Cheese is the Word in High-End Entertaining By Joyce Rosencrans
The Cincinnati Post
Serving cheese as a separate course, as has been done for many years in Europe, is now deemed a restaurant trend among expensive eateries, which are often the fount of general food trends.
According to a survey by the California Milk Advisory Board, the cheese-course trend has emerged in the last five years among high-end restaurants in San Francisco and the Napa/Sonoma wine region.
The milk board's most recent survey revealed that two out of three fine restaurants currently feature some form of cheese course on the menu. Five years ago, less than 10 percent of restaurants surveyed in California were serving a cheese course.
"The appearance of the cheese course in so many restaurants here in California and across the country is based on a growing feeling among chefs and restaurateurs that cheese is an integral part of the fine-dining experience. And it's no coincidence that this trend occurs as we are seeing a renaissance of fine cheesemaking in this country," said Laura Werlin, author of The New American Cheese.
"What is especially gratifying," said Nancy Fletcher of the California Milk Advisory Board, is that fine American regional cheeses, such as Dry Jack and Teleme, and California artisan and farmstead cheeses are appearing in restaurant cheese courses."
Home cooks in a hurry usually recall at holiday time that a cheese course is a quick way to serve a luxury, no-cook appetizer to guests. Some hosts have their favorite cheese trio, such as brie, havarti and blue, to serve with bland crackers and wine.
Some prefer a cheese-fruit pairing, such as ripe Bartletts, grapes, Stilton cheese and toasted walnuts—always a winner for autumn entertaining. With such gorgeous ingredients, one can create a still-life tableau to rival a fine oil painting. In fact, it's possible to hang such a painting or reproduction over a dining-room sideboard, then echo the same still-life arrangement beneath the painting with actual edibles.
Nice implements to have for a signature cheese course at home are fancy-handled scissors for cutting grape clusters and cheese-shavers or blades for hard cheeses, spreaders for soft cheeses.
Here are two recipes to complement cheese. Some restaurants surveyed serve cheese with fruit, nuts, honey or preserves, but we recommend that the preserves be a homemade fruit chutney:
Purple Plum Chutney
Pear and Bleu Cheese Puffs
(Joyce Rosencrans is food editor at The Cincinnati Post.)
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