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PrintPerfecting the Cheese Plate
Combine flavors and textures for a sure-to-please sampler.
Photos By Joseph Tondro-Smith
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The title “cheesemonger” generally doesn’t bring to mind a young woman who looks like she just stepped off campus, but that’s what you’ll find when you chat with Meggan Kaiser at Pearl Street Meat and Fish in Jackson. Despite her youth, Meggan’s world of expertise, complemented by her clarity and passion, makes her the “go-to girl” to simplify the overwhelming world of cheese.
A transplant from Georgia, she credits her love of good food to her Italian roots and a family of chefs who freak out over a good pasta sauce. That quest for perfection (and interest in variety) is evident in Meggan’s advice to put together a stellar cheese plate.
“Go for about four cheeses and focus on all the amazing flavors and textures,” she recommends. She breaks cheese down into four main flavors: sweet, buttery, tangy, and blue or salty (see box on page 19).
Then she suggests narrowing your cheese choices down to two of each flavor, and make your final decision to include these four textures: firm/crunchy, soft/creamy (think “eat with a spoon”), semi-soft (gives a little), and blue (can be hard to soft). And she encourages choosing cheeses from a variety of animals—in general, cow cheeses are rich and buttery; sheep cheeses are salty, lemony, and drier; and goat cheeses tend to be tangy, bright, and tart.
What cheeses you serve on your perfect plate may depend on what part of the meal you’re planning. If designing an appetizer, the flavors should be subtle. “I generally don’t recommend strong blues for a first course. It’s like eating Thai food before sole cooked in butter,” Meggan says. For a dessert course, “Consider stronger flavors, like a washed-rind, because your taste buds are all worn out.”
Similarly, beer or wine pairing is an important consideration. “A strong beer or wine needs a strong cheese,” Meggan says. And she adds, don’t forget terroir: “If you are drinking Spanish wine, include at least a couple of Spanish cheeses."
Finally, it’s always nice to include a domestic cheese—and with more than five hundred artisan creameries around the country these days, “You can always find a good domestic blue for your cheese plate,” she notes.
To complement the cheeses, Meggan likes to choose a few interesting items like quince paste, fruit jam, nuts, dried fruit, mild olives, and artisan salamis. She also recommends a toasted baguette, sliced on the diagonal, or a simple cracker, so the focus stays on the cheese (although a really mild cheese can go with a stronger cracker).
