Author: Ellen Moyse

Dutch Farmhouse Cheese

Ellen Moyse
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

Ellen Moyse
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

Ellen Moyse
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

Ellen Moyse
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

Ellen Moyse
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)

Ellen Moyse
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…