Goat cheese

[swan_tower]

The other day I was at the grocery store, and the cheese counter had samples out of something. Another customer was standing between me and the actual blocks of cheese the samples were taken from, so I had no idea what they were, but I went ahead and popped one in my mouth.

Train of thought: “Oh, wow, this is amazing, this is — UGH BLEAGH IT’S GOAT CHEESE GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT.”

I have no idea what’s going on chemically with goat cheese, but invariably I have this type of reaction, where for a second or two it’s lovely, and then I get hit by a freight train of something so unpleasantly pungent, it lingers with me for a good five minutes afterward. Much as with cilantro, I don’t think I could train myself into liking it if I tried for a year: when that taste kicks in, my brain utterly rejects the possibility that what I’m eating is food.

Those of you who like goat cheese — is that pungency a selling point for you? Or does it not even hit you in the same way? (Wikipedia describes goat’s cheese as “tart,” which is not remotely the taste I get off it.) I’m wondering if this is anything like the “supertaster” deal where some people can’t taste phenylthiocarbamide or propylthiouracil, while for others (I’m one) they are unspeakably bitter. I know my reaction to cheese in general is linked to the fact that I have a very strong sense of smell; your stinkier classes of cheese are Right Out for me because all I wind up tasting is the stink. But this wasn’t a strong-smelling cheese, and it still bowled me over with that unpleasant funk two seconds after I bit down. So I’m kind of curious what’s going on there, chemically speaking, and whether the experience is just qualitatively different for people who like the stuff.

Comments

[sovay]

I’m wondering if this is anything like the “supertaster” deal where some people can’t taste phenylthiocarbamide or propylthiouracil, while for others (I’m one) they are unspeakably bitter.

I tend to fall into the supertaster category in terms of chemicals I can taste and I love goat cheese. I wouldn't call the flavor of goat's milk tart or funky or even pungent; I tend to describe it as "musky." I liken it to the flavor difference between lamb and beef. (Goat's meat tastes musky as well.) It is always present and I like it; in fact I prefer it significantly to cow's milk, which I find cloying and weirdly sweet. Increasingly I prefer goat's milk cheeses to cow's milk as well, although not as sweepingly as with the milk itself.

When you say "goat cheese" in this instance or in general, what are you talking about? There are a lot of goat's milk cheeses and they do not all have the same flavor. Goat's milk gouda, for example, does not taste like goat's milk brie. I don't happen to like the typical soft kind very much unless it's being treated like boursin. [edit] For clarity, this is not an effort to persuade you into goat's milk cheese by different routes. I'm just curious if part of what you're tasting is the particular cheesemaking process, in the same way that if blue cheese was your only exposure to cow's milk cheese and you were not a big fan of mold, you might reasonably conclude that cow's milk cheese is the Devil.

[swan_tower]

Musky is another word for it, sure -- or as someone later in the comments put it, the stuff just tastes like goat. But for me it is not pleasant at all; it registers more like I'm eating something out of the garbage bin.

As for what type of cheese, I've had a couple and had this reaction to all of them. I loathe chevre (and have had it several times); I don't remember what the second one was; the one in the grocery store I forget what the label said, but in texture it was a lot like gouda. Unless there's a goat's milk cheese that is somehow not goaty, I suspect it's just not going to work for me.

[sovay]

But for me it is not pleasant at all; it registers more like I'm eating something out of the garbage bin.

Everybody's tastebuds are different. It was a lifesaver for me.

[swan_tower]

Yup. I don't knock the people who like it; I'm more just intrigued by what such people are experiencing, that is apparently inaccessible to my tastebuds. (I only get grumpy when it's something like "everybody has decided cilantro is the New Hotness and is dumping it on every dish ever" -- by all means enjoy it on some dishes, people, but please do not ambush me with it.)

[sovay]

I'm more just intrigued by what such people are experiencing, that is apparently inaccessible to my tastebuds.

Goat's milk tastes like milk to me, always whole, so it's rich, with the warm goat-flavor that if asked I describe as musky. It doesn't taste like the fermentation of yogurt or stinky cheese; I don't even find it an especially prominent note overall, but I notice its absence in cow's milk, which is cold and tastes too sweet. I taste something similar but not identical in sheep's milk (cheese, yogurt). I don't tend to think about it because non-cow dairy is my default.

