Cheese of the Week: Madagascar Green Peppercorn

This was a great cheese. Amy and I have had it before, but it’s not always in stock, so when we were looking for a Cheese of the Week this week, and she spied it in the cooler, we had to pick it up. Again, it’s a Sobey’s special, which is kind of disappointing, because I would really love to have cheeses with more interesting labels. But unles you buy at least a half-round — and I don’t feel like spending $60 or more — you have to make do with the pre-cut wedges and the computer print-out labels.

Sigh.

I suppose we’re more about taste and mouthfeel here at Cheese of the Week, but I have to confess, I’m a sucker for a good label, and I miss the snobbishness and showing off that can come with a great brand name. Not to mention, I’m a die-hard reader, and I’ve been known to grab a bottle of wine that everyone tells me is terrible, just because the story on the back gets my attention. Labels, people! Design matters!

Anyway, the cheese…

Paired with “healthy” crackers from the “blue line” of low-fat, low-sodium and ultra-low-taste section of the supermarket, the cheese really had to stand on its own. I’m serious — the crackers we bought tasted literally like toasted cardboard.

Luckily, green peppercorns are spicy. I don’t know anything about Madagascar except I’m sure it’s nothing like the movie, but based on my experience with this cheese, I would say that the Madagascarians sure know their pepper.

The cheese itself is nice and firm, with a consistency that’s not rubbery, yet not crumbly. It holds together really well, and it seems perfectly suited to putting on a cracker. I also suspect that it would be an excellent melting cheese — especially on something like a hamburger.

The peppercorns themselves kind of mess up your cutting, sometimes, but they’re so tasty, you can forgive them that.

Take a look at those little green things! Delicious! They’re not hard and crunchy like pepper in a pepper mill would be. Instead, they are soft and almost chewy. But they are intensely flavourful. I honestly couldn’t tell you what the rest of the cheese tastes like — maybe a mild Monterey Jack? — but it just doesn’t matter.

The peppercorns steal the show here. Tasting this cheese takes you back to a time when pepper was a spice more valuable than gold. You can put a slice of this on even the awfullest of cracker and be happy. You will love this cheese.