Friday, October 31, 2008

The perfect Hallowe'en cheeseboard!

If you're hosting a Hallowe'en supper tonight and wondering what to put on the cheeseboard, let me make a couple of suggestions.

Hallowe'en's all about kitsch so I would certainly colour-theme my board. It would have to be largely orange as there aren't many black cheeses though you could serve one of those black wax coated cheddars if you could find one. And some ready-to-eat prunes and charcoal biscuits on the side!

Perfect candidates for orange cheeses would be Mimolette, a very good dark orange-coloured cheese from Northern France, a washed rind cheese such as Epoisses or Stinking Bishop (the idea of a stinky cheese seems particularly suitable for Hallowe'en, I feel) and red Leicester from England

There's certainly no orange or black wine that I know of but port is pretty dark in colour or you could serve a pumpkin ale.

Have a fun evening!

3 comments:

Fiona Beckett said...

Too late for this year but I've just discovered an American producer called Jasper Hill produces a cheese especially for Hallowe'en called Scream Cheese which is available from Artisanal in New York. http://www.artisanalcheese.com/prodinfo.asp?number=PC-10045

What a hoot!

Lori Lynn said...

I love your site, and as I mentioned earlier I have your book. I just did a post on cheese photos but why I'm commenting now is that a photo I posted from Morels French Steakhouse, we had the Mimolette you speak of, very orange, a little bacony? no? we liked it a lot. Can you tell us more about it?

Fiona Beckett said...

Hi, Lori and thank you for your kind remarks. Mimolette is a Dutch-style cheese produced in Northern France. It's striking orange colour apparently comes from a natural colourant called rocou. It gets quite crystalline and crumbly as it gets older and makes a good partner for red Bordeaux which which it's often paired. I like to serve it on its own with dried fruits such as apricots, prunes and medjool dates