This week's SCS dispatch will focus on two cheeses that are quintessentially Italian and classically Wisconsin in their taste and flavor profiles. So shall we get going? Each of today's cheeses is not necessarily produced strictly by one farm, sometimes you will see multiple cheesemakers creating each of these two cheeses and leaving their particular mark on the cheese.
Brick is a classically Wisconsin cheese and dare I say, even a Wisconsin invention dating back to the late 1800s. It is reminiscent of say a German beer washed rind cheese, but yet not at all necessarily similar, shaped almost in the form of a brick hence its name. Made in three distinct styles, young, aged and washed rind. Young Brick style cheeses tend to be luscious, herbal, fruity, soft and creamy. With age, Brick tends to open up -- drier yet more dynamic, full of stinky barnyardy pungence for all the right reasons! The color in turn ranges from bright white and ivory to darker paler yellows. A true American invention, more specifically a moment of Wisconsin glory.
And what of its Italian counterpart?
We have all heard of Pecorino but have you heard of Pecorino Marzolino? A classic raw sheep's milk cheese is washed or more rather rubbed with the quintessential Italian tomatoes -- San Marzano -- giving the cheese a reddish tomato-y exterior color and a juicy, farmsteady, herbaceous and vegetal taste and aroma. And what of the white ivory interior? Silky smooth with buttery milky notes, round in taste, coating every ounce of one's mouth. The tomatoes impart a light finish that takes a rich cheese and turns into something more fanciful and playful. Enjoy with a glass of a light to medium bodied red, full of red fruit notes.
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