Never having tasted Casu marzu, the infamous (and outlawed) Sardinian cheese studded with maggot larvae that mature as the cheese does, I can honestly say that I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t like. As a matter of fact, I met a new one I liked very much just the other day: Everything Cream Cheese from Springdale Farm. Made from the milk of Guernsey and Jersey cows that live on the farm in Waldo, this spreadable cheese has garlic, onion, salt and poppy and sesame seeds, just like its namesake bagel.
I’ve always been soft on fresh cheeses. I’ve explored the classic types – chevre, feta, fromage blanc, lebneh, paneer, quark and queso fresco – from all over the world. But now, with the growing number of local farms and cheesemakers producing young cheeses and selling them in farmers markets, health food stores and supermarkets near me and learning that, pound for pound, they require about half of the milk and far less energy to produce than their aged brethren, I am becoming unabashedly fond of them. (Specific yields vary depending on the type of milk and the breed of mammal that produced it.)
Please, let me be crystal clear. I am not telling anyone to forgo local aged cheeses in favor of the fresh ones, as that would make me a hypocrite. I fully intend to continue consuming both fresh and aged in equal measure. Rather, I am advocating a higher profile for fresh cheeses from Maine – some that carry the same names as the classics and some new additions, like Balfour Farm’s Bevre (a chevre style made with cow’s milk) – as the far greener option to industrial cream cheese, mascarpone, mozzarella and ricotta.
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