Taleggio

Taleggio

What it is

It takes its name from the Bergamo valley it came from, and it was ripened not in a cellar but in the damp natural caves of the Valsassina, where cold draughts through the rock hold the humidity the rind needs. The smell is entirely in that rind, washed with brine roughly once a week; the paste beneath it is mild enough to startle anyone who met the cheese by its nose first.

In the kitchen

It melts at low temperature without splitting, but the ammonia lives in the rind: pare it off before the cheese goes into polenta or a gratin. Cube it and stir it in off the heat, roughly 30 g for every 100 g of dry polenta.

Goes with

Stone-ground polenta Pear Walnut Honey Radicchio Porcini Black pepper Prosciutto di Parma

Same species

Abura-kasu Amourettes (spinal marrow) Spider steak Bastourma Flank steak Beef

In season alongside

Black trumpet Cherimoya Ankimo Fugu shirako Herring milt Mont d’Or

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