Cambozola Cheese

I hate doing this but I’m going to start this review with a short rant on how supermarkets store their cheese.  Every time that I decide that a cheese looks interesting I pick it up and find it permeated with the pungent evil of freezer burn. This has not only happened to me at the big supermarkets but also with the organic places as well. Anyway this has slowed down my quest to educate myself in varieties of cheese since cheese is almost always an impulse buy for me.

So when I saw a wedge of Cambozola I decided to take the risk again, since it looked like a good soft cheese with blue veins of mold. Normally cheeses such as Roquefort or Gorgonzola are too sharp and pungent for my tastes but I figured worse comes to worse it would make a great novelty item.

My first impression upon sampling some of the cheese by itself was thank God it didn’t taste like Freon and Ozone. In fact it wasn’t nearly as pungent as I expected. The cheese contained within its soft rind was exceptionally creamy, similar to buttermilk with almonds and a little lemon zest. It also stinks ever so slightly, like straw and earth. Still this is inviting for any fan of French camembert. The veins of mold weren’t nearly as sharp, tart or pungent as I would expect from a cheese crossed with Gorgonzola. Perhaps the specific bit I got was not that strong but honestly given my tastes I was happier having to search for the flavor than being tackled by it.

It pairs naturally with fresh bread, mellowing out the cheese a little more and a good crust goes great with its earthier aspects. As for fruit all I had on hand where cherries, but lacking the strong gorgonzola taste I was expecting cherries where not a perfect match. In retrospect I would suggest something mellower like golden delicious apples, white grapes and pears. Since it already had the texture of cream cheese I didn’t bother trying to melt it or perform any other temperature related experiments, but I could see a segment served alongside a good rare steak. Lastly I will say that I was craving a good Hefeweitzen to wash it down or maybe even a bomber of Trois Pistoles. All in all not a bad buy and it’s widely available at supermarkets, specialty stores and wherever non-freezer-burned cheese is sold.