Galet D’Albatre – Goats Cheese

Galet D’Albatre – Goats Cheese

Origin: Normandy, France Price: £4.65 per pebble What is it? A goats cheese that is mild and extremely fluffy with a sour edge What is in a name? The cheesemonger that furnished us with this beautiful, delicious cheese gave it a half-translated name of ‘le pebble normande’. ‘Albatre’ does exist in English (a pale, soft stone), presumably alluding to the surprisingly light and fluffy centre of this cheese. Guess he thinks the English aren’t as cultured as the French…so we’re going to call it Goaty McGoatface. cheese review The Cheese’s…

Red Leicester

Red Leicester

Origin: Leicestershire, England. We Paid: £1.99 per 100g, 2.62e per 100g Brief description: A very underrated, crumbly and rich cheese that Nigel Farage would be proud of. Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful cheese experience the oppression of the everyday Tesco value branding. We are here to liberate its reputation with a passion that could rival even the spirit of Donald Trump’s freedom cheerleaders. RED LEICE-STER, RED LEICE-STER, RED LEICE-STER Smell: Ellen: It smells like a farm. It has a complex smell that is earthy…

Munster

Munster

Origin: Munster We Paid: £1.50 per 100g.  2.04€ per 100g Quick Description: Christmas time, mistletoe and wein! During this fabulously festive period we present you with a (faguely) festive fromage – Munster, a gooey Alsatian cheese that stinks to high heavens. (If you’ll never get to heaven in a baked bean tin then you certainly won’t make it on this cheese because the smell would knock you out before you got there). Smell: It smells of feta when it’s gone off, wet socks and mouldy carpets. This ‘smell’ category has to come…

Dutch Farmhouse Cheese

Dutch Farmhouse Cheese

Origin: Nederland We paid: Nothing, it was a birthday present. Someone else paid €2.20 per 100g – only around £1.58 with the excellent (as long as you’re British) exchange rate at the moment. Brief description: A medium-hard cheese with an oily rind, both creamy and grainy texture and a strong classic flavour. WHAT THE DEVIL IS IT?: NOBODY SEEMS TO KNOW. It’s an oily cheese, claiming to be ‘FARMHOUSE MULDER PIQUANT’. After a few rounds of ‘This isn’t spicy though’, ‘why does it say piquant if there’s no chilli?’ we…

Black Cheddar

Black Cheddar

The night, dark corners, Izzy’s soul and… charcoal cheddar? Origin: Good ole motherland We paid: £2.12 per 100g The spookiest holiday of them all is upon us…Christmas!!! (Joking). In celebration, we made like Meg & Mog and flew our broomsticks to Chapel Allerton near Leeds to find some weird cheese. Please welcome to the stage English Cheddar mixed with charcoal (yes, actual charcoal). ‘Why?’ we hear you cry! Sorry fans, we have no idea. Freaky flavour: If Izzy was the North, and Ellen was the South Pacific then like Moses this…

Gruyère

Gruyère

Origin: Switzerland We paid: 2.43e per 100g Quick Description: A rubbery cheese often served melted. First sniff: This one only smells a little bit like old fridge which, compared to some stinky blues, is quite an achievement! Izzy even declared the smell as ‘appetising’, so it’s off to a good start as it certainly smells like something we want to eat. Strength: On a scale of one to the strength of the Incredible Hulk, we are putting this cheese on par with Neville Longbottom – although mild, it’s surprisingly powerful…

Burrata

Burrata

Origin: Southern Italy We paid: 1.96e per 100g (Disclaimer: It turns out Burrata goes off really REALLY quickly. If you include all the times you buy the cheese and let it go off before getting round to tasting it, then the price can rocket!) Texture: Although we expected a creamy cheese, the first thing that hit us both was the intense clotted cream-like texture. So much so, that an excerpt from Ellen’s notes reads ‘it’s almost like eating cream’ whilst Izzy wrote ‘liquidy, oozy and creamy’. After much meticulous research, it…

Figou

Figou

(The middle row of fig-shaped cheese is the figou!) Origin: Limoges – mid-France We paid: 5.10 euros per piece After many a trip to the, albeit vast, supermarket counter we decided to branch out and make the most of our final months in Bordeaux. After three months of gawping at the window of Fromagerie Deruelle on a little cobbled backstreet, and despite the infancy of this blog, we finally took a leap of faith and poured our souls out to Elodie. Luckily, she only thought we were mildly crazy and…

Comté (18 months)

Comté (18 months)

Origin: Eastern france We paid: 1.98e per 100g Texture: This is a perfectly medium-soft cheese with a spring in its step, akin to the Englishman’s best friend cheddar. Ours has basically melted in the 41 degree heat of Bordeaux… In the mouth it starts off solid but quickly dissolves into a soft, smooth velvet that tastes as expensive as Paris Hilton’s Juicy Couture tracksuit. Although creamy, there is still an element of the grittier texture of harder cheeses and like Westlife, these two textures work in perfect harmony. Taste: Bloody…

Ellen, Isobel & the Smorgasbord of Fromage

Ellen, Isobel & the Smorgasbord of Fromage

Ellen Moyse and Isobel Watson, of Rue d’Epicérie, Bordeaux, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense. Incredibrie Cheesy Isobel was a waitress at a pub called Punnings, which sold burgers. She was tall and blonde with a friendly smile, although not much of a talent for carrying trays. Ellen was small and also blonde and had nearly half the usual amount…