[3rdragon]

It might be interesting to try goat milk brie -- I don't experience it as goaty, much/at all -- but it's "like cow milk brie except more expensive," so it would mostly be For Science.

[swan_tower]

If I happen across it, I will try!

[pameladean]

I eat a lot of goat cheese because I can't tolerate cow's-milk products. I know what you mean about the funk. I can smell it on some but not all goat cheeses, and it's more obvious if the cheese is melted or in a macaroni-and-cheese or similar dish. But it doesn't hit my taste buds like that. It's a background note. I'm part of a group that meets regularly to make tea and fancy food for one another, and one of us has the same reaction that you do to any goat cheese. We get sheep's-milk or cow's-milk cheese for her, because she really can't stand the goat products.

I'll add that I like goat butter but I cannot stand goat's MILK itself. The funk is way over the top in that. One of my partners drinks goat's milk and I'm just, no, get it away from me.

P.

[carbonel]

I'm not big on spreadable goat cheese, but it's not a flavor thing, it's a texture thing. I don't like the chalky mouth feel that the softer goat cheeses have. It feels tannic and dry on the tongue, even when it's reasonably smooth and soft.

The harder ones that are like cheddar or Gouda are more to my liking. But if it's my turn to host the tea group, I'll send you home with the leftover goat cheese because there's usually cow's milk cheese as well, and it'll be as much as I can do to get through that before it goes bad. Cheese tends to be one of those things that I eat not at all or else too much of.

[sovay]

It feels tannic and dry on the tongue, even when it's reasonably smooth and soft.

Agreed, which is why it bewilders me that it's the most common form of goat cheese in stores. (I like other formats of soft goat cheese much better.)

[swan_tower]

Yeah, this is not so much a background note as front and center, tap-dancing, with a spotlight on it. Like you with the milk, I guess.

[jreynoldsward]

I wonder if it has to do with the rind or curing process? Because of allergies I'm pretty picky about my goat cheese--needs to not be cured with egg white. I'm not as fond of the soft goat cheeses but the hard cheeses are wonderful--much better than the non-dairy alternatives I'd otherwise be eating. I'm just grateful that my milk allergy seems to be limited to cow milk.

And no, I've not noticed a musky flavor or a funk. But I've only been doing goat cheese and goat yogurt, not goat milk.

[swan_tower]

Hmmm, interesting. I don't know much about cheese curing, so I have no clue what role that may play. But I've had that reaction to both soft and hard goat cheeses, so I suspect it's just a general thing for me. It simply tastes, as someone later in the comments put it, like goat.

[rachelmanija]

Yeah, it's tart/pungent. I used to dislike it, but it turns out that if you add honey or some other sweetener, the tartness becomes a selling point for me rather than off-putting.

As another data point, I used to dislike all non-melted cheese, then discovered burrata, then fresh mozzarella, then manchego, and now quite like many cheeses. I'm still pretty picky about them, though - I've never warmed up to cheddar, for instance, unless it's melted and in a sandwich. I still hate cilantro though and always will. It is the herb of Satan.

[swan_tower]

"Tart" doesn't even come into it for me. Like, if that's there, it's buried under the goatiness of the whole thing, to the point where I can't even perceive it. But the commenter below you also suggested honey, so I may try that at some point and see what happens.

I frankly adore cheddar, especially if it's on the sharper end. Manchego can almost be too strong for me on its own, but my husband made quince paste recently, and that pairs beautifully with the cheese: each of them counterbalances the other. And fresh mozzarella can be heavenly.

I still hate cilantro though and always will. It is the herb of Satan.

PREACH IT. That's another one where I simply do not perceive the taste others praise: it's like we're eating a completely different substance.

[daidoji_gisei]

Cilantro is indeed terrible. I try to remember to order my food without it at restaurants, and if I forget I mentally scold myself while picking it off.

And I start to get annoyed at the people who immediately say "oh, you are one of those people who have the gene that makes it taste like soap." No, it doesn't taste like soap to me, it tastes like bad. I would like it better if it tasted like soap.

[swan_tower]

The most annoying thing is that the cilantro is often not just a garnish on top, but chopped up and mixed in, so that you can't effectively pick it out.

I'm also with you on it not tasting like soap, per se. But I accept that description because it helps people understand that isn't a situation where I should just eat it more and I'll learn to like it. My trajectory was actually in the other direction: I was able to eat it at first, but more exposure made the taste worse.

