Day Three Hundred and Ninety Nine : SCS Version 2.0, Dispatch # 1

It's a new month of State Country Spotlights and I thought we would focus on Spain and California. Both have fabulous cheeses being developed and produced in their respective regions and have great cheese histories! Yet each has a very characteristic cheesemaking style and over the course of our four weeks of cheeses from each, I hope you will get a handle on the Spanish and California perspective on cheese. Today I thought in honor of Springtime, we would look at two cheeses infused with aromatics / herbs today.

St Pat hails from Point Reyes Station, CA and is Cowgirl Creamery's seasonal Springtime cheese, traditionally released in early March. Hockey puck sized rounds of Jersey cow's milk are wrapped with stinging nettle leaves and consequently aged for three to four weeks. Upon aging you get a semi soft bloomy rind cow's milk cheese with a green exterior -- dense and cakey in the middle of the cheese yet oozy, creamy, and milky as you get closer to the rind. Unlike other bloomy rind cheeses which are very rich, round and butter forward, the nettle leaves that are on the exterior of this cheese lighten it up and cut through the weightiness! A great mixture of smoky vegetal herbaceousness and creamy richness -- truly unique in the cheese making world in terms of infusions.

Moving across the Atlantic ocean to the Southeastern region of Spain, more specifically -- Murcia, we come across the relatively newly developed cheese, Cabra Romero. A pasteurized goat's milk cheese that is coated in rosemary and aged for anywhere between two and four months. Firm ivory paste on the interior with a nice rosemary crust, this is herb infused cheese done right. Milky crisp lightness is offset with fabulous herbal rustic notes. A classic combination of flavor profiles done well, guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser.

Image courtesy of http://www.murrayscheese.com/

And that folks is our first California Spain SCS Dispatch. Interesting to remark of how the Californian is challenging our preconceived notions of herbal cheese infusions where as our Spaniard is going the tried and true route and doing it well.