Blog on the Lillypad
Saturday, October 09, 2004
 | Sheep's milk cheese! Oh Ewe Taste so Gouda!
I suffer tremendous intolerance to any dairy product---from cows that is! After ten years of doing without dairy, imagine my amazement, (and pleasure) at discovering that I can tolerate sheep's milk cheeses. I had tried goat cheese before and also found it both bad tasting and upsetting to my stomach. But sheep's milk cheese! Oooh la! la! I can eat that! |
I started with Manchego on my first foray. To me, this tasted like a mild parmesan. I also learned that once upon a time ALL romano cheeses were sheep's milk cheeses. So I bought some of that, too, on the second journey a week later. But in modern times, the cows have invaded! The shopper has to always check labels on Romano cheeses. Still, it is quite possible, even in smaller grocery stores, to find romano cheeses in shaker cans that are 100% sheep cheese. (The label will say so).
Any cheese called a Pecorino will be a sheep's milk cheese (because that's what the word pecorino means). And two large producers of sheep's milk cheese are Spain, home of the wonderful Manchego, and Greece, which will sometimes produce a sheep's milk feta. This week, my third week to include cheese in my shopping cart, I expanded from my hesitant beginnings and purchased a few ounces of ricotta salata (sheep's milk variety, from Southern Italy). This was not at all bad, but not as distinctive in taste as other types I have tried. I pared it into thin and cream-colored slices and prepared it grilled, on squares of bread. Overall, it lacked flavor, if anything, but it wasn't bad. I had two different manchegos on the plate, so they offset it nicely.
I made a plate up of grilled squares of bread and cheese, cubes of a couple different manchegos, purple grapes, apple slices, and slivers of smoked salmon. It went great with half a glass of room-temperature Italian table wine, red.
For the nervous and hesitant, Italy provides Pecorino Marzolino, a sheep's milk cheese that is close to mozzarella.
France is a relative latecomer to large production of sheep's milk cheeses (though France, as well as Greece and Spain, will produce cheeses made from combinations of sheep, goat, and cow). You can get Perail de Brebis, which is a soft cheese with a strong taste, all from sheep's milk. There are other Brebis cheeses (sheep's milk) from France, aged longer, in which the gamey taste from the sheep is tamed over time and presents a more mild flavor.
Dutch sheep cheese is rare; even among the Dutch! But I have found one cheese dealer who advertises a dutch sheep's gouda. They advertise that the cheese proves to be "a very succulent cheese, and a must for the real cheese lover."
As I was writing this I wanted to have more manchego, but after cheese cubes for breakfast and cheese cubes again for lunch, I fear I may be overdoing it!
