The Best Stinky Cheese for Thanksgiving
Last year around this time, we offered our suggestion for the perfect Thanksgiving Day cheese plate, one that featured five delicious American originals that ran the gamuts of taste and texture.
This year, given the economic environment, we decided to simplify down to a single, powerfully flavorful cheese. With all that other food on the table you definitely don't need an entire cheese plate; just serve a square of Maroilles along with your dessert course to top off the meal in the right way. It's the perfect fall cheese, with its red-orange rind the color of fallen leaves and an earthy, rich taste reminiscent of mushrooms and roasted vegetables.
Maroilles was allegedly created more than a thousand years ago by Trappist monks in the Abbaye de Maroilles in northern France. It is a cow's milk cheese whose rind is washed with brine during aging to promote the growth of Brevibacterium linens, an organism that gives the rind its distinctive color and the paste its distinctive flavor and supremely pungent odor.
Indeed Maroilles is a real stinker, so if you do decide to serve it to your stodgy in-laws over the holiday, please give them fair warning.
Remember, too, that a stinky cheese has a much milder taste than its smell would imply. But if you're into these kinds of cheeses (for example: Époisses, Livarot, Limburger, Pont-l'Évêque), Maroilles will not disappoint. Serve it with some apple cider or beer, which will pair better with this cheese than wine.
What other cheeses do you like serving with the turkey?
About the author: Jamie Forrest publishes Curdnerds.com from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife, his daughter, and his cheese.
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2 Comments:
I think the Maroilles looks similar to this Brebirousse d'Argental, a rich, gooey sheep's milk cheese from Burgundy. It would be perfect for Thanksgiving (although not very local!)
http://www.izzyeats.com/2008/11/izzys-cheese-selection.html
izzy's mama at 3:31PM on 11/26/08
I'm a big fan of Cowgirl Creamery cheeses, and after trying their SF Drake cheese (a oozing, triple cream that's been seasoned with spices), I'm going to say this is my new, go-to party cheese.
Yum.
Foodwoolf at 4:47PM on 11/26/08