How To Serve a Cheese Course
By April | September 12, 2007
The cheese course has always been popular in Europe and it seems to be catching on in America too. Offering your guests a selection of tasty cheeses with crackers is wonderful way to round off a meal.
To make things even more enjoyable, try presenting your cheeses attractively with labels for each cheese. Or you could let the guests try and guess which cheese is which. Show off your cheese education! Either way, be sure to offer a few different samples to satisfy every palette.
Temperature of Cheese
Serve the cheese at room temperature so that the full flavour can be enjoyed. Milder cheese can be taken out of the fridge half an hour before serving whilst harder cheeses can be taken out an hour before.
Avoid putting them out too early as you don’t want to serve dried up cheese! Make sure you keep the cheese covered in a cheese plate.
Present Your Cheese Attractively
Cheese can come presented as a wheel, a slab or a tub of softer cheese to be spread on crackers or bread. Harder cheeses can be sliced or cut into small chunks ready for eating. Array a set of cheese knives to make things easy for your guests and to keep fingers from straying onto uneaten pieces. Be sure to have some cheese stickers in the centre or nearby to make individual selection easy.
Remember to feed the eyes as well as the stomach. Make your cheese as appetising as possible by laying it out on a wooden serving platter surrounded by small slices of bread or little crackers. You’ll want a flat, sturdy surface whether marble, wood or glass as your design dictates. Make sure the knives are sharp enough to cut the cheese easily.
Keep Cheese Types Separately
If you are providing a wide selection of cheeses then it can be a good idea to separate them into the different types. For example, don’t have strong cheeses sitting next to mild ones otherwise the flavour can be altered. Laying them out on a large marble slab will do the trick, or you can arrange them in a wooden holding dish with separate compartments. But you’ll still need to keep those extra aromatic ones a couple of feet away.
Make sure your guests use a separate knife for each type of cheese otherwise the flavours can become adulterated. If guests want to mix and match cheeses on their own palette, that’s up to them. Some cheeses work very well as partners.
A two ounce serving per person is about right. It’s not a question of being stingy. Your guests are worth your best. But cheese can be high in fat and sodium and moderation is best.
Topics: Food and Drink |
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