Welcome to another edition of Cheeses What I Have Ate!!!1!
TALEGGIO D.O.P. is a wonderful cheese.
It are an Italian type cheese, in the alpine tradition. That means that when it was originally made, preservation was right up their list of wants. You want to make food what won't kill you when you come to eat it later in the year.
THE LOOKS
Taleggio has a dishonest hard rind, with a faintly orange colour. Inside though it is fairly soft, with a slight bounce and stretch. It has a proper smell, a strong but not nasty fragrance that reminds me of the head on a beer that's just turning.
THE EATS
To taste, there is a moderate creamy body under rich flavours of salt and beer. More proper like I should say it tastes yeasty, but I don't like that word much. Best way to describe it is as a kind of buttery mix of a well-flavoured wheat beer - like what the Germans make - and a touch of brine, like the salt on well-cooked bacon.It makes me think of sunny mornings and fry-ups and also how much I love LOVE LoVE Cheese.
REFLECTIONS ON THE CHEESE
I reckon the aromatics of this cheese will put off some of the wimps, but for the ones that man/woman right up and get on in there, it is a reassuring surprise. The flavour is not that strong, mild to moderate, and there are no sharp or high flavours like what you get with the blues or the harder Italian cheeses.BE NICE WITH
Fruity and natural sweet flavours would be proper lovely with this cheese. Jaffa Cakes work quite well as an accompaniment, though in general I think chocolate would overpower and not go right with it.Soft fruits and dried fruits are going to be a winner. For drinks, an un-oaked Chardonnay wouldn't go badly. Or a beer with lots of grain flavour. Fullers Honey Dew would be BANG UP IT.
If you are going to watch something while consummating with this cheese, I would recommend something comforting but with strong performances, like Perks of Being a Wallflower or About a Boy.
Acceptable listening material would be anything on the spectrum where like Toto are at one end and Radiohead at the other end. Progressive rock with folk influences works... keep it fruity and sweet, but not too fruity or sweet.
GET IT IN YOUR NECKS you won't regret it.
