Yesterday, I popped down to Simon Johnson’s in Castlecrag after work to check out their Jamon. $72.50 per 100g packet. Which works out to be $725/kg. The priciest one I’ve seen yet. Then again, Simon Johnson is well known for being pricey. So I’m still in two minds but due to budget constraints, I’m probably opting for a cheaper product, at less than half that price. The one they’ve got I found here. Its something of a chain store in Spain I believe, which doesn’t mean its bad though.

I also got sidetracked by their cheese room and sampled a few things with this nice cheesemonger dude. I buy cheese based on how good they look. Lol. One cheese had a stripe through the middle. Ash separating two layers of cheese. One made of the morning’s milk and the other from the evening. The ash is barely discernable even when eaten alone. It was used traditionally to keep flies and bugs away. The production method and resulting aesthetic of the cheese is pretty cool. It used to be more like a cheese for the cheesemaker, who put away unused gruyere curds and covered it with the ash, before adding more the next morning. In terms of flavor, I’ve pored over it and come to the conclusion that its basically the same for both layers of cheese. However, there is a very slight difference in mouthfeel. The upper layer was creamier and that’s probably because the fat will rise as it sets. Very tasty.

Was already halfway through…

The other cheese that I picked up was a Carles Roquefort. The guy told me it’d make a great pasta sauce and I could easily see why. Immediately, it just crumbles and dissipates quickly in the mouth, leaving a salt charged, mild bitterness as the aftertaste. The blue or rather, green mould does bite the back of throat mildly but the cheese is moist and delightfully sweet. Made of ewe’s milk, mentioned by Pliny the Elder and matured in caves, this is some really old school cheese.

Roque-fella.