I recently learned of - but have never tried - a cheese from the Himalayan region of South Asia that is reputed to be the "hardest cheese in the world". Apparently it is exported to the West as a dog treat.
Yes, my dog loves this. I think there’s essentially no scenario I could imagine a human could eat this save treating it like hard candy or rehydrating extensively before consuming. It really is extremely hard.
AlotOfReading 18 hours ago [-]
The Mongolian version, aaruul, comes in a whole range of textures from reasonably chewable to a hardness that dissolves in your mouth over the course of an hour or so. It makes for great travel food.
I don't know why nepali version is dried so much, but it becomes impossible to rehydrate and hence, unusable.
vanderZwan 15 hours ago [-]
Maybe it's a dog treat over there as well?
madsushi 22 hours ago [-]
I've seen it called Yak Cheese in the US, and it's quite popular with my dogs.
Despite the initial stick shock on the price, we've found them very effective dog chews, threading the needle on lasting a long time but also retaining interest over time relatively well. Also threading the needle on being designed to come apart safely, yet not instantly disintegrating. In late-stage capitalism part of what you're paying for in that price is that you won't need to buy them very often, if you get the correct hardness level for your dog.
> When you talk with cheese aficionados, it doesn’t usually take long for the conversation to veer this way: away from curds, whey, and mold, and toward matters of life and death. With the zeal of nineteenth-century naturalists, they discuss great lineages and endangered species, painstakingly cataloguing those cheeses that are thriving and those that are lost to history.
bell-cot 13 hours ago [-]
Further in (to that New Yorker article), amid the stories of the lost delicacies and delights of yesteryear:
> Others fall out of favor because they’re simply not good: one extinct Suffolk cheese, “stony-hard” because it was made only with skimmed milk, was so notoriously bad that, in 1825, the Hampshire Chronicle reported that one ship’s cargo of grindstones was eaten by rats while the neighboring haul of Suffolk cheese escaped untouched.
comrade1234 1 days ago [-]
Living in Switzerland I've come to realize that it's pointless to obsess about cheese. Every tiny village has its own varieties. There are probably thousands. It's better to try something new whenever you can - but there are some like Sbrinz that you have over and over.
(Similar feeling about wine - as long as it's a chasselas I'll try anything and there's enough producers to last a lifetimes)
CalRobert 13 hours ago [-]
Hah, then there’s the Netherlands where I was excited for the cheese until I realised it’s basically just Gouda. It’s good! But almost all the cheese is Gouda. Kinda strange there isn’t much variety (except for putting different stuff in Gouda)
kreyenborgi 12 hours ago [-]
There is variety though! There is jong gouda, jong belegen gouda, belegen gouda, extra belegen gouda, oude gouda, overjaarig gouda ...
(Well, tbf also edam, maasdam, geitenkaas, limburger)
CalRobert 12 hours ago [-]
Yeah there’s a few other ones (and don’t get me wrong, I like the cheese here, just perplexed there’s not much variety)
Sure would love a good Monterey jack or cotija though.
PorciiVorbesc 11 hours ago [-]
Your enumeration of gouda varieties reminded me of this:
"There's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich."
kakacik 12 hours ago [-]
Oude gouda (old aged one I would expect) is sublime experience, probably the best gard cheese we can buy in french/swiss shops, unless we add various truffles or black garlic-infused ones to the discussion.
CapnTrippy 10 hours ago [-]
This article made me laugh out loud several times!
If the Fast Show was still running, this would spawn a whole new character and a season of skits. Some great one-liners in it!
"In cheesemaking, if two hearts want to connect, they'll find a way."
I guess he didn't get to Corsica. Casu martzu. Don't look it up unless you have a strong stomach!
vanderZwan 12 hours ago [-]
Corsicans, channeling their inner Gollum: "give it to me raw and wriggling!
stronglikedan 1 days ago [-]
Sorry, I consider cheese to be bacteria poop only, with no additional "processing". Casu martzu is just fly shit.
Gustomaximus 19 hours ago [-]
Years back I lived near a cheese shop La Fromagerie marylebone/London.
The owner would travel around Europe finding amazing cheeses.
If you enjoy cheese and ever get the chance I'd highly recommend visiting. I've never found another store of similar calibre.
IanOzsvald 15 hours ago [-]
I don't know La Fromagerie. I do know Little Mouse in Crystal Palace, they are encouraging the re-creation of "lost" British cheeses.
Theodores 1 days ago [-]
"You must be joking.."
I can fully understand the love of cheese, however, there is a hidden cost to it, that I have experienced but only recently acknowledged.
The places they show on TV and in articles such as this is analogous to showing posh West End made-to-measure tailors and pretending that those SHEIN garments from Bangladesh are made the same way, with no 'slavery' involved.
I worked in a cheese factory as a student, taking up the job with an attitude that it must be 'women's work'. How wrong I was. Twelve hour shifts, with 'every object' weighing (or wheying) upwards of 25Kg and every one of your senses brutally assaulted, always with the potential to lose life, limb or another finger in a moment of lapsed focus. Just surviving became the intellectual challenge, with many not making it past two hours before throwing in the towel. Mastery was my goal and I put in the sleepless 'nights' with relentless 'tennis elbow' to get there, achievement unlocked.
Because I was a student, this was not a forever job, and there was a higher tax threshold for students, making it financially tough but worth while.
On a trip down memory lane I looked the old place up, to discover it had shut down due to numerous health and safety violations, which made me chuckle. That was the culture, and the rule, for example, those chemicals that have huge warning labels, to read such a label after getting nervous ticks after using it, would be moral cowardice. Or, if you needed someone's attention, because the machines were so loud, you would casually throw a 25 Kg object at them (a cheese or a bag of salt) as a 'gentle tap on the shoulder'.
