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Cheese finding place before & after restaurant meals
By Karen Herzog of the Journal Sentinel
Milwaukee chef Nicholas Wirth doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, and he usually skips dessert when dining out.
Unless the dessert menu includes a cheese course.
Then the chef de cuisine for the upscale Bacchus restaurant exercises his mantra: "You truly haven't dined until you've had cheese."
"A glass of port and a nice cheese is the ultimate dessert experience," Wirth said with a satisfied grin.
The beauty of cheese as dessert is simple.
You can customize the selection of cheeses on a plate to match the experience you want at the end of a meal.
Maybe you're in the mood for something light, so you choose lighter cheeses with a crisp, citrus finish and a glass of sparkling wine. If you want to punctuate the meal with a more adventurous finish, try a selection of bold blue cheeses and a glass of tawny port.
Cheese can be both salty and sweet, with subtle hints of unique and sometimes surprising flavors. It can hold its own in a world typically heavy on cream and sugar.
A dessert cheese plate can be dressed up with garnishes such as fruit spreads, fresh or dried fruits, toasted almonds, walnuts or pecans, grapes and truffle honey - a spectrum of sweet to savory for topping toasted baguette slices.
"I think it works because some people, including myself, are not super sweet-focused when it comes to the dessert course," Wirth said. "Some people want to finalize a meal without a piece of cake. We offer a variety of cheeses so they can customize their own experience."
At Bacchus, diners can choose from 10 Wisconsin artisanal cheeses for either an appetizer or dessert course. Wirth said about an equal
number choose cheese to start or end a meal.
Current options at Bacchus include Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Uplands Cheese Co., Les Freres from Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese, 6-year-old cheddar from Widmer's Cheese Cellars, Marieke Gouda Foenegreek from Holland's Family Cheese, Dunbarton Blue from Roelli Cheese, Paradise Blue from Hook's Cheese Co., Mobay and Menage cheeses from Carr Valley, bandaged cheddar from Bleu Mont Dairy and Le Cabrie from Montchevre Betin.
Diners can pick one. Or five. Or all 10.
Smyth restaurant at the Iron Horse Hotel, Meritage and Mr. B's are among other area restaurants known for their cheese-as-dessert courses.
Consider the flavor profiles of the lighter cheeses, which pair well with sparkling wine, according to chefs and cheesemongers.
Marieke Foenegreek Gouda offers a maple-nutty flavor that's mildly sweet with a nutty crunch of fenugreek seeds. La Cabrie is a goat's milk cheese with a texture similar to a cow's milk Brie - creamy with citrus notes.
Carr Valley's Mobay is half sheep's milk cheese, half goat's milk cheese with a vegetable ash layer separating the two cheeses. The ash layer symbolizes the divide between the morning milking and evening milking. (Milk has a different flavor, depending on what an animal eats in the morning vs. the afternoon.)
Crave Brothers' Les Freres is a soft cow's milk cheese with citrusy, grassy notes and a washed rind similar to Brie.
Once you choose a cheese, the next step is to highlight its flavor notes with specific garnishes.
If you pop a nut in your mouth before eating a cheese, the oil in the nut coats the taste buds and tongue to make eating the cheese more enjoyable, Wirth explained.
Any nut generally will do. But a rich, sharp blue cheese is best balanced by a walnut or hazelnut, while a milder cheese gets a pleasant salty note from a Spanish marcona almond, Wirth said.
Munching a grape after a bite of cheese cleanses the palate.
A dessert-cheese course can be as simple as three wedges of different styles of cheese.
A recommended sampling might include, for example, a mild soft cheese such as Brie or aged goat, a hard cheese such as a sharp cheddar or aged Parmesan, and a veined cheese such as Stilton or Gorgonzola, accompanied by fresh and dried fruits and crackers. Pair them with a tawny port or muscadet type wine, the experts suggest.
Set out the cheeses at least an hour before serving so they reach optimal room temperature.
In a recent issue of her magazine, Martha Stewart recommends a decadent platter of slices of manchego, creamy Explorateur and rich Mont
Briac paired with sweet fresh figs, Spanish membrillo (quince jelly) and dark bread with walnuts and honey.
You could take the easy way out and serve baked Brie smothered with fruit, and assorted crisps and crackers.
Or, you can wander off the beaten path as long as no other dessert is served after the cheese. God forbid you serve a strong blue cheese if you're also having chocolate cake; the blue cheese would linger on the palate, and the finish would not be pretty.
The right beverage pairings with a dessert cheese course enhance the experience.
Mitch Walker, a cheesemonger at Fromagination cheese store in Madison, suggests pairing Brie with a late-harvest Zinfandel, Champagne or sparkling wine.
A fruit-infused white cheddar marries well with framboise or port wine, he said.
A mixed-milk cheese, such as one with cow's and goat's milk, might lend itself to a port or a porter beer, he said.
Among Walker's favorite dessert cheeses is a triple cream cheese served with berries.
"It's a very rich and creamy decadent cheese," he said of the triple cream.
"I think cheese as dessert is a growing option - something people are coming around to because it's not as heavy and sweet as chocolate cake," Walker said. "It's kind of fun because you're presented with choices you may not be familiar with. It could be as simple as blue cheese with honey drizzled on it."
If you're in the mood to have your cheese and chocolate, too, consider Carr Valley's Cocoa Cardona.
Cocoa Cardona is an award-winning hard goat cheese rubbed with cocoa powder, created by Sid Cook, a cheesemaker from LaValle. The tangy Cardona cheese was inspired by Cook's stay in a castle in Cardona, Spain, where goats grazed in surrounding pastures. Cook later decided to rub the tangy Cardona with cocoa powder after eating chocolate cheese fudge with aged Swiss.
Cheesemaker Brenda Jensen of Hidden Springs Creamery in Westby, near La Crosse, makes fresh sheep's milk cheeses that lend themselves to hints of sweetness.
Her Driftless cheeses, named for the area of Wisconsin where they are made, include a sheep's milk cheese infused with lavender and honey.
Jensen is making a special fresh cheese truffle for a dessert cheese seminar at the third annual Wisconsin Cheese Originals Festival in Madison next month.
It's an intriguing creation of Driftless sheep's milk cheese dipped in - what else? - chocolate.
For the five suggested groupings of cheeses, some with beverage or other accompaniments, to be served at the end of a meal....please link to sour