Cheese Accompaniments....Done to death or room for more discussion?

those are some interesting mixes..i mean that in a good way.. I am curious how well the Blue and gingerbread works. The cheddar and oatcake sounds good. I guess I am a bit rustic in my service as I like a selection of cheese, breads and smoked or cured meats. I do like a variety of apples and fresh fruits. some fresh herbs like basil, cilantro,chives, depending on the cheese and what I am making.

Cheese is so open as a food it can't be done to death as a conversation, people just need a break from the discussion.

 

apricots or figs on the blue or 3 creme, I like pecans but walnut's work....try making shortbread with a touch of bacon fat. You can caramelize the fruit or serve with jam....sometimes I throw in a hint of smoke hot chili

Fresh chevre.....just about anything.   if you're doing after dinner I tend to go fruity rather than savory olivey....amazingly good with lemon curd.

blue is great with orange and sorghum.....

 

I tend to present a cheeseboard, with lots of different cheeses, including various artisan cheeses from around the UK, as well as French, Greek or Spanish.  I always serve goat's cheese on a separate cheeseboard, as I don't like the taste or the smell!

I serve cheeses with any or all of the following

celery

grapes

walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds and in season, Kentish cobnuts

home made Scottish oatcakes

Abernethy biscuits (also homemade)

Water biscuts

The idea of serving cake with cheese sounds interesting, but probably something I'd try for a lunchtime snack on my own!

 

Yes the subject has been done to death but those who don't want to rehash it can just skip this thread.  I on the otherhand am a cheese fanatic so I will join right in on one of my favorite discussions.

I've never had a proper cheese course that comes at the end of a meal.  This is a french tradition am I right?  What is the purpose of this course, how does it fit in to the whole meal, and is it supposed to be like dessert?  I remember the first season of Top Chef Harold had a cheese course instead of a proper dessert.  He served a fig tart with a selection of 3 cheeses and I remember thinking how smart that was.

I'm more used to cheese platters.  Most of the time I serve them along with hors d'ourvres at my dinner parties.  But often enough I serve them as dinner for the two of us.  There ain't no better dinner than cheese, bread, charcutes, and wine.  It's a feast.

My guilty pleasure snack is to take a mission fig, stuff it with a glob of gorgonzola, and wrap it in half a slice of proscuitto.  Figs are perfect now since they're in season, but when they're out of season I make fig jam from dried figs any time I want a proper cheese platter.  Fig jam and asiago are heavenly together. 

My DH likes acidic accompaniments to cheese in the form of olives, pickled peppers, etc.  Me not so much.  I like the sweet stuff.

 

Most dinner parties here have a cheese course.  Lots of people don't want puddings, so I tend to serve puddings and cheeseboard at the same time.

 

I serve cheese prior to a sweet.....usualy fruit sometimes chocolate....depends on rest of menu.

 

"Dal tavolo no si alza il saggio

se la bocca non sa di formaggio"

(The wise man doesn't get up from the table if his mouth doesn;t taste of cheese)

Personally, however, I don;t see how cheese can be considered a good ending to a meal.  For me cheese IS the meal.  Or the snack.  I like it either way.  But to end a meal with cheese seems to me to just repeat a protein course, and is redundant.  And no, please, please don;t replace desert with cheese!  One of the nicest things about a fancy meal is to wonder what wonderful desert it will end with! 

That said, I know plenty of people like cheese courses at the end of meals.  I do like cheese with sweet things, and can go on eating a piece of gorgonzola then think, hey, that needs a slice of pear.  Then eat the pear and say, yeah, but what would be perfect after this is a nice slice of cheese.  and so on through all the cheese and several pears.  That would be lunch for me.

But if you're bringing out a cheese course, you might want to have something salty with it, some sort of cracker (carta da musica is great) or nice bread - walnut bread, for instance.  Not everyone likes sweet stuff with cheese.  Maybe have a choice. 

This is also somewhat sweet, but very slightly so - a walnut quick bread.  I think i posted it here somewhere - from Cakes by barbara maher.  The touch of sweetnness and the clove are perfect for cheeses.

 

Blue cheese and ginger in general are a good combination, and good gingerbread is a reasonable way to accomplish it. I prefer a very sharp, very crunchy ginger cracker -- i.e. relatively little sugar -- but then I'm not that big a fan of sweets to begin with.

I think a cheese course is a lovely thing. Remember that it is often preceded by salad coming after a remove of meat. The other thing is quantities: if your courses are generally large, putting cheese on top of them and then adding a rich sweet is pretty deadly. If your courses are small, a cheese course is a great way to do a little nibbling and filling up the corners. It also depends on pacing: if dining is going to take an hour or less, a cheese course seems a good deal less attractive than if everyone is at table for 2 hours or more.