We've written about Epoisses de Bourgogne before. It's one of our favorite cheeses and every so often we just have to indulge ourselves. Today's specimen looked perfect, soft, creamy, and slightly elastic. It clung to the knife and our fingers and appeared to be everything you could want in a cheese.
Sadly as we sniffed and chewed we were hit by the insidious flavor and scent of ammonia. It slowly deepened as the cheese tempered and warmed up. Now many cheese mongers will try and tell you this isn't a flaw but is there anyone out there who actually enjoys that flavor? We ended up feeding our cheese to the bin. Life's to short to eat bad Epoisses. That said, cheese is a living thing, still fermenting, constantly ripening, and we know the risks when we buy it. One bad cheese may be a disappointment but it definitely won't stop us from buying it again. Finding that one great cheese is totally worth the gamble.
Years Past
