laurel Miller; grapes, Flickr user lakewentworth; goat, Laurel Miller]

Treasures of ancient Egypt discovered at bank

by Sean McLachlan on

The Al-Ahly Bank has recently handed over two hundred ancient Egyptian artifacts that have been sitting in safety deposit boxes for a century.

The artifacts were collected by expats and visitors in Egypt and deposited in the bank in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were never recovered and sat untouched for years. The artifacts include Islamic coins and statues of Egyptian deities such as Hathor, pictured here.

Egypt has been fighting for the return of archaeological treasures taken by various countries in the past. Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, has spearheaded the fight and got an unexpected victory when the bank announced it had artifacts and was handing them over.

The artifacts are now being studied and will hopefully appear in one of Egypt’s museums sometime soon.

[Image courtesy user Néfermaât via Wikimedia Commons. This is an image of a Hathor statue from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and not one of the recovered artifacts]

Teen sailor Jessica Watson barred from race

by Kraig Becker on

Jessica Watson, the Australian teenager who made headlines earlier this year by becoming the youngest person to ever circumnavigate the globe, has been barred from sailing in an upcoming yacht race because she doesn’t meet the age requirements for the event.

Watson, who completed her round-the-world voyage back in May, had hoped to compete in the Sydney to Hobart sailing race that will get underway on December 26th, but her application was denied because she is just 17 years old. The organizers of the race require that all participants be at least 18 years of age.

The annual race, which is a popular event in Australia, begins in the Sydney Harbor, and plays out over the Tasman Sea and Storm Bay before coming to an end in the city of Hobart on the island of Tasmania. This will be the 66th running of the yacht race, which typically takes about three days to complete and crosses through 725 miles of treacherous waters. Just how treacherous? Back in 1998, a deadly accident occurred during the event which killed six sailors and prompted officials to institute the minimum age policy.

While Jessica has expressed disappointment in not being able to sail in the event, she says that it will give her more time to prepare for next year’s race. She had hoped to set out with a crew of young teenage sailors who could join her on her latest adventure on the high seas, but instead she’ll watch from the sideline as 99 other ships, some as long as 100 feet and sporting crews of more than a thousand, will race for the championship.

[Photo credit: Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race]

Archaeological treasure trove found at Three Gorges Project in China

by Sean McLachlan on

Archaeologists excavating during the Three Gorges dam project in China have discovered nearly a quarter of a million artifacts, the state-run Xinhua News Agency says.

The world’s largest dam project has created a reservoir that’s 410 miles long and more than half a mile wide. Before that reservoir was flooded, China spent $285 million to hunt for cultural treasures, at times using teams of more than a thousand archaeologists. They’ve uncovered artifacts ranging from medieval statues to early stone tools two million years old. While the sites they came from are now lost beneath the water, the artifacts they yielded will give fresh insight into China’s long history.

Now museums across China are busy conserving the artifacts and hopefully soon many of them will be on display for China’s growing tourist industry.

The Three Gorges Project is itself becoming a tourist attraction. It’s the largest dam project in the world, and the largest electrical generating facility. It’s also highly controversial because it displaced 1.3 million people.

[Photo courtesy user Rehman via Wikimedia Commons]

Ten ways to travel like Qadhafi, according to Wikileaks diplomatic cables

by Tom Johansmeyer on


So, if you were a Middle Eastern strongman leader, how would you hit the town in New York City? I don’t know about you, but I’d want to do it with a real looker on my arm (and everywhere else). Apparently, that’s what Muammar al-Qadhafi has in mind. According to confidential diplomatic cables recently unearthed by Wikileaks and published by the NY Times, the Libyan leader prefers to travel in style. Specifically, he can’t “travel without his senior Ukrainian nurse, Galyna Klotnytska.”

The Wikileaks-released cable continues:

He also appears to have an intense dislike or fear of staying on upper floors, reportedly prefers not to fly over water, and seems to enjoy horse racing and flamenco dancing. His recent travel may also suggest a diminished dependence on his legendary female guard force, as only one woman bodyguard accompanied him to New York. End Summary.

So, what else is on Qadhafi’s list of travel necessities? Well, he makes the likes of Axl Rose seem pretty easy to accommodate. Here are ten of my favorites:1. A plan: Qadhafi doesn’t like leaving details to chance, it seems. Over his 40-year rule, the cable says, “arious proclivities and phobias began to reveal themselves in every logistical detail.”

2. Efficiency: why take a new picture for his visa? Qadhafi noted that he had portraits of himself on “hundreds of billboards” in Tripoli. Surely, one of them could be “shrunken to fit the application’s criteria.” (Eventually, he agreed to have his picture taken for the visa application, though.)

3. Ground floor: Qadhafi “must stay on the first floor of any facility that was rented for him.” I also prefer to stay on the first floor, preferring not to have to wait when I want to get back to my room. I also like a room near elevators when I can’t stay on the first floor.

4. Tents: no, not the kind that happens first thing in the morning when you wake up … Qadhfi actually wanted “accommodations with room to pitch [his] Bedouin tent … as it offers him a non-verbal way of communicating that he is a man close to his cultural
roots.”

5. Leg-stretching: the Libyan leader is not a fan of long flights and won’t stay in the air longer than eight hours. In fact, he stops in Portugal before heading all the way to New York. Qadhafi reportedly hates to fly over water.

6. His crew: Qadhafi, like most world leaders, doesn’t travel alone. In fact, he “appears to be almost obsessively dependent on a small core of trusted personnel.”

7. His ladies: Kolotnytska, the senior nurse and “voluptuous blonde” isn’t the only girl Qadhafi has in his life. He has a staff of four Ukrainian nurses, but Kolotnytska is his favorite. When problems appeared to be coming because of a late visa application, “the Libyan Government sent a private jet to ferry her from Libya to Portugal to meet up with the Leader during his rest-stop.”

8. Dancing: Qadhafi, apparently, is a fan of the arts. He loves to watch dance troupes, with one visit featuring some from the Ukraine, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco. He’s also enjoyed bands from Mexico, Russia and New Zealand, among others. However, Qadhafi has a soft spot for flamenco, once deciding to “stop in Seville (for a “personal trip” according to the Spanish Ambassador here) on his way back to Libya from Venezuela specifically to attend a flamenco dance performance.”

9. Security … not so much: once upon a time, Qadhafi’s female guards were part of his entourage. This isn’t really the case any more, with only one of the lovely ladies accompanying him.

10. Friends: it’s important to communicate with Qadhafi, it seems, because he’s been isolated so long. Like Shaft, the cable identifies the Libyan leader as “a complicated individual”. And, given the nurses and guards, the parallels with Shaft continue … “no one understands him but his woman …”


[photo by StartAgain via Flickr]