Cheese Primer

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Overview

A WORLD BEYOND BRIE

Brimming with knowledge, enthusiasm, and decided opinions, Steven Jenkins's CHEESE PRIMER is everything you need to know to judge, savor, choose, store, and serve the terrific variety of cheeses now available. He presents a region-by-region guide through France, Italy, and Switzerland, as well as the British Isles, Spain, the U.S., and other cheese-producing countries. Here are all the well- and little-known cheese worth exploring-and some surprising heavyweights you may want to avoid ) imported Brie, for example.


A complete primer, its features include pairing wine with cheese, orchestrating a ...

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More About This Book

Overview

A WORLD BEYOND BRIE

Brimming with knowledge, enthusiasm, and decided opinions, Steven Jenkins's CHEESE PRIMER is everything you need to know to judge, savor, choose, store, and serve the terrific variety of cheeses now available. He presents a region-by-region guide through France, Italy, and Switzerland, as well as the British Isles, Spain, the U.S., and other cheese-producing countries. Here are all the well- and little-known cheese worth exploring-and some surprising heavyweights you may want to avoid ) imported Brie, for example.


A complete primer, its features include pairing wine with cheese, orchestrating a cheese course, and local gems to seek when traveling abroad.

Steven Jenkins is the first American to be awarded France's prestigious Chevalier du Taste-Fromage. He has created and/or revamped the cheese counters at Dean & Deluca, the Fairway Market, Balducci's, and other celebrated fine food shops in New York and across the country. "A Broadway impresario hos' hit is food" (New York Times), Mr. Jenkins lives with his family in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
"Once ripened... the inner cheese becomes liquescent, bone-colored, and extraordinarily flavorful... nutty, beefier, and woody, with hints of peat, like a single malt Scotch from Islay. The cheese is tumescent, glistening." It may be cheese to you, but to Jenkins it's a perfect Teleme California cheese originally made by Greek immigrants. In 1973, Jenkins moved to New York City from Missouri to pursue dreams of acting-which explains how he came to run the cheese department at two of New York's gourmet meccas, Dean & DeLuca and Fairway. The first American invited into the the Guilde de St. Uguzon and a Chevalier du Taste-Fromage, Jenkins is really a missionary. After a lesson in cheesemaking from which readers can truly understand why washing the rind or cheddaring makes the end product taste different, Jenkins examines, country by country, the great cheeses of France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Britain, the U.S. and, in one fell swoop, Canada and the rest of the European cheese-making countries. He describes how they are found, served and what makes them great-or not. "Bel Paese," he notes, "is immensely popular because it is very mild (read bland)... I don't recommend it to my customers under any circumstances for any purpose." He takes a similarly unrelenting posture towards young Goudas or Provolones, but most of his ire is aimed at the mass produced cheeses and the misguided government regulations, like the USFDA's refusal to allow the importation of raw milk cheeses aged less than 60 days, that keep Americans ignorant of some of the world's great cheeses. Hence, this volume becomes partly a travel book as Jenkins urges Americans abroad to sample the forbidden. With unflagging enthusiasm and a seemingly endless reserve of information (much offered in boxes and sidebars), The author combines the romance and legend of an ancient craft with addresses, names, recipes and other hard facts. Jenkins employs prose as gloriously redolent, seductive and irresistible as his favorite cheeses to demonstrate how sight, smell and touch can be marshaled in the service of taste. Illustrations not seen by PW. BOMC featured alternate; 15-city author tour. (Nov.)
Library Journal
According to Webster, a primer is "a textbook that gives the first principles of any subject." Jenkins, an internationally recognized expert on cheese and a regular writer for food magazines, has produced just that. Though he opens with discussions of how cheese is made and how to buy and serve it, the bulk of the book is organized regionally into "tiers." The first tier includes France, Italy, and Switzerland; the second covers Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States; and the third takes in the rest of northern Europe, the Balkans, and Canada. The author suggests the best wine and cheese matches, offers an annotated directory of American cheesemakers, and ends with a quick reference index. Fairly exhaustive, this book is the perfect companion to the myriad recipe books for cheese. Recommended.-Wendy Miller, Lexington P.L., Ky.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780894807626
  • Publisher: Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
  • Publication date: 11/28/1996
  • Pages: 576
  • Sales rank: 102,665
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 1.13 (d)

