A Quick Guide to Cheese

Cheese. It is a superbly versatile food. We use it to high pizzas, to scatter our spaghetti, to spread on crackers. And with no cheese, a grilled cheese sandwich could be nothing but buttered toast.

Cheese is produced in many regions of the world, two of the most well known countries being France and Italy. There are many kinds of cheese, but they're all made in a similar manner. Milk and cream consist of 2 parts, the good milk fats, along with the whey. Cheese is produced by inducing the fats to come together, forming curds. This is achieved by adding acid or different bacteria to the cream or milk, causing it to curdle. The curds are then processed in various ways to form unique cheeses. The sort of cheese made depends on the sort of milk used, the proportion of fats in the milk, and the procedure used to create the cheese. Most cheeses include cow's milk, but cheeses are also made from goat's milk, sheep's milk, and actual mozzerella cheese is made of water buffalo milk. Cheese is generally categorized by it's feel, hard, semi-firm, semi-soft, or refreshing.

Hard cheeses are usually aged for 12 months or longer. They often have a sharp salty taste, and are excellent for grating over pasta or salads. Parmesan, Asiago, and Romano are examples of hard cheeses.

Semi-hard cheeses may or might not be aged. Generally speaking, the more the cheese ages, the sharper the taste will be. A taleggio, which merely ages for around 6 months will have a milder taste than a cheddar that has aged for months. Semi-firm cheeses are great melting cheeses, or great to eat by themselves.

Semi-soft cheeses like Camembert are great cheeses for spreading on crackers or crusty bread.

Fresh cheeses vary from a gentle cream cheese, to a rich creamy marscapone. These cheeses can be eaten spread on crackers, but are also commonly used for cooking desserts. Marscapone is a vital ingredient in tiramisu.

Whilst discussing cheese, we can not neglect to mention blue cheese, which is a cheese, with blue-green veins of mold, which gives the cheese a sharp taste and aroma. Blue cheeses include gorgonzola, roquefort, and stilton.

If you're going to be serving cheese as part of a cheese course, hard, semi-firm, and semi-soft cheeses shoud be permitted to stand at room temperature for an hour prior to serving. Fresh cheeses, should be served chilled. Choose three or four kinds of cheese, either cheeses with similar features and tastes, or contrasting cheeses. If you want, you can serve the cheese with crackers or crusty bread. Also some people today serve their cheeses with many different fruits, apples, pears, figs, and seedless grapes would be good options, in addition to shelled walnuts.

Whether you enjoy using cheese for cooking, or eating on it's own, cheese delivers it's own flavor and goodness.