This week's cheese plate video: Zabar’s Four Cheese Italian Adventure

Ever feel like just jumping on a plane to Italy and enjoying their legendary cuisine?  We do all the time!  However, actually doing it can be difficult at best.  So instead pick up some of the great Italian cheeses Zabar’s has to offer and create your own Italian experience with a few of your closest friends.  Step out of the familiar and into the great unknown.  As with any new adventure, it will be memorable and give you a little different perspective.

Interestingly, Italy exports more cheese by weight into the U.S. than any other country.  This is thanks to such heavy cheeses as Parmigiano Reggiano, Grana Padano, Romano and Gorganzola.  However, Italy does not just produce those enormous, aged cheeses.  No, in fact they produce numerous petite, luscious cheeses that are just as wonderful and perhaps not as well known as their bigger, harder counterparts.  These little treasures are exactly what caught our eye this week.  Cravanzina is so delicate and velvety it makes our mouth water just thinking about it.  So creamy and buttery yet slightly nutty and complex thanks to the blend of milks.  Bianco Sottobosco may be small in stature but not in taste.  Slightly dry yet dissolves in your mouth leaving a wonderful truffle and nutty taste that makes you remember it long after it is gone.  Taleggio is the biggest of our collection but it is so soft and slightly pudgey that you cannot help but to want to squeeze him! Beefy yet creamy.  Wonderfully balanced.  And Zola Crèma is so gorgeous with it’s blue and white striping that you almost don’t want to cut it.  Almost…

So come away with us and try some of Italy’s softer treasures…you won’t forget it!

Cravanzina
A delicate and lovely little round from Italy.  Covered with a bloomy rind, the voluptuous paste is mild, creamy, buttery, and a little musty.  Eat it quickly, otherwise it might run right off the table - not that something this good will be around for that long.  Made from pasteurized cow and sheep's milk.

Bianco Sottobosco
In Italian, "sottobosco" means "under the forest," and perhaps by this they mean truffles, which are found just beneath the forest's floor.  This rustic cow and goat's milk cheese is laced with black truffle, and upon taking one bite, you'll know it!  Intensely truffly, with a creamy mouthfeel, nutty and savory notes, and a garlicky finish.  Its pale, flaky white paste looks lovely with flecks of black truffle.  Very elegant.  Made in Cuneo, Italy. 

Taleggio
One of the most famous washed-rind cheeses, and an Italian favorite. Taleggio comes from the Val Taleggio area, in the province in Bergamo, where it is aged between six to ten weeks and washed weekly with a sea-water-soaked sponge.  This treatment inhibits unwanted moulding, and gives the rind a sticky, orange hue, and provides pleasantly pungent, beefy flavors.  Robust but not overpowering, creamy Taleggio's fruity undertones are enhanced by serving it with yeasty bread and fresh fruit.

Zola Crema
Don't let the layers of Mascarpone fool you into thinking this is going to be some bland, creamy experience.  That would be folly!  The rich, smooth Mascarpone is there to make you let your guard down so the layers of Gorgonzola can storm in and surprise your taste buds with its intensity.  And what a pleasant surprise it is.  There's a nice play between the two cheeses, one buttery, the other a little crystallized.  It's assertive, heady, fancy, and delicious.  Cook with it, or serve it with salad or for dessert.  Pasteurized cow's milk; made in Italy.