Meet the Author

Steve Jenkins grew up in Columbia, Missouri. Upon graduation from high school he moved to New York City to pursue a career in acting. That was in 1973. While waiting for his big break into show-biz, he took a job in a cheese store. After a year he became manager, but he found retail rote; two years and a couple of minor soap opera roles later, he was fired for telling the owner he was in the store when he was actually in his apartment. Jenkins then met Joel Dean and Giorgio DeLuca, and became their first employee. He created a new sensory experience by liberating cheese from the confines of a refrigerator case at the now legendary Dean & DeLuca specialty food shop. He built pyramids of cheese atop the counter using hundreds of pounds of orange, rock-hard, aged Goudas. He used slabs of Carrara marble and wooden cutting boards to display Bries and heaped Pillivuyt porcelain souffle dishes with fresh goat cheese sprinkled with herbs and drizzled with olive oil. The more Steven learned about cheese, the more he realized that this country was sorely lacking in its selection of truly great cheeses. So he went to France in search of "real" cheese. On his return, his shipments from Rungis began to arrive--cheese the likes of which had never been tasted before in New York. Real Brie from Brie, and real Camembert from Normandy. The next six years he traveled frequently throughout the cheese-producing regions of France, Switzerland and Italy. Jenkins has created and/or revamped the cheese counters at Dean & DeLuca, the Fairway Market, Balducci's, and other celebrated fine food shops in New York and across the country. He has rejoined the Fairway Market. Jenkins was the first American to beawarded France's prestigious Chevalier du Taste Fromage and is frequent contibutor to Food Arts, Food & Wine, and the Gourmet Retailer. Since the publication of Cheese Primer in November 1996, Steve Jenkins has become a regular commentator on the National Public Radio Program The Splendid Table, and he was the recipient of the prestigious James Beard Award in the reference category for this book.

Read an Excerpt

The Cheeses

COMTE (GRUYERE DE COMTE)

The full name for Comte (cone-TAY), French Gruyere, is Gruyere de Comte (grew-YAIR or gree-AIR-duh-cone-TAY). Franche-Comte is adjacent to Switzerland just above Haute-Savoie and south of the Vosges in the Alsace Region. The original Gruyere was neither Swiss nor French (see box, page 115). But as the French became more and more nationalistic, and perhaps increasingly ethnocentric, they wanted their cheese to have its own identity. After all, it was somewhat different from the Swiss Gruyere: Occasionally it had pea- or cherry-size holes (eyes), it was a bit more straw-colored, a bit firmer, and the flavor was more nutlike. rather than call it French Gruyere, they began referring to it as Comte, or at the very least as Gruyere de Comte.

I find the Swiss Gruyere is a little granular and tastes a bit waxy, with some bite, whereas French Gruyere de Comte has more of an oily sweetness to it. I prefer the nuttier, toffee-tasting French variety, although both are great cheeses. The real difference between Swiss Gruyere and French Comte is: The Swiss allow their cheeses to go to market after only three months, whereas Comte is rarely aged for less than six months and often it is ages as long as a year.

Comte is used frequently in the cooking of the region and throughout France, appearing in quiches, onion soup--of course--and numerous tarts, onion gratins, and potato gratins. It is also considered an essential table cheese for eating out of hand or to finish a meal.

All French Comte is name-controlled and excellent. The "least best" example is that from the lowlands of Comte, because the milk used to make it just cannot approachthe quality of high Alpine pasture Franche-Comte milk. The grading of Comte before its release is stringent and only excellent cheese which have earned 14 (or more) out of 20 points on the grading scale are allowed to have their rinds stamped in green with the cheese name and the image of a bell. To identify the best you must taste; two good brands are Arnaud and Jura-Gruyere. There are no Comte factories; there are about 300 small dairies (fruitieres) that turn out an average of only six to seven cheeses a day. These are then sold to companies that are (affiner) them following rules established by the fruitieres. These affineurs (some of whom also make cheese) sell the cheeses they have ripened to retailers and exporters. Some Savoie-based producer/affineurs, namely Perrin and Delean, make fine mountain cheese similar to Comte but are primarily known for their indigenous Reblochon and Tomme de Savoie. Reybier, located in the Jura, is another firm with a reputation for distributing fine-quality Comte as well as other great cheeses of Franche-Comte and Savoie.