On reflection, there is this small matter of the human cost to cheese. PETA might shock people with cheesy animal welfare issues and cardiologists might not be entirely positive about the consumption of 'saturated fat laced with salt', however, few have experienced the harsh reality of working in the industry, to have the strength to write about how extreme and ultra-violent the production of this harmless product can be.
I am not saying 'boycott the product', just 'value it more'.
ycombinete 17 hours ago [-]
Do you think cheese is unique in this regard, or part of a special class of product? Or is that just the hidden cost of all our niceties?
cucumber3732842 1 days ago [-]
I was a janitor at a Cabot facility in college. It's an industrial product like anything else. Tanker trailers drain go into one side of the factory. Reefers of finished product exit the other.
arethuza 12 hours ago [-]
When I was a student I worked in the summers at a maltings making malt for Scotch whisky - a very large, highly automated facility and nothing like the romantic visions we all have of distilleries.
jeffrallen 17 hours ago [-]
I took my Swiss wife to the Tillamook factory in Oregon and she was laughing at how industrial it is. Later she took me to a Swiss mountain cheese maker, accessible only by hiking, making cheese over a wood-fired kettle.
ericbarrett 22 hours ago [-]
You write well. I get the sense you have some interesting stories from your time in the cheese factory!
pmdulaney 2 days ago [-]
Me? I'd love to travel to the home of Camembert, even though I've never been to France. A pretty mundane life goal. But it brings joy to my heart knowing people like this exist.
Tip from a Frenchman: Camembert is an overglorified version of Brie. The one you need to see is where the "king of cheese" is made: Roquefort-sur-Soulzon.
What do you think about bryndza? I want external opinion.
Otterly99 8 hours ago [-]
It's definitely my favorite from Slovakia. Definitely made even more delicious with halušky.
kakacik 11 hours ago [-]
Not exquisite taste by any means in the world of fine cheeses (which its not, just curded milk) but gets the job done in various eastern european dishes
d_silin 19 hours ago [-]
It is quite good.
drsalt 15 hours ago [-]
man eats cheese is not a story
Rendered at 22:32:18 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhurpi
I don't know why nepali version is dried so much, but it becomes impossible to rehydrate and hence, unusable.
Despite the initial stick shock on the price, we've found them very effective dog chews, threading the needle on lasting a long time but also retaining interest over time relatively well. Also threading the needle on being designed to come apart safely, yet not instantly disintegrating. In late-stage capitalism part of what you're paying for in that price is that you won't need to buy them very often, if you get the correct hardness level for your dog.
> When you talk with cheese aficionados, it doesn’t usually take long for the conversation to veer this way: away from curds, whey, and mold, and toward matters of life and death. With the zeal of nineteenth-century naturalists, they discuss great lineages and endangered species, painstakingly cataloguing those cheeses that are thriving and those that are lost to history.
> Others fall out of favor because they’re simply not good: one extinct Suffolk cheese, “stony-hard” because it was made only with skimmed milk, was so notoriously bad that, in 1825, the Hampshire Chronicle reported that one ship’s cargo of grindstones was eaten by rats while the neighboring haul of Suffolk cheese escaped untouched.
(Similar feeling about wine - as long as it's a chasselas I'll try anything and there's enough producers to last a lifetimes)
(Well, tbf also edam, maasdam, geitenkaas, limburger)
Sure would love a good Monterey jack or cotija though.
"There's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich."
If the Fast Show was still running, this would spawn a whole new character and a season of skits. Some great one-liners in it!
"In cheesemaking, if two hearts want to connect, they'll find a way."
"Uncomfortable foods open doors."
Thats Jessie's diet right there -
https://youtu.be/sw18OafeQiM?is=Y6M2-Si8xKHI5nQ7
And many other great lines! Lol!
The owner would travel around Europe finding amazing cheeses.
If you enjoy cheese and ever get the chance I'd highly recommend visiting. I've never found another store of similar calibre.
I can fully understand the love of cheese, however, there is a hidden cost to it, that I have experienced but only recently acknowledged.
The places they show on TV and in articles such as this is analogous to showing posh West End made-to-measure tailors and pretending that those SHEIN garments from Bangladesh are made the same way, with no 'slavery' involved.
I worked in a cheese factory as a student, taking up the job with an attitude that it must be 'women's work'. How wrong I was. Twelve hour shifts, with 'every object' weighing (or wheying) upwards of 25Kg and every one of your senses brutally assaulted, always with the potential to lose life, limb or another finger in a moment of lapsed focus. Just surviving became the intellectual challenge, with many not making it past two hours before throwing in the towel. Mastery was my goal and I put in the sleepless 'nights' with relentless 'tennis elbow' to get there, achievement unlocked.
Because I was a student, this was not a forever job, and there was a higher tax threshold for students, making it financially tough but worth while.
On a trip down memory lane I looked the old place up, to discover it had shut down due to numerous health and safety violations, which made me chuckle. That was the culture, and the rule, for example, those chemicals that have huge warning labels, to read such a label after getting nervous ticks after using it, would be moral cowardice. Or, if you needed someone's attention, because the machines were so loud, you would casually throw a 25 Kg object at them (a cheese or a bag of salt) as a 'gentle tap on the shoulder'.
On reflection, there is this small matter of the human cost to cheese. PETA might shock people with cheesy animal welfare issues and cardiologists might not be entirely positive about the consumption of 'saturated fat laced with salt', however, few have experienced the harsh reality of working in the industry, to have the strength to write about how extreme and ultra-violent the production of this harmless product can be.
I am not saying 'boycott the product', just 'value it more'.