Our top Thanksgiving cheese picks for 2015: Shelburne 2 Year Cheddar, Lorenzo, Bayley Hazen Blue, and Sage Farm's fresh goat cheese, Wood's Cider Jelly and Castleton crackers.
One of our favorite ways to celebrate Thanksgiving is with a round up of some of New England's best cheeses. While we love the fruits of Europe's great cheese-making traditions, Thanksgiving is the perfect time of year to reflect on and celebrate American cheese makers, and our country's own tradition of beautiful cheeses of all milk types and textures. This year, our Cambridge store's domestic cheese buyer Tripp, along with the rest of the cheese team, have brought together four of our favorite Vermont cheeses for a perfect addition to the holiday table!
Shelburne Farms 2 Year Cheddar
Founded in 1886 as a model agricultural estate, Shelburne Farms sits on the edge of Lake Champlain in Shelburne Vermont, just fifteen minutes south of Burlington. In addition to their successful dairy, vegetable, and sustainable forestry programs, Shelburne Farms also runs an nonprofit dedicated to conservation education, and in 2001 it was named a National Historic Landmark. Their Vermont farmhouse cheddar is made solely with raw milk from their herd of grass-fed Brown Swiss cows, and comes in a variety of ages. Our favorite is this two-year old cheddar, which has a delightful crumbly texture and turns creamy on the palate.
Lorenzo
Meadowood Farms is an idyllic farm, smack in the middle of New York state where Veronica Pedraza creates a variety of cheeses using the milk from their flock of East Friesian sheep. Lorenzo is a medium-format, sheep milk cheese, washed as it ages with cider from the nearby Harvest Moon Cidery. Not overwhelming aromatic we still put this one in the category of 'stinky' cheeses. Forthright with its flavors, and with a dense and rich texture, we find that this cheese is a perfect pair for a crisp and lightly sweet hard cider or maybe a touch of Wood's Cider Jelly!
Bayley Hazen Blue
Recently crowned the 'best unpasteurized cheese in the world' at the 2014 World Cheese Awards in England, Bayley Hazen Blue regularly features as another Formaggio Kitchen staff favorite. The creamy, crumbly texture of Bayley Hazen Blue is an immediate stand-out among blue-veined cheeses, with flavors of sweet grass and peppery spice. The Ayrshire cow's milk provides a nutty, pleasantly farmy foundation for this complex cheese. Jasper Hill Farm in far north Greensboro Vermont makes phenomenal cheeses using milk from their small herd of Ayrshire cows. They also run an expansive, top-notch aging facility used by many of the state's other producers including the much-loved Cabot Clothbound Cheddar.
Sage Farm
Molly and Katie Pindell have been making cheese in Stowe Vermont since 2008. Together with their small herd of registered Alpine goats, they produce some of our favorite fresh goat cheeses made in Vermont. Styled after the French classic Valencay, Sterling is dusted with ash and aged for just two weeks, and it's smooth texture yields a rich, tart flavor. Madonna is denser, but still creamy, with a brighter, lemony flavor that pairs beautifully with New England honey.
All four cheeses are available together online as part of our Thanksgiving Cheese Bundle, paired with Vermont's own Castleton Crackers and Wood's Cider Jelly.
For more Thanksgiving cheese ideas, check out our 2012 Thanksgiving Cheese Board, and our 2011 picks for celebrating America-the-melting-pot with international cheeses!