Cheese tasting in SOCG210 Gastronomy course

Spain is well known for its vast variety of cheeses from fresh to cured, fermented to blue-veined, from cow’s, sheep’s or goat’s milk or a mixture of all three. A paradise for cheese lovers with 13 cheeses with Denominations of Origin in Spain!

Cheese is eaten in Spain every day with bread, as a tapa, as a dessert or just by itself. And the good news is that you can easily find exceptional cheeses in municipal markets, larger supermarkets or specialty shops.

As part of the gastronomy course, students went to a municipal market and tasted different kind of Spanish cheeses analyzing organoleptic features such as sight, smell, taste/flavor, and touch/texture.

Cheeses tasted and analyzed:

• Tetilla Cheese, made from pasteurized cow’s milk with a creamy and slightly salty flavor. Made in Galicia
• Montbru, semi-cured goat’s cheese with a lightly citric taste, buttery texture and intense aroma. Made in Catalonia.
• Zamorano, made from hard sheep’s milk. It has a slightly sharp bite, buttery with a nutty after taste and a texture that melts in the mouth. Made in Zamora.
• Idiazabal, a rustic ewe’s milk cheese often smoked from unpasteurized milk. Made in Basque country
• Retamar, a sheep’s milk cheese of fine and flexible texture, intense taste and slightly spicy. Made in Castilla la Mancha
• La Peral, a pasteurized blue cheese from a mixture of cow’s and sheep’s milk with a full slightly spice personality. Made in Asturias