The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: arobwk on October 04, 2019, 05:11:39 pm
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Now, I'm quite partial to a bit of goat or sheep milk cheese. However, I recently bought some Tesco spreadable (blended with cream) goat's cheese to apply to some rather fragile savoury biscuits. Oh dear - so "goaty" and remnants are now in the wormery. (I await the worms' verdict :) )
So, reason for post is to ask what makes one goat's cheese taste absolutely awful (like licking a goats' scratching post*) while others are an absolute flavoursome delight?
(*Obviously I made that up for dramatic effect.)
Also to say that the Tesco "spreadable" was no more spreadable than a nice moist un-adalterated goat/sheep curd so it is doubly a product that no one should be considering to buy.
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I dont know what the supermarkets do it it. Always seems to taste better from anywhere else.
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Genetics, feeding and hygiene are the three main reasons for goaty cheese. In France goats were bred for their "flavoursome" milk for cheese. Quite a few foods taint the milk, cabbage being a good example and poor hygiene is a big factor in tainting milk.
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Genetics, feeding and hygiene are the three main reasons for goaty cheese. In France goats were bred for their "flavoursome" milk for cheese. Quite a few foods taint the milk, cabbage being a good example and poor hygiene is a big factor in tainting milk.
Just checked packaging; it says "Made in France". So many other French goat cheeses I have tried (including others from Tesco) have been so good, so I reckon, Buttermilk, that Tesco must have gone for the cheapest French producer they could find for this product and reckoned that a bit of cream would take the edge off rank. They were wrong!
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Buttermilk's comment reminds me of a 'seeing practice' job I had as a student 55yrs ago in Norfolk. Local large dairy run by a cheapskate who fed his cattle on anything cheap he could get from the local cannery until the day all the customers complained about tainted milk 'cos he'd fed the herd on grapefruit rind..
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We've tried a few goat cheeses here and found the taste varies from OK to absolutely terrible. One we were given stank so badly when opened that it went straight outside, in a sealed bag, to the bin- that brand was supposed to be a great delicacy! We were told that if a Billy was anywhere near, his scent would get into the milk and be intensified in the cheese making process. Whether that's true I don't know.
Try Brebis, which is ewe's milk cheese. We've tried a dozen or so in the search for a replacement for English Cheddar and they vary from amazing to a hint of bitterness. Speciality of the Pyrenees. Now they sell English Cheddar in the supermarket- very expensive and not a patch on Brebis.
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Now, if we can have a cheddar flavour strength rating system, why not a goat cheese flavour rating. Any suggestions for 1 to 5 descriptions ?? :)
My suggestion for no. 5 is "Billy" strength: I bet that would then be absent from supermarket shelves (one can only hope) :D
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Surprisingly some people love strong flavoured cheese.
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Surprisingly some people love strong flavoured cheese.
The thing is, of course, that we have not (yet) been genetically homogenized to have identical taste-bud reactions.
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Surprisingly some people love strong flavoured cheese.
Many, many moons ago I used to get my cheese at the weekend from the cheese stall in the excellent Luton indoor market.
I’d hear them call, as they saw me approach, “Sally’s on her way, unchain her Brie!” There was one time they’d had to put it in a dish, it wouldn’t stay on a plate... :yum: