Cheese rinds: To eat or not to eat?
Tia Keenan, fromager at Manhattan's Casellula Cheese and Wine Café, divides rinds into three categories: manmade (plastic or wax, as on Gouda) that should never be eaten, natural rinds not recommended (due to an unpleasant taste) and natural rinds that should always be eaten. Let's start with the third category -- rinds that should never be treated as fromage trash. Keenan explains that the rinds of bloomy rind cheeses like Camembert, Brie and Brillat-Savarin are a crucial part of their flavor profiles. According to her, choosing not to eat these rinds "is like eating a cake without the frosting or a pie without the crust."
Many food enthusiasts eat all natural rinds (which arise out of the same mold and bacteria that comprise the cheese) because they view them as part of the overall flavor. Sergio Hernandez, cheese expert and the manager of the soon-to-open Brooklyn Larder (an offshoot of the highly-acclaimed Franny's restaurant), states that eating the rinds of a cheese allows him to develop a "sense of memory."
"When I recognize a cheese just by smelling it," Hernandez says, "it is because I remember very specific things that I tasted in that rind." Keenen eats every single natural rind she encounters because they "can add great dimension and flavor to cheeses and are often a work of art."
In short, whether or not you want to eat all natural rind cheeses is a matter of taste, but keep in mind Keenan's words: "We know how hard cheesemakers work to make beautiful bloomy rinds, and it's heartbreaking to see someone dig the cheese out of the rind on a Camembert."
4-21-2009 @1:25PM lgk said... I have tried and tried to eat Brie rind. I just can't. I had one bad experience with a bite that filled my mouth with ammonia (a bad sign if there ever was one) and ever since, I shudder. How to move past it?
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4-21-2009 @1:56PM boss sauce said... I'm curious about how to tell (1) if a rind is in the first (man-made) category, and
(2) if a rind is in the second versus third category-- "not recommended" by whom?! It's good to know about these categories, but now I just want more info... and more cheese...;) I'm with Igk and wonder how to deal with the hints of ammonia in the "stinkiest" cheeses, either in the rind or the cheese itself? Or, should there never be ammonia in properly aged and handled cheese? So many questions, so many tasty cheeses...
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4-22-2009 @12:51AM Prokopton said... IGK . . . I hate to tell you this, but ANY hint of ammonia odor coming from properly packaged brie (or any cheese, for that matter)means its starting to go off.
When buying cheeses with an active fungal/bacterial culture -especially those with a bloomy or washed rind- in a supermarket, check the sell-by date and avoid those which have been packaged in airtight plastic by the manufacturer like the plague.
The cultures in most these cheeses give of ammonia as a metabolic by-product. With proper packaging, the cheese can "breath" and, unless overripe, the ammonia will volatilize away.
If you do buy shrink wrapped cheese though, allowing it to sit on a plate for an hour or or more so at room temperature before eating will do wonders for reducing ammonia content - sometime's the cheese isn't salvageable - but thats life.
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4-22-2009 @11:47AM Pye said... I love the comparison to eating cake and not eating the frosting. That's exactly what I do because I don't like frosting. Same thing with brie, I eat the cheese because I like it and avoid the rind because it tastes horrible in my opinion.
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4-24-2009 @11:06AM Max Shrem said... The best way to think of manmade rinds is to think of cheddars wrapped in wax or Gouda wrapped in plastic or wax. I’d like to echo what Prokopton said regarding ammonia – that is that the taste of ammonia is a sign of cheese decay.
That said, many cheeses smell of ammonia but taste delicious. If the cheese tastes of ammonia on the palate – bad sign – Stop Eating the Cheese! And, the smell of ammonia does not always mean the cheese has gone bad. First of all, this depends on how pungent the ammonia smell is. A cheese may have a hint of ammonia but taste delicious. If the ammonia smell is so strong that you can barely bring the cheese to your mouth, then the cheese is obviously no good.
I encourage people to always taste the cheese before purchasing it to make sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into.
Thanks for the comments and questions. Keep 'em comin'!
Max
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