Dave's Cheese Notes: Florette (a goat brie)
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Another Fromager d’Affinois cheese. My previous was Fromager d’Affinois Excellence which has a similar classy look to the rind!
Here’s the official website link:
With the description:
Florette is a goat’s milk cheese with a stark white paste and a dimple-edged rind, folded over itself like a freshly baked pie crust. It’s the brightest, freshest-tasting cheese in our lineup, with notes of tangy lemon yogurt and a clean and fresh scent, reminiscent of grass after a morning rain.
I concur that the rind is really nice - I like the texture and fold. Like they say, it reminds me of a pie crust. The rind is very mild and soft. Eat it.
But you can use all the flavor words like "bright" and "tangy" and "lemon" you want… make no mistake. This is a goat cheese and you will not escape the goat flavor.
I’ve tried dozens of goat cheeses and I’m afraid I’m just going to have to conclude that they’re not for me. It’s the same thing with the blue cheeses. The other aspects of the cheese literally don’t matter at all because I can’t get past the goat taste any more than I can get past the blue mold taste.
The texture is great and it smells fine. It melts really nicely. All the things I enjoy about brie.
I really tried to enjoy this. Here are some of the things I tried pairing with it: olives, olive oil, orange "spicy pepper pesto", crackers, fig spread, and honey. I tried it melted and I tried it cold.
I would love to tell you that I found one of these combinations completely scrumdiddlyumptious. But the truth is, the flavor was modified, but never transformed into something I could swoon over.
Indeed, the pairings I enjoyed most were the strongest flavors that helped drown out the goat taste. But nothing could quite overcome it. Goats are tough and resiliant creatures and their flavor is the same.
Bah!