Cheese lifestyle, reviews and recommendations
Leaving behind the stifling uniformity of five types of Brie, and the punishing farminess of three washed-rind cheeses, we turn at last to the most varied (and in my view most enjoyable) group stage of the Tesco Soft Bovine Board:… Continue reading "Group 3 – Mould-ripened"
For many long months, I have lain awake at night pondering the relative merits of two extremely similar cheeses: Tesco Finest Époisses and Tesco Finest Langres. Now, at last, they meet head-to-head on the glorious arena of the Tesco Soft… Continue reading "Group 2 – Washed-Rind"
This is the first group stage for the Tesco Soft Bovine Board. Five Brie competed head-to-head for the one place up for grabs on the final board. Brie is a mild, soft-ripened cheese originating in France, with a soft, spreadable… Continue reading "Group 1 – Brie"
Hype is building for the Spring edition of the Tesco Soft Bovine Board (colloquially: “the bove board”). This festival of cheeses that are strictly: from Tesco; lactated by cows; below a certain minimal sheer modulus; requires careful preparation. You might… Continue reading "Tesco Soft Bovine Board – Introduction"
Seldom does a fairly plain cheese cracker provide such a rollercoaster ride of dashed hopes and unexpected joys. I initially purchased these primarily to sneer at their aggressively hipster marketing – all jaunty arrows, umlautted Scandinavian heritage and hygge –… Continue reading "Fro Sourdough With Sea Salt Crackers (Tesco)"
It is on the face of it absurd that heating ice turns it into water. You’re trying to tell me that the iron-hard crystalline scourge of hubris-laden passenger liners, a formidable foe even for Vladimir Putin’s fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers,… Continue reading "Halloumi (Tesco)"
Culinary folklore has it that the pungent Époisses cheese possesses a stench so foetid its transportation on some public transport networks in France is outlawed. Now, I am an avid fan of any cheese that threatens either my health or… Continue reading "Époisses (Tesco Finest)"
Saint-Félicien is a deliciously creamy soft cow’s-milk cheese. The nearest mass-market touchstone is a really creamy Brie, and this cheese belongs to the same soft-ripened family, but that doesn’t do justice to its excellent subtle flavour. To eat a Saint-Félicien… Continue reading "Saint-Félicien (Tesco Finest)"
Overall this was a pretty successful and well-balanced board. There was good variety across the milk-giving-animal spectrum, with a soft suprabovine focus which yielded quite a sharp and tasty selection of cheeses. This led to horrendous flavour clashes with grapes,… Continue reading "Christmas Cheese Board Review"
Deciding between a “tall” vs “wide” biscuit strategy for accompanying cheese is always a complex challenge. A “tall” biscuit selection uses a highly-restricted number of mono-type cheese biscuit packets. Usually, one would pair a very small number of high-quality artisan… Continue reading "Biscuits for Cheese (Marks and Spencer)"