Slow Food takes cheesy adventure

Cayman’s Slow Food culinary group took advantage of a special offering from The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman last week to learn more about the wonders of cheese. 

Last week, 7 Prime Cuts & Sunsets teamed up with United States cheese expert and author Laura Werlin to offer Adventures in Cheese, a three-to-seven course cheese tasting, optionally combined with wine and a three-course dinner. Nineteen members of the Slow Food group opted for the whole wheel of cheese on Friday, 28 October, getting dinner, seven tastings of different cheeses and three different wines. 

Alternating between two long tables of Slow Food members, Ms Werlin talked about her passion – cheese – as well which wines went best with which cheeses and why. 

Her book, The All American Cheese and Wine Book, won a James Beard Foundation Award for literature in 2004. She’s since gone on to write several other books, including Grilled Cheese, Please!, her second cookbook focusing on gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches. 

On Saturday, the Slow Food members from the previous evening joined other guests in a lunch seminar hosted by Ms Werlin appropriately called, Grilled Cheese, Please! Attendees got to try seven cheeses along with different wines and then try four grilled cheese sandwiches made with the cheeses they had just tasted.  

The seminar included lots of tips on pairing wine with grilled cheese sandwiches. 

“Most people think of grilled cheese as beer food and while it certainly is that, it also goes with wine,” Ms Werlin said.  

Seven different cheeses – six from the US – were tasted with four different wines, including a sparkling white wine from France, a Beaujolais, a Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington State and a late-harvest Sauvignon Blanc from Chile. 

“One thing about pairing cheese and wine is that it is important to taste the wine before you taste the cheese,” Ms Werlin said. “Cheese has a tendency to change the flavour of wine more than most other foods … and you want to taste the wine in its pure form.” 

In addition to educating the attendees about cheese/wine pairings, Ms Werlin also spoke about cheese in general. Speaking about the Cypress Grove Chevre Humboldt Fog, she noted as soft ripened cheeses get holder, they get softer rather than harder, the opposite of most other cheeses. 

The Humboldt Fog cheese had an ash rind, something Ms Werlin said had no real taste and was there for looks. Although she said cheese rinds were all edible, she said they could have a unpleasant affect on wine, so she had everyone taste the interior of the soft cheeses without the rind. 

She said goat’s milk cheese was easy to differentiate from cow’s milk because of its bright white colour. 

As for wine pairings, Ms Werlin said in general, white wines pair better with cheese than red wines, especially with soft cheeses. 

“When you have a wine with perceptible tannins, it’s not the best to pair it with creamy cheese,” she said. 

However, some semi-hard cheeses go well with red wines. For instance, the Beaujolais paired with French Comte cheese was a very good pairing, as was the Cabernet Sauvignon with the Cabot Clothbound cheddar. 

In general, she said the whiter the cheese, the lighter the wine that should be chosen to pair with the cheese. 

Ms Werlin also gave lots of tips on making grilled cheese sandwiches. 

“When it comes to making grilled cheese sandwiches, I believe the cheese should be grated not sliced,” she said, noting grated cheese melts more easily. 

When using thicker breads like a baguette in making a grilled cheese sandwich, Ms Werlin said she pulls out some of the centre of the bread. “For me, I don’t need too much bread in a grilled cheese sandwich,” she said. “It sort of defeats the purpose – it needs to be cheesy.” 

Ms Werlin also said she has a five-minute rule for her grilled cheese sandwiches. 

“After you make the sandwiches, you want to wait five minutes before eating them. If you eat them right away, you’re tasting hot, not flavour,” she said. By waiting five minutes the sandwich will still be “ooey gooey” and have more flavour. 

Other tips for making good grilled cheese sandwiches included putting the butter on the bread, not in the pan and putting a lid on the pan during cooking, until the last couple of minutes. 

As for which cheeses can be used to make grilled cheese sandwiches, Ms Werlin said that was entirely up to the cook. 

“All cheeses you can use on grilled cheese sandwich,” she said. “It just depends on the end result you are looking for.”