Product Review: Pasture Pride Guusto cheese

The word juusto [1] is Finnish for "cheese", so that didn't really help me know what I was about to try. I learned from this blog that it is actually the Finnish cheese leipäjuusto (or ostbröd) which means "cheese bread". It gets this name from the fact that it's baked until a crust forms on the outside, much like a loaf of bread. It was originally made in the Lapland regions of Finland and Sweden using reindeer milk. Now it is more often made with cow or goat milk. This particular cheese is produced using goat milk. Leipäjuusto is properly eaten warm, so I microwaved it until it had a sheen of oil on it.[2] It's also traditionally eaten with coffee, but I don't drink coffee.[3]

My verdict: The cheese is squeaky and a little dry, so I definitely needed some fruit to eat with this cheese. The goaty flavor comes more as an aftertaste, but some would still find it to be too much. This is an okay cheese, but there are plenty that I like better.

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Notes:

[1] Guusto is an intentional misspelling for purposes of marketing. Pasture Pride also offers a cow milk-based variety of this cheese, which is sold as Juusto.

[2] About 10 seconds on high should be sufficient. If you go too long the cheese will dry out,

[3] For those who are unsure why Latter-day Saints (Mormons) abstain from coffee (as well as alcohol, tea, tobacco, and illegal drugs), I recommend you visit here and here, where you can learn more about LDS beliefs concerning dietary restrictions. If you have more questions, ask and maybe I'll do a full post on the topic.