See my previous post https://tiabr.com/ufco/ for how this started.
I was impatient, couldn’t wait for more than eight months.
It got another rub. Then an infestation of cheese mites, not necessarily a bad thing!
The always fraught cutting:
I was a bit surprised to see some cracks/gaps in the paste, but they don’t seem to have affected the flavour.
But, you ask, how did it taste?
Much better than I expected! So different from a cheddar . . . the first thing that hits your palate is the sweetness of the paste, but then comes in roaring like a train a burst of (still sweet) complexity, so in the sense of the succession of the tastes, a bit like an aged cheddar, but IMO better.
Now I’ll have both Cheshire and aged Edam in my fridge. I’m a lucky guy!
-R
Cheese mites! Why are they not a bad thing?
They aren’t a good thing, but not necessarily bad either. In fact, one French cheese (Mimolette, incidentally originally a French version of Edam) has cheese mites deliberately introduced, because they think it contributes to the flavor.
Mostly in cheesemaking they show up as a sort of “dust” on the cheese, probably a mix of dead mites and their poop. I just brush it off. It’s just healthy protein.
. . . and you’ve probably had worse things in your mouth!
-R