Cheese and Cracker Reviews

This year for our anniversary (we've been married for six years, now), Leann let me pick out a few new cheeses to try. I decided to go with Roaring Forties Blue, which is made by King's Island Dairy. It gets its name from the Roaring Forties gales, >100 kmph westerly winds that hit the King's Island, which lies between Australia and Tasmania on the 40th parallel south.[1] I also chose a cheddar-style cheese made right here in Wisconsin, called Pastures (shown to the right), from Saxon Creamery.[2] The third cheese I chose was Caerphilly, a crumbly white cheese from Wales.[3] To go with these I bought Milton's Crispy Sea Salt baked crackers.

My verdicts:  The Roaring Forties Blue was pretty mild compared to the other blue cheeses I've tried.[4] Because it has a wax rind it retained a lot of its moisture and was therefore very creamy. But the blue veins were a little more gritty than I like. Overall, not too bad, but my favorite blue cheese so far is Gorgonzola Piccante.[5]

The Pasture cheddar was an okay white cheddar. It was a little stinky but mostly forgettable. Leann said that eating it with the crackers was surprisingly similar to eating cheddar-flavored Goldfish crackers.

The Caerphilly was chalky and kind of bland. It had some stink to it, but nothing excessive. Overall, I thought it was kind of a boring cheese.

The Milton's crackers were buttery and crispy, but don't shatter when you bite them. They have a mild flavor which made them pair nicely with the various cheeses.

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Notes:

[1] See http://kingislanddairy.com.au/product detail/roaring-forties-blue/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring Forties.

[2] See http://www.saxoncreamery.com/online/our cheeses/pastures/.

[3] More details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caerphilly cheese.

[4] Read my reviews for Shropshire Blue (here) and Danish Blue (here).

[5] Review forthcoming.