Wheels of Comte average 75 to 80 pounds (371/2 to 40 k) each and are only about 4 inches thick, whereas French Emmental, a regional kinsman, can be as much as 10 inches thick. The Comtes have parallel, flat faces, whereas Emmentals are great, convex, rounded balloons like inner tubes without the hole. Comtes are more than 3 feet in diameter with a beautiful brown, pebbled rind, and always a striking paper label.

Choosing and Serving Comte (Gruyere de Comte)

It's hard to come home with a less than perfect piece of Comte, one of the most enjoyable, versatile cheeses imaginable. Avoid any batch that is moldy or dried out, and don't let your cheesemonger sell you a hunk that has a disproportionate amount of rind.

It is preferable to have a piece of Comte cut for you rather than to purchase it pre-cut and pre-wrapped. (The cheese will have lost its perfume and some of its life, even if it was cut and wrapped only a day earlier.) Here is the only advisory needed: Don't buy old stock. The cheese should be a yellowish-ivory color inside, and the gray-brown pebbled rind should be uniform and intact, not cracked. Avoid any batch that shows more than one-half inch of darkness between the interior cheese and the outer crust-an indication of excessive drying. Don't let the purveyor cut you a piece too close to the side rind: Either insist on a piece closer to the center of the wheel or buy a long tranche (slab). You are paying mainly for the rind if your piece is surrounded on three sides. Don't be bothered by the horizontal fissures (lenures) in the cheese's interior near the rind. These are natural and are always found in Comte.

Use Comte anytime, any way--melt it, cube it, julienne it. However you treat it, know that Comte is a classic, all-purpose winner-as appropriate with salami and bread for lunch as it is an elegant after-dinner treat with fruit and any wine of your choosing.

Comte is superb as a snack--try it grated or thinly sliced on bread, toasted, and topped off with a twist of freshly ground black pepper. It is also excellent as a salad cheese--diced into the salad or served on the side.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction

Say Cheese

About Cheese

In Store and At Table

Buying and Serving Cheese

France

Normandy and Brittany

The North: Flanders, Artois, and Picardy

Champagne and Ile-de-France

Alsace and Lorraine

The Loire River-s Valleys and Tributaries

Burgundy

Franche-Comte

Savoie and Haute-Savoie

Perigord and Quercy

Auvergne and Rouergue (The Causses)

Dauphine and Provence

The Western Pyrenees: Basque Country and Bearn

Corsica

Italy

Piedmont

Lombardy

Friuli-Venezia Giulia and the Veneto

Emilia-Romagna

Tuscany, Umbria, and the Marches

The South

Sardinia and Sicily

Switzerland

The British Isles

Spain

The Northern Coast of Spain

The Spanish Pyrenees

The Eastern and Southeastern Coast

The Interior of Spain

Lesser-Known Cheese of Spain

USA

American Cheese Types

American Cheesemakers

A Mixed Plate

The Cheeses of Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria, the Balkans, and Canada

The Scandinavian Countries

The Netherlands

Belgium

Germany and Austria

The Balkan Countries

Canada

The Great Cheeses

An At-A-Glance Buying Guide for the World-s Finest Cheeses

Bibliography

Photography Credits

Index

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4.5
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Sort by: Showing all of 8 Customer Reviews

  • Posted October 23, 2008

    more from this reviewer

    Cheese-Tacular

    Easily the greatest cheese reference I have ever read. You will simply not find a more complete and comprehensive cheese compendium out there. Steven Jenkins is the undisputed master of all that is Cheese. This is the first and last Cheese book you will ever need.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 12, 2004

    Great, passionate cheese reference

    I love cheese, but this book actually got me excited about cheese. It is an amazing, passionate reference from someone who isn't afraid to say what's good and what's bad.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 20, 2004

    Excellent Resource

    There has never been an imported cheese I have encountered at any gourmet market in any US city that was not written up comprehensively in this tome. I am thoroughly impressed and use this book as a reference often! It never fails me.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted April 16, 2010

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    I Also Recommend:

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    Posted November 21, 2008

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    Posted December 27, 2009

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    Posted March 19, 2010

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