Cheese of the Week: England Moroccan Spice Cheese

Picked up this baby at my local Sobey’s, where I couldn’t turn down the dark orange colour, the under-$4 price tag or the promise of exotic spice. You can’t really tell unless you look at that photo closely, but for what you pay, you don’t get very much cheese at all. This was a 100-gram tiny little slice of cheese. So I hoped that it would be good — nay, great!

As you can tell by the label, this is a generically wrapped cheese, and there was very little in the way of extraneous information. Basically, what you see is what I got. So I can’t tell you what, precisely, was was the England Moroccan spice in the cheese.

In fact, even the term “moroccan spice” is misleading, since it probably refers to a mixture (up to 100(!), according to some websites) of spices known as Ras el hanout — a mixture that’s kept secret by the people doing the mixing.

I seriously doubt that there would be 100 spices in this cheese, though — it probably just has some of the common ones.

Although you can see a bit of oilyness on the surface of the cheese, the texture was more mushy-crumbly.

We paired it with some Triscuit “thin crisps” because that’s all we had around the house (it ain’t Cracker of the Week, you know!) and because we weren’t real fans of the “thin crisp” flavour, which was vaguely Parmesan-like, or texture, which was similar to a mini-Wheat. Yeah, imagine Parmesan-frosted mini-Wheats, and you’re on the right ugh-track.

We also sampled the cheese with a nice red wine — and we’re seriously discussing a Wine of the Week, so stay tuned.

Surprisingly, the bland dry flavour of the Triscuit thin crisps was exactly what this England Moroccan Spice Cheese needed. Although there was a hint of heat if you let the cheese linger in the back of your throat, this was far from a spicy cheese. In fact, the flavour was disappointingly less-than-intense.

Apparently, the “England” in the title refers to the cheddar-like cheese base that was used here. It’s got the texture and tartness of a nicely aged cheddar, but the Moroccan spice adds a slight bite and some complex flavours on your tongue.

We spent most of the tasting discussing how familiar yet unplaceable the flavour was. Since Ras el-hanout can contain many spices — including common ones like paprika, cumin, tumeric, cardamom and cinammon — I’m not surprised that we felt like the taste kept dangling on the tips of our tongues.

If you’re making up a cheese platter for friends, this woud be an eye-catching one to add. There are little bits of what look like hot pepper seeds (like in the shakers at a pizza place) in the cheese, and it’s got a distinctive colour. But unless your friends are true bland-mouths who want to “congratulate” themsevles on sampling something “exotic” this cheese has to be rated a taste disappointment. It’s edible, but not nearly intense or flavourful enough.

Sorry, Morocco — but I think this cheese sells you short. You must have more to offer than this limp flavour.

…

UPDATE: Saturday, April 4, 2009: Although I stand by this original review of the cheese I ate, last night Amy I went to a wine-and-cheese party at a friend’s place, where we were served this exact same cheese. Except it wasn’t. It was the same “brand” from the same store, same style, same price, etc. But it wasn’t the same cheese at all. It was softer, more yielding to the tongue. But when it got there, it was spicier, more intense, and more flavourful. A much better cheese.