In Soviet Russia, Red Square Cheese eats you!

What: Tasmanian Heritage Red Square Cheese

Where: Tasmania – Australia’s addendum of gourmet goodies
Why: Because the proletariat needs cheese too!

All cheeses are equal, some are just more equal than others.

Introducing Red Square—the Lenin of rennin. It’s my first cheese, my first foray into sharing my dairy diary with you, dear reader.

This delightful orangey-white washed rind cheese promises to be every bit as enticing and subversive as it’s name suggests. It looks creamy and rich, but more importantly, there’s a decided olfactory hit that comes through the wrapping (Ooh! Such a delight to yours truly).

On first bite I taste the nuttiness that the initial smell had hinted to, and a rich dairy flavour that I might expect out of a good Australian brie. But where’s that revolutionary kick that I had expected?

Red Square’s online listing offers this inoffensive little caveat: “As with all washed rinds Red Square smells much stronger than it tastes.” I must agree. After selecting this little comrade from the cheese shop, I expected stinky and great things, but the flavour was lacking the Bolshevik bite I desired. It is velvety, to be sure, and it has a smooth and very persuasive flavour. But when I’m taste-testing reds in the bread, I expect something bigger. I can’t help but feel this is a cheese that would develop more flavour if allowed to age a little. The beginnings of a delicious cheese are here, but would benefit from some kind of five-year plan of maturation. However, for the average bourgeois table setting (do pass the muscatels darling, and let’s have a snifter of port as we discuss fiscal solvency) this cheese is certainly above board.

Serving notes? Just like McCarthyism, this cheese spreads easily.

Welcome

Yes. That’s right. A cheese blog.

Many said I shouldn’t do it. My mother argued that my (albeit fantastic) waistline could not hold up to the daily tasting sessions. My friends told me that my obsession had become a concern. My unconscious mind was growing tired of the bizarre cheese dreams.

But for me, this is as gouda as it gets.

You love cheese too, right?

Hard and crumbling. Soft and creamy. Wafer-thin slivers and weighted wheels of solid joy.

Some like it hot. Melting on bread, forks, fingers.

Some like it shaved. Diaphanous sheets curling over pasta, salad.

Some like it right now, with the kind of “hook-it-to-my-veins” desperation not seen since CheeseCon '85.

And me? I like it any way. I shall eat it on the beaches, I shall eat it in the fields and in the streets. And then when I’m finished, I shall wander, corpulent, over to this blog and bring my thoughts to you dear people.

Join this little fromage à trois, bring a cheese wheel and a glass of wine with you, and we’ll wander once more into the cheese, my friends.