Day 455 : SCS Version 4.0, Dispatch # 1: In the Spotlight

For this version of our SCS spotlight, I thought I would focus on the cheesemakers of the Northeastern state, Massachusetts, that are sometimes overshadowed by Vermont, New York, and Connecticut cheesemakers and put them in the spotlight. For our European counterpart, I thought we should do the same -- focus on a country that doesn't always have the opportunity to be in the spotlight, so I chose Portugal. Over the next month, we will showcase four cheeses made from each of these places with the hopes of encouraging you to eat more Portuguese and Massachusetts crafted cheeses. So let's get going!

Today I aim to choose two cheeses that for me represent the excellence achieved in cheesemaking in each locale and are characteristic of the cheeses being produced in Massachusetts and Portugal.

The Classic Blue Log crafted by Bob Stetson and his wife at Westfield Farm in Hubbardston is our first Massachusetts cheese. Westfield Farm in central Mass has been crafting mainly goat cheeses and a few cow's milk cheeses since the early 1970s. Nowadays, weekly they produce about 1500 pounds of cheeses. Their Classic Blue Log is their signature cheese and boy is it striking in appearance and in taste -- a young fresh goat's milk cheese is covered in blue glaucum mold (the mold traditionally inoculated to create blue cheeses) and slightly aged. It is rich, creamy, grassy, and citrusy like any lightly aged goat's milk cheese would be but this cheese also has the dialed up tangy punch of a blue. An excellent melding of two distinctly different cheesemaking styles into one fabulous cheese.

Image courtesy of www.chevre.com

And what of our Portuguese counterpart this week?

How about Nisa?

Hailing from the Alentejo region of Portugal, this sheep's milk cheese is the perfect mixture of refined grace and rustic barnyardy-ness. How? It is a raw sheep's milk cheese that is crafted with thistle rennet imparting a vegetal, farmsteady fabulousness to the cheese. Why thistle? Well the cardoon thistle utilized in the production of this cheese grows wild in the region in which the cheese is crafted. Yellowish on the exterior, the interior is bright white ivory and paste-y with a floral nutty sweetness. An excellent example of the earthy cheesemaking styles coming out of Portugal. A versatile pairing partner for both red and white wines.

Image courtesy of www.murrayscheese.com