Product Description

The traditional after-dinner cheese course is rapidly regaining popularity in home entertaining. From a grape-leaf-lined platter of ricotta, honey, red pears, and roasted chestnuts to a decorative Spanish tile topped with sheep's milk cheeses, The Cheese Course describes the wonderful array of cheeses now available, suggesting presentations and wine, fruit, and nut accompaniments.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #504700 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 120 pages

From Amazon.com
The popularity of restaurant cheese platters, offered after the main course and before dessert, leads many of us to consider a similar home presentation. But how to go about it? Part guide, part recipe book, Janet Fletcher's The Cheese Course offers a deft introduction to choosing and presenting cheese for mealtime enjoyment. The book doesn't pretend to be comprehensive; you won't find cheese-by-cheese descriptions, for example. But it does offer a sensible survey of the issues involved in choosing the best cheeses--domestic and foreign--for home entertaining. Beginning with a discussion of the cheese course itself, the book then explores cheese purchasing, platter composition, cheese accompaniments, and complementary drinks. This latter discussion, which offers pairings based on cheese age and type, is particularly well handled and offers interesting suggestions such as serving rich triple crèmes with sparkling wine or pungent cheeses with fruit brandy. After the sections on cheese etiquette and storage (Fletcher is against plastic wrap for all but the hardest cheeses), the book offers 40 recipes for cheese accompaniments, organized by milk type. These include Fresh Ricotta with Chestnut Honey, Chestnuts, and Pears, Marinated Pecorino with Orange Peel and Herbs, and Grape Focaccia with Homemade Goat Fromage Blanc. A concluding recipe section on themed cheese platters offers such delights as American Artisan Cheeses with Figs and Field Greens Salad. Illustrated with color photos throughout, the book is a small treasure of information and good taste, and should appeal to all who love cheese and want to share it with friends and family. --Arthur Boehm

About the Author
Janet Fletcher is the author of Pasta Harvest and Fresh from the Farmers' Market. Victoria Pearson's work has appeared in A Bread for All Seasons.

Customer Reviews

Title as bit of a misnomer
This is a book carefully produced, the photographs and the introductions to the recipes add to the fun of using the recipes. The book begins with a personal introduction including information on buying and storing cheese, on the selection and presentation of cheeses on a cheese platter, instruments for cutting cheese etc. This introduction is followed by four chapters of recipes using cheese: cow's milk cheeses, goat's milk cheeses, sheep's milk cheeses, and mixed milk cheeses and cheese platters.

While the recipes are excellent, they are why I take exception to the title - many of the recipes are for the salad course. Other recipes are for breads or cookies to accompany the cheese course, some are for excellent marinades for soft cheeses, some for marinades fruits to accompany the cheeses - items like goat gouda with roasted hazelnuts and sherried figs with five alternative cheeses listed make this volume well worth owning.

This is not a book that will introduce you to a wide variety of cheeses, however, it will provide you with many excellent pairings of cheese and fruit, as well as many salads for which a cheese is a necessary ingredient.

Beyond Brie en Croute
This book, beautifully photographed and in the attractive format typical for Chronicle books, is a thoughtful, modern guide that will inspire you to serve cheese. The recipe for the classic party favorite, brie en croute (brie wrapped in pastry) may be missing, but maybe it doesn't even belong in a book that is guided by a love for artisanal cheeses from all over the world that would be smothered by such a preparation. I've tried two recipes from this book so far this summer, the marinated bocconcini (they're miniature balls of mozzarella marinated in oil, oregano, red pepper flakes, capers, parsley, and garlic) and the arugala salad with watermelon and feta, and both were wonderful and easy. If you've looked at your local cheeseshop's selection longingly, wondering how to confidently serve everything from goat cheese (such as the recipe on the cover), to an aged sheep's milk cheese, to trying something new with ricotta, then this is the book for you. It's a good starting point for learning about cheeses, or a good addition to a cook's library that already contains Steven Jenkin's encylopedic Cheese Primer.