cheeses to love
With the cheese There are no half measures, there are none. Wow, I can't conceive of anyone answering a "pachín, pachán" to the million dollar question: you like cheese?
And it is that as the really important things, or you love him with absolute devotion and enthusiasm (“Hello, my name is Jesús Terrés and I am addicted to cheese” —“We love you, Jesus”, say a group of people sitting around me in chorus while a man in a white coat takes notes and bites the cap of the pen, as if abstracted in his things) Or do you despise him like someone who despises despicable bosses: cauliflower, lupins or Donald Trump. God have mercy on you.
Let's go with the cheeses Jose Manuel Manglano , because today we will not talk about those undesirable lukewarm and 'cold breasts', but about good people, crazy and crazy about cheese like the eternal smile that awaits you behind Manglano delicatessens in the Central Market of Valencia and the Mercado de Colón (since 1945), heir to a century-old family of shopkeepers and who is, from my point of view, one of the best cheese shops in the world; And I've been to a few. These are his favorite cheeses:
BRIE DE MEAUX
Combining a different texture, creamy and somewhat elastic, with natural penicillium candidum, the intense aroma of nuts and the flavor of butter and nuts, along with the permanent surprise of the nuances (depending on the time of year in which it is made) of a cheese with an artisan philosophy and raw milk.
COMMITTEE OF 24 MONTHS
Can you imagine a cheese that needs more than 400 liters of milk to be manufactured? Comte, of raw alpine cow milk elaborated in the Jura mountains , is a cheese of some 35 kilos.
Being a cooked and pressed paste, if we do not extract the large proportion of the whey that is in the milk, we will obtain a texture that is too elastic. Removing 9 out of 10 parts of the milk, we will leave a high fat content that will be responsible for one of the butteriest textures. of a cheese of more than 24 months of maturation.
The toasted dried fruit aftertaste rounds it off as one of the most perfect cheeses in the world.
SERENA CAKE
The raw milk from Badajoz merino sheep it is rich in nuances of all kinds thanks to the green pastures of the area; but yes we also use natural rennet of thistle to ferment it, we provide sensations and unique nuances, acid and bitter touches of impressive living nature.
Bacteria and ferments, which convert its texture is one of the creamiest in the world, They also make this artisan product from the region of La Serena one of the great soft sheep cheeses.
Munster
MUNSTER
Formerly there were no means for conservation that were not natural. In the case of soft cheeses from Alsace, such as Munster, they combat attacks by insects rubbing the cheeses at least four days of the first week of life with spirits from the area . What happened is that this methodology grew every natural nuance of flavor from raw cow's milk , enhancing the flavors and bringing out new ones such as metallic touches and hints of toasted butter.
Today these conservation methods are not necessary, but if they were not replicated exactly, we would obtain cheeses totally different from the original ones. Thus, cheese by cheese is still rubbed by hand to achieve an unrepeatable result and a strong intensity.
CABRALES THE TEYEDU
The cheese refiner is little known in Spain, however, in Tielve (Asturias), Pepe Bada selects the best pieces and cares for them, educates them and evolves them until he achieves a different Cabrales, full of herbaceous and minty nuances, with a very unusual creamy texture and a fascinating homogeneity in its penicillium. The result, give an aggressive cheese an elegant character.
We also talk to Clara Diez, in front of Farming Cheese beside Ruben Valbuena (from Granja Cantagrullas), Los Quesos de Juan and La Jarradilla and also one of the most authentic and free voices in the panorama of fermented milk.
Clara Ten
Clara talks about the universe of cheese with the same respect and enthusiasm she that she does about architecture, design, music or crafts. It is that it comes to be the same: love for things well done. Her favorite cheeses are:
ESPARTO
Own ancestral recipe of the stain which, however, does not belong (and proud) to the PDO. A recipe custom designed by Felix Iniesta to maintain the own tradition of La Mancha, adding the twist that the cheesemaker considers (family heritage) to obtain as a result a sweet cheese, with roasted notes and, above all, fun and easy to eat.
SOUTH MOUNTAINS
Rind washed. Bodonal de la Sierra (Badajoz). This is the cheese that was talked about so much in the last tasting that we organized around the Spanish cheese dissemination project Es Queso.
A young married couple, settled in the mountains of Extremadura and convinced that yes it can be produced respecting the natural rhythms and supplying its cheese factory with the resources that nature puts at its disposal.
GOATFLOWER
Prepared by Judit in La Seu d'Urgell, this new order cheese maker does not have a cheese maker; he makes ''at home'' of others and matures the cheeses in a small cellar in his own house. The result: small batches of exquisite cheeses, fruit of slow work and knowledge of milk.
GAROA
Jon and Martina in Zerain, Guipúzcoa, are behind this peculiar cheese since it is made only during the months when its sheep graze in the valley , during the fall and winter. After the cold season they produce upstairs, in the mountains, where the grasses make their cheeses acquire totally different properties.
BROOJOS OF CANTAGRULLAS
Moldy rind, creamy, two months of maturation, raw milk, and very herbaceous nuances and not necessarily clean.
Long live the cheese!
Cheese love at first sight