Dave's Cheese Notes: Pleasant Ridge Reserve
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This is one of the cheeses from Northern France inspired by the Dutch (specifically Edam in this case) which my cheese book guy, Steven Jenkins, finds very unimpressive.
(I’ll try to take better pictures going forward. I was in a bit of a hurry with these first three.)
I think the round shape of the whole cheese is fun. It really does look just like a cantaloupe melon. The insides are bright orange (it’s colored with "annatto" which is from the seeds of the achiote tree from the tropics of the Americas).
The rind is pretty smelly and today I learned it’s aged with the help of live cheese mites. Wikipedia has a video of the mites crawling around on the surface of the cheese. I’m not sure how I feel about that. At least it’s not Casu martzu, a Sardinian cheese with live maggots!
Anyway, the insides are mild and not smelly. I wrote down some notes, but was afraid I would sound like a Philistine if I gave my honest thought: it tastes like a sharp cheddar. But then I read Steven Jenkin’s entry in The Cheese Primer and he described it as being like a "smoky cheddar". So now I don’t feel bad describing it that way.
I like it, but the flavor isn’t as interesting as its appearance (and price).