Sort of a magnum opus of cheese – a handbook of the growing phenomenon of well-made cheeses in America. Sounds a bit deadly, but is so winningly written and engaging that it’s more of a brilliant field guide to our native cheese, and it sent me out looking for some of our local purveyors at the Farmer’s Market. What I appreciate about Liz Thorpe is that while she is clearly comfortable in the rarefied air of the New York gourmet scene, her book doesn’t hesitate to take a hard look at more commonly available cheeses and celebrates all levels of cheese production.… (mere)
Interesting book about cheese and the american history of cheese. I thought there was too much review of certain makers of cheese but probably only because I can't get most of those here. If I lived in NYC near the store she works at it might be interesting to take this manual and go through tastings of all the cheese.
I really LOVE the way this book is organized. It takes the "if you like/love this, then you'll like/love these" concept so often used with automated purchase recommendations and expands the concept to cheese. It then adds to that foundation with by helping new turophiles learn how describe why they love a particular cheese so they can find others either in the same cheese family or with those same attributes.
The main reason it looses a star is the author's early assertion on page 47 that (other than ricotta) it's not worth it to make cheese at home because "purchased cheese will inevitably be better". I've been making cheese at home for more than 10 years and I can say unequivocally this is NOT TRUE.
First, homemade cheese is fresher than anything you'll ever be able to purchase other than directly from the maker. That fact alone means it blows supermarket cheeses away instantly and often puts your homemade cheese on par with all but the best cheeses found well stocked cheese sections of specialty markets/coops.
Second, since most good cheese sells for $19-$25/lb and typical homemade yield is 1# cheese per a $4/gallon of milk. Imagine getting a whole pound of your favorite cheese for only $4 and some of your time.
Couple those two points with the fact that the author continues to decry supermarket cheese in the rest of the book and it's really a no brainer for a turophile to give home cheesemaking a try. What have you got to lose?… (mere)
På dette site bruger vi cookies til at levere vores ydelser, forbedre performance, til analyseformål, og (hvis brugeren ikke er logget ind) til reklamer. Ved at bruge LibraryThing anerkender du at have læst og forstået vores vilkår og betingelser inklusive vores politik for håndtering af brugeroplysninger. Din brug af dette site og dets ydelser er underlagt disse vilkår og betingelser.