Cheese Varieties: A Comprehensive Overview Of Delicious Cheeses

Cheese is a milk-based food that comes in a wide range of flavours, textures, and forms. There are over 2,000 types of cheese in the world, and they can be categorised into eight varieties: blue, hard, pasta filata, processed, semi-hard, semi-soft, soft and fresh, and soft-ripened.

Cheese is typically made from cow's milk, but it can also be made from the milk of other mammals, such as sheep, goats, buffalo, reindeer, camels, and yaks. The process of cheesemaking is thought to have originated over 4,000 years ago, and today, it is a staple food around the world.

Blue Cheese

• Roquefort: One of the first blue cheeses, originating from the village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in France. It is made with unpasteurized sheep's milk and inoculated with Penicillium roqueforti, giving it its characteristic blue veins.
• Gorgonzola: One of the oldest known blue cheeses, created around 879 AD. It has a crumbly and soft texture, with a taste that can range from creamy to sharp.
• Stilton: A crumbly and delicate blue cheese with a complex, bold, and rich flavour. It pairs well with risotto, pasta, desserts, and salads.
• Danablu: A 20th-century blue cheese that was created to fill the demand for Roquefort-style cheeses.
• Cambozola: Another variety of blue cheese that originated to satisfy the demand for Roquefort-style cheeses.

Soft Cheese

Soft-Ripened Cheeses

Soft-ripened cheeses begin as a clump of cheese curds formed into a shape, typically a wheel or cylinder, and drained of all excess moisture. This wheel of curds ages into cheese and develops a rind, creating a wheel of soft-ripened cheese. Soft and bloomy with an edible rind and creamy interior, brie is a buttery and rich soft-ripened cheese that originated in France. As brie matures, its flavor becomes increasingly earthy. You can bake brie or eat it at room temperature on a cheeseboard.

Camembert is another example of a soft-ripened cheese. It features a moist and creamy texture that starts with a sweet, milky taste. As the cheese matures, the flavor becomes rich and buttery. You can add it to a variety of desserts.

Fresh Cheeses

Fresh cheeses are made without pressing the curd to squeeze out the whey, resulting in a higher moisture content. Examples of fresh cheeses include:

• Burrata: A fresh cheese featuring a thin layer of cheese with a mixture of stringy curd and fresh cream on the inside. It has a rich flavor and goes well with salads, crusty bread, and Italian dishes.
• Fresh Mozzarella: A fresh cheese made by stretching its cheese curds before rolling them into balls. To keep them fresh, they’re packed in water. Mozzarella is a versatile and delicious cheese with its milky flavor and gooey texture.
• Feta: A soft and crumbly brined cheese that appears in many Greek dishes. Over time, Feta’s flavor becomes sharper and saltier, and its texture more firm.
• Ricotta: A fresh, moist cheese that can be used in a variety of recipes. It serves as an excellent alternative to yogurt and can be incorporated as a rich filling for lasagna or stuffed shells.

Hard Cheese

Parmigiano-Reggiano, or Parmesan, is one of the most popular types of hard cheese. It is sharp, intense, and full-bodied in taste, with a firm texture that becomes granular and crystallised as it ages. It is typically aged for at least 12 months, though some are aged for two years or more. Authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano is made in a specific region of Italy and is protected by European law.

Asiago D'allevo is another popular hard cheese, largely because its flavour is similar to Parmesan. It is made in the Asiago Plateau in Italy and has a sweet and sour flavour when young, becoming more compact and firm as it matures.

Grana Padano is an Italian cheese aged between 9 and 16 months. It has a less granular texture than Parmigiano-Reggiano and only requires 9 months of maturation. It is often served as an appetizer or a light snack, and pairs well with sweet foods like dried fruit.

Pecorino Romano is another well-known Italian hard cheese, made from sheep's milk. It has a strong, distinctive flavour and is typically aged for two months to two years.

Gorgonzola is a firm, crumbly Italian blue cheese with a buttery, salty flavour. It is made using unskimmed cow's milk and has been produced in Gorgonzola, Milan, for centuries.

Manchego is a hard cheese from the La Mancha region of Spain. It is made from sheep's milk and is usually aged for between two months and two years. It has a firm, buttery texture, a white to ivory-yellow colour, and small, unevenly distributed air pockets. It has a distinct, finely honed flavour with a slight kick.

