The Cheese Lover's Cookbook and Guide: Over 100 Recipes, with Instructions on How to Buy, Store, and Serve All Your Favorite Cheeses: Over 150 Recipes ... Store, and Serve All Your Favorite Cheeses - Hardcover

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Paula Lambert founded the Mozzarella Company in Dallas in 1982, and has been creating and producing award-winning artisanal and specialty cheeses for restaurants and gourmet outlets all over America ever since. She teaches cooking classes across the country as well as in France, and is the author of The Cheese Lover's Cookbook and Guide. She lives in Dallas, Texas.

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The World of Cheese:

Cheese Types and Characteristics

The world of cheese can be confusing, especially when it comes to classifying or categorizing cheeses by types, because often cheeses belong to several families. Many distinctions exist, and there are many considerations. For example, Gorgonzola can fall into the washed-rind category or the semi-soft or semi-hard category, depending on its age and whether it is a Gorgonzola dolce or a Gorgonzola piccante. Simultaneously, it can be classified as a blue-veined cheese or even just an aged, ripened, or cured cheese, as opposed to a fresh cheese. To add further to the confusion, it may have been made in Italy or in the United States. So there really are many possibilities.

An easy way to approach this dilemma is to group cheeses into families according to their textures: soft, semi-soft, semi-firm, hard, and extra-hard. This would seem simple. However, soon you begin to realize that cheeses change and evolve during their lives, developing completely different textures. For instance, a cheese such as a Crottin de Chavignol begins soft but eventually becomes rock-hard with age. The flavors also change as a cheese matures, moving from mild to sharp. The exterior of a cheese undergoes many changes as well. Crottins, for example, begin without a rind and in time mature to have a moldy, crusty, dry blue rind.

Another approach is to classify cheeses by ripening method, in categories such as fresh, surface-ripened, and so on. They can be classified according to taste, such as mild to strong. A completely different system is to classify cheeses by country of origin. What then do you do, though, about the different Gruyères that are produced in Switzerland, France, Germany, Australia, and even the United States? Should you just call all cheeses of this type mountain cheeses, since they all originated in mountainous regions? Similarly, there could be a category for the monastery cheeses that originated in monasteries during the Middle Ages. And yet another category might be table cheeses, cheeses that are used daily for eating and cooking. There seem to be as many methods of classification are there are cheeses.

The classification system that seems to make the most sense for me is to go by texture with subclassifications of ripening methods, veining, and other distinguishing characteristics, such as pasta filata cheeses, whey cheeses, and high butterfat cheeses. I have developed some tables (see the Cheese Tables beginning on page 351) in which cheeses are sorted according to texture, flavor, and country of origin.

Soft Fresh Cheeses

Soft cheeses are usually mild and milky in flavor. These are fresh cheeses that are just a step away from being milk. They do not go through a ripening period or maturing process. Simple and delicate, they are often unsalted, and some are even considered bland. They are best consumed soon after they are made. Among the most popular is Cottage Cheese, made of skimmed-milk curds mixed with cream. Fromage Blanc, or Fromage Frais, is fresh, very soft, barely coagulated lactic curds that have been quickly drained and sometimes whipped. The Germans have a similar cheese called Quark. Cream Cheese is a somewhat drier fresh cheese made creamy and smooth with the addition of cream. Commercial renditions are whipped and stabilized with gums, but artisanal cream cheese can be found every now and then.

From northern Italy comes Crescenza or Stracchino, so called because it was originally made from the rich milk of cows who had just come down from a summer of mountain-top grazing. This cheese, a younger cousin of Taleggio and Gorgonzola, is quite mild and creamy. A similar cheese that also comes from northern Italy is Robiola.

Farmer Cheese can take several forms: It can be a crumbly cheese of curds similar to cottage cheese, without the cream. It can be drained in a basket or mold. Or it can be pressed into a cake for slicing. Mexican Queso Fresco or Queso Blanco is quite similar to farmer cheese or pot cheese, but it is pressed into a disk shape.

Semi-Soft Cheeses

Cheeses that fall into this category are often buttery and mild in flavor. They are good table cheeses.

Bel Paese, a popular semi-soft cheese, originated in northern Italy. Bel paese means "beautiful country," and the cheese is named for a book written by Antonio Stoppani; the name is a trademark of the Galbani company. Stoppani's portrait and a map of Italy are on the label of the cheese made in Italy, while the American-made version has a map of the Western hemisphere on its label. Quite similar are Caciottas, small cheeses that are made on farms by artisanal cheesemakers. In Italy, they are sold still fresh, usually at about ten days, when they are relatively bland. In Tuscany, small Caciottas are made from sheep milk and called Pecorino Toscano.

From the Low Countries comes Havarti, created by pioneer cheesemaker Hanne Nielsen in the mid-1800s. It has lots of tiny irregular eyes and is often flavored with herbs or spices. The original Havarti was a washed-rind cheese. It is quite similar to German Tilsit.

Tomme de Savoie is semi-soft when young but becomes firm with age. Many other washed-rind cheeses also fit into this category because they are usually semi-soft in texture.

Semi-Firm Cheeses

Most cheeses in this category are pressed to become firm. They are often mild when young, becoming more and more flavorful as they age. They also become much harder as they age, and some, like Gouda, eventually move into the extra-hard family. When young, they are very good table cheeses, which means that they are good for cooking and for eating as snacks and in sandwiches. Some of the cheeses have small irregular eyes, others do not.

From Italy come Asiago, a strongly flavored cheese with irregular holes; Fontina, a marvelous melting cheese; and Montasio, another good melting variety. Another interesting cheese that falls into this category is Umbriaco, which means "drunkard." It has been soaked in wine and matured with a coating of grape skins and seeds so that its rind is stained purple. From Holland come Edam, a small round cheese that is often coated with red wax, and Gouda, a larger and more complex cheese. Mahón comes from the island of Minorca. It's a very attractive cheese with a rind that has been rubbed with olive oil and paprika. Morbier is a French cheese that has a layer of ash running through the middle of the cheese, which traditionally separated the curds from the morning and evening milkings.

Tête de Moine, whose name means monk's head, is a semi-firm cheese from Switzerland. The cheese is eaten by scraping off layers from the top using a girolle, a device with a rotating blade that leaves the cheese resembling the bald spot on a monk's head. Raclette is another Swiss cheese. Traditionally it is served by placing it near a fire so that the face of the cheese softens and melts from the heat. It is then scraped off onto a plate and eaten with boiled new potatoes, pickled onions, and cornichons, tiny gherkin pickles. Morbier can also be enjoyed in this same way.

Dry Jack, also known as Dry Sonoma Jack, is a California cheese that fits into this category because it begins as a mild cheese and hardens with age to become a drier and more flavorful cheese.

Cheddar-Style Hard Cheeses

All cheeses in this family go through the cheddaring process, in which the curds are cut into pieces and stacked in the cheese vat to drain and mat together. The cheeses are firm-textured and have a clean, mellow taste when young, becoming sharp and tangy with age.

Cheeses in this family include first, of course, Cheddar. Cheddar is so named because it was originally made in the town of Cheddar in England. It is a cheese that dates back to ancient times. Although it originated...