Menuet Cheese from Dancing Cow Farm

Menuet cheese from Vermont was recommended to me on a recent visit to Formaggio Kitchen. A staff member and I were discussing cheeses aged in the Jasper Hill Farms Cheese Cellars. He offered me a sample of Menuet telling me that it was another great cheese that was coming out of this wonderful Vermont arrangement.

I took home a nice wedge and would have photographed it myself for our readers, but we ate it before I could. This disappearing act is a sign of a very good cheese, and this one is completely charming.

This cheese comes from a couple, Steve and Karen Getz, who moved to Vermont in 2003 and since have nurtured their land with organic management. First, they learned to produce award winning milk and then went on to make very good cheese.

Now they've partnered with Jasper Hill Farms Cheese Cellars to take their cheese to a new level by aging it under the meticulous care that has produces award-winning cheeses.

Dancing Cow describes the cheese this way.

"Menuet made with uncooled raw cow's milk from a single milking, Menuet is a tomme style cheese that is sweet and nutty with a creamy texture and lingering finish. The name Menuet comes from a French dance of the baroque period that was described as a dance of many small steps, not unlike the many small steps in making of this cheese. Aged in The Cellars at Jasper Hill Farm a minimum of 5 months."

Karen Getz told me that Menuet is currently available at Formaggio, Whole Foods at Symphony and Cambridge Street in the Greater Boston area. Let us know (in the comments) if you find it in another aread cheeseshops.

Readers around the country will find it at places like Cowgirl Creamery, Artistian Cheese, Murray's Cheese, and DuBruno Brothers. Cowgirl creamery offeres this description, "Menuet is reminiscent of small batch, farmhouse cheese found in the countryside of Normandy. Its texture is deliciously creamy with grassy undertones and a long, lingering finish."

Here  are three of our favorite cheese books.

   

Details:
(Photo by Karen Getz courtesy of Dancing Cow Farm)

Dancing Cow Farm
237 Holstein Drive, Bridport, VT 05734
www.dancingcowcheese.com

Formaggio Kitchen
44 Huron Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
www.formaggiokitchen.com

South End Formaggio
268 Shawmut Ave, Boston Massachusetts 02118
http://www.southendformaggio.com/

Artisinal Cheese
00 W 37th Street 2nd Fl New York NY 10018
www.artisanalcheese.com

Murray's Cheese
New York, NY
www.murrayscheese.com

Cowgirl Creamery
80 Fourth Street, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956
http://www.cowgirlcreamery.com/prodinfo.asp?number=MENUET

Di Bruno Bros.
1730 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
www.dibruno.com