Goat's Cheese

Goat cheese, also known as goat's cheese or chèvre, is made from goat's milk. Goats were among the first animals to be domesticated for food production, and today, goat cheese is produced all over the world, with France being a major producer. The process of making goat cheese is similar to that of other cheeses, but the milk's unique composition gives it a distinct "goat" flavour and a higher nutritional value.

Goat cheese can be made in a variety of styles, from fresh and soft to aged and hard. The texture and flavour depend on the production process, which can be adjusted by using different starter cultures, varying draining times and pressures, and changing the curing temperature and duration.

Chèvre, the French term for goat cheese, can take many forms, such as a fresh, crumbly log, a wrinkly round, a creamy blue, or a firm wedge. Despite their differences, chèvre varieties share a bright white interior and tangy, lactic flavours, although these notes can be milder in more mature cheeses. The aromas of each variety differ, ranging from tart citrus to freshly baked bread.

There are four major styles of goat cheese commonly found in the United States: fresh (or unripened), semi-ripened (or soft-ripened), bloomy-rind, and Tomme de Chèvre. Fresh goat cheese is so young that it has not yet developed a rind, and it is often sold in tubes in supermarkets. It has a chalky-white appearance and a tart flavour. Semi-ripened goat cheese develops a soft, edible rind as it ages, and it often has a chalky interior with a creamy exterior. Bloomy-rind goat cheese is coated with Penicillium candidum, the same mould used for Brie and Camembert, resulting in a soft, bloomy rind. Tomme de Chèvre, large wheels of aged goat cheese, are less common in the US but offer intense flavours and can be grated or shaved over salads, bruschetta, or pasta.

White Cheese

In Latin America, "queso blanco" (Spanish) or "queijo branco" (Portuguese) refers to various white cheeses, with the specific type varying by region. It is usually made by heating whole fresh milk, adding an acidifying agent, stirring until curds form, then draining the curds in cheesecloth for a few hours. Such cheeses are also known as "bag cheeses" as the curds are hung in a bag to drain.

Queso blanco and queso fresco can be eaten alone or added to other dishes. They are often used as toppings for spicy Mexican dishes such as enchiladas and empanadas, or crumbled over soups or salads. Meltable versions are used to make quesadillas.

In Mexican cuisine, there are two main variations of white cheese: queso blanco, made from cow's milk, and queso fresco, which may include a combination of cow's and goat's milk. While certain types, like Oaxaca cheese, melt when heated, most simply become soft. If more water is removed by pressing, it becomes known as queso seco.

In Brazilian cuisine, white cheese is called "queijo branco". Minas cheese, a Brazilian variety, is usually fresh.

In the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Puerto Rico, queso blanco is a firm, salty cheese used for frying. In Puerto Rico, it is typically paired with guava paste.

Venezuelan cuisine offers a large variety of white cheese (quesos blancos), varying in texture and flavour, usually named after a geographical region. Examples include queso blanco duro (hard white cheese), queso semi-blando (semi-soft cheese), and tender types like guayanés cheese and queso de mano.

In Eurasia and North Africa, quark is a type of fresh cheese known by different names in various regions, such as "twaróg" in Polish, "tvorog" in Russian, and "topfen" in Austrian. Domiati is a soft, salty, white cheese primarily produced in Egypt and some Middle Eastern countries.

Greece offers a range of white cheeses, including feta, a brined curd cheese, and manouri, a semi-soft, fresh white whey cheese crafted from goat and/or sheep milk whey. Mizithra is another choice, an unpasteurized fresh cheese made with milk and whey sourced from sheep and/or goats.

Italy has several white cheeses, including Asiago, a cow's milk cheese known for its varying textures according to its aging. Mascarpone is another Italian cheese made from cream, coagulated by the addition of citric or acetic acid. Mozzarella, originally from southern Italy, is a fresh cheese made from Italian buffalo or cow's milk using the pasta filata method. Lastly, ricotta is a whey cheese made from sheep, cow, goat, or Italian water buffalo milk whey left over from cheese production.

In Philippine cuisine, kesong puti is a soft, white cheese, similar to queso blanco and cottage cheese, made from unskimmed carabao's milk, salt, and rennet.

In Portuguese cuisine, queijo fresco is a popular mild, soft, creamy, white unaged cheese used throughout the Iberian Peninsula.

In Romania, caș is a type of semi-soft white fresh cheese made from sheep or cow milk. Another type of white cheese traditionally made in Romania is telemea, a salty variety made from sheep or cow milk.

Beyaz peynir is a salty, white cheese made from unpasteurized sheep or cow milk. It has a slightly grainy appearance and is similar to Greek feta cheese.

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