Brillat Savarin: Sunny Saturday Snack

Now that is a beautiful chunk of cheese. Brillat Savarin is a French triple cream cow's cheese. Triple creams are intensely smooth because extra cream is added to the milk curds used to produce them.

Brillat Savarin, is one of the most luscious I've ever tasted. The texture is much softer and richer than brie, which is good but is sometimes a bit rubbery if you get stuck with an inferior brie. The batch I found at Whole Foods this weekend had been perfectly ripened. Sometimes stores sell cheese before they're 100% ripe, meaning the cheese is a little harder than it should be and the flavore aren't fully developed. Most people can't tell/don't care about the difference, and keeping cheese at the right temperature for ripening runs the risk of cheese going bad before stores can sell it. So stores just keep the cheese super cold until they can unload it, at which point it's too late for the buyer to ripen it at home.

Lucky for me, the Brillat Savarin was perfect. Dense and creamy in the center, very runny around the edge, with an exceptionally thin and edible rind and just a slight pungent taste. Previously I'd only had Brillat Savarin in a truly transcendent dessert souffle, but spread on some wheat crackers it was a nice savory snack to enjoy on this brilliantly sunny but chilly day.