The Cheese Course: A Quick Primer

Supermarket cheese and boxed crackers just won’t cut it anymore. The cheese course has gone upscale, helped along by the huge influx of cheese imports from Europe, and the boom in artisan cheesemaking in the U.S. A beautifully garnished cheese tray provides the “wow” moment at many dinner parties today, whether it’s served after the main course, in the French fashion, or at the start of the party, with drinks.

Shop for cheese with an open mind; don’t go with a shopping list. If you have your heart set on Taleggio but find that the Taleggio is underripe or over the hill, choose another cheese. Like produce, cheese is seasonal and a living, changing food. It has a period of peak condition—which may last for days or weeks—and then a period of decline. Your cheese course will be most compelling if you buy what looks—and tastes--best in the shop that day.

Keep variety in mind. A satisfying cheese tray offers a diversity of taste experiences. Look for variety in texture, flavor, maturity, milk source (cow, goat or sheep), appearance and style. Contrast a soft, creamy cow’s milk cheese with a hard sheep’s milk cheese. Purchase a round, a pyramid and a wedge for visual variety.

That said, it can also be enlightening to set up a comparison tasting, as wine aficionados do when they taste French Burgundies and New World Pinot Noirs side by side. You might juxtapose English and Vermont Cheddars, for example, or an Oregon blue cheese with an Italian blue. And don’t hesitate to design a cheese course around one perfect cheese and its ideal wine companion—a creamy wedge of Roquefort, for example, with a bottle of Sauternes. Simple but classy.

If you serve your cheese course family style, make sure that each cheese has breathing room on the tray and its own knife. Nobody should have to cut goat cheese with a knife that previously cut a blue. Alternatively, if you don’t have a lot of room at your dining table, consider cutting and plating the cheeses for each guest, so that every diner receives a taste of each selection.

Specialty stores offer endless condiments to dress up your cheese course. Consider some of the following timeless pairings:

• Fresh goat cheese or feta with olives and roasted peppers
• Triple-cream cheese such as Brillat-Savarin with walnut bread
• Blue cheeses with honeycomb and roasted hazelnuts; or with dried fruit, fig marmalade or mostarda (a spicy Italian fruit preserve)
• Aged sheep’s milk cheeses, such as Zamorano, Ossau-Iraty or Pecorino Toscano, with quince paste, honey or cherry preserves
• Parmigiano Reggiano with aceto balsamico tradizionale (traditional balsamic vinegar) or fig balsamic, or with Medjool dates
• Farmstead Cheddar with onion jam or honey-roasted walnuts