Cheese of the Week: Oka (in a box)

I let Amy pick out the cheese of the week while we were shopping for supper supplies yesterday, and she didn’t disappoint me. She picked up a small cheese that came in a fancy looking box, and I was immediately on board.

Oka cheese, according to that box, is a Trappist-style cheese made since 1893 by monks in Quebec, where it is given a special surface wash and aged for over 35 days. Impressive! Also on the side of the box was a “ripening guide” that told us how best — and when best — to enjoy the cheese:

• three months before the best-before date it is mild, with a buttery yellow rind and a fine texture
• two months before the best-before date it is refined, with a golden yellow rind and a fine texture
• one month before the best-before date it is ripe, with a copper orange rind and a more consistent texture

When we bought it yesterday, Aug. 17, the best-before date printed on the side was “09AUG20″. So we were prepared for a pretty ripe cheese.

Although the colour on my camera-phone isn’t perfect, the rind wasn’t as orange as perhaps it could have been — more of a deep orangey tan.

The texture, though, on the rind was noticeable immediately: it looked covered as if by grains of sand, almost pebbly. It looked, come to think of it, like very old, almost-used-up sandpaper, with only a few grains of sand per square centimetre left.

Also, it had a very pungent odour. It is quite a smelly cheese, leaving a nasal impression akin to a boys’ locker room. On the box, this is referred to as a “unique aroma” that is “legendary.”

Cutting into the wheel, you can see that it has a smooth, pale interior. It is a soft, yet fairly firm cheese, but the smell made us hesitate to taste it. Taking the plunge, I found it to be surprisingly mild on first impression, though the rind has a very odd grainy texture that sticks around after the rest of the cheese is gone and gives your mouth a strong, bitter aftertaste.

The box (again) promises ” the subtle, irresistible taste of butter and hazelnuts.” Well, perhaps if we had gotten to it a couple of months ago. But this close to the best-before date, the rind had gotten so overpoweringly bitter that the taste of the cheese itself was difficult to discern.

Now, it wasn’t so awful that we couldn’t eat it — I’ve finished the (small) wheel, actually. But this isn’t a beginner’s cheese. And I found that a good swallow of nice, French red wine can go a long way to tamping down the roughness of the cheese and making it fairly smooth.

Also, this is a cheese the benefits from being at room temperature for a while — let it warm up. You’ll hate that the smell wafts everywhere, but the taste gets milder and yet more interesting — it brings out layers of complexity that just aren’t there when you try it straight from the fridge.

Finally, I enjoyed this cheese substantially more when I cut it extremely thin. I think that minimized the amount of rind and maximized the surface area of the cheese inside.

Despite that, I think the rind is an important part of this cheese. You’d be cheating yourself of the full flavour if you simply cut it off and discarded it. And in this aspect, I agree with what’s printed on the box: “Savour along with its edible rind. The rind adds to the Oka experience.”

Indeed.