[benbenberi]

I suspect that what you are reacting to is what I find challenging about goat cheese, which is the faint but always-present whiff of *goat.* In some goat cheeses this is very much in the foreground, in others it's only a faint funk in the finish, but it's always there, asserting its unique animal identity. You can't take the goat out of goat cheese.

To completely avoid it, the only thing is to not eat goat cheese.

For me, there are ways to mask the funk or make it less unpleasant. One of my favorite tapas at the local joint is rounds of mild goat cheese on toasts with a drizzle of honey and truffle oil, which seems to have tamed the beast and merged the pungency into a greater whole. (Or possibly just buried it under honey and truffle.) But the goat is still there, subtly, waiting..

[swan_tower]

That's pretty much it, yeah: goat cheese is intensely goaty to me. But I don't actually know what that goatiness is, chemically speaking.

I'm intrigued by the suggestion of pairing it with honey, though, which the commenter above you also suggested. I may give that a try, just out of curiosity.

[thawrecka]

I do like goat cheese but in small doses; I find the intensity of the flavour becomes a little too much after a while.

[swan_tower]

I'm not sure I can even take it in small doses. The piece I ate at the store was maybe the size of the last joint of my pinkie finger (and I have slender fingers), and it was still too much.

[dhampyresa]

Goat cheese is pungent to me, but that is very much a selling point. Then again, I am not only French, but one of those French people who really really like stinky cheeses. Literally just today I was thinking longingly of époisses, widely considered (one of) the stinkiest cheeses in the world, so take this with a grain of salt.

[swan_tower]

Heh, yeah -- French taste in cheese tends to go well outside my comfort zone.

[green_knight]

(Also a supertaster here): I react like that to all cheeses - I just _cannot_ eat them. The only time I've not been repelled by cheese was when I was temping in a pizza factory where you're basically in a giant fridge, suddenly the cheese we put on went to smelling mild and buttery and like food. At room temperature, not so much.

[swan_tower]

See, I like a lot of cheese -- brie is more or less my threshold for where I stop with the stinky cheeses. But most things that are milder than that, I quite enjoy.

[mindstalk]

I was going to comment on feta, but I looked it up and it's supposed to be mostly or entirely sheep's milk. Plus who knows how US 'feta' is made, I never checked.

I think I had goat brie at least once, also various soft goat chevre. They weren't my favorite but I don't recall anything distinctively funky. Or distinctive anything.

Last night a friend and I were having mac and cheese. They had an odor but were okay; another friend accused us of not having a sense of smell, he found them so pungent. Another, vegan, friend says all cheese smells like vomit.

I know someone who likes the taste of shrooms, something considered horribly acrid by everyone else. OTOH, this person can't stand grapefruit, which is bitter but not that bitter, I'd say.

[pameladean]

I can reliably attest, with considerable irritation, that the vast majority of feta made in the USA is made from cow's milk. There is goat feta; I've seen it marked as coming both from France and from Greece. It's pretty expensive, alas.

P.

[swan_tower]

Ah, interesting -- I'd assumed it was being made from sheep's milk, and that was why I didn't have the "eyurgh goat cheese" reaction to it. But if it's cow's milk, that explains it.

[pameladean]

In Europe, it HAS to be made from sheep's milk, though for some reason there can be up to 30% of goat's milk in there too, which would be an unpleasant surprise for you but would be okay for me. In the US, you can get sheep's milk feta but it's almost never made here. There's a lovely place in Minnesota called Shepherd's Way Farms and they make wonderful artisan cheeses, but they don't actually make feta. The best sheep's milk feta I can get usually comes from Bulgaria.

P.

[3rdragon]

Yeah, I pretty much assume that domestic feta is cow milk.

[sovay]

I can reliably attest, with considerable irritation, that the vast majority of feta made in the USA is made from cow's milk.

That sucks!

[pameladean]

It does! I gather that people making goat's and sheep's milk products don't get the same kinds of agriculture subsidies as those using cow's milk, but I can't say I've researched the question thoroughly. At least I do get to go to Bill's Imported Foods, a name and store I really like, to get sheep's milk feta from Bulgaria.

P.

[sovay]

At least I do get to go to Bill's Imported Foods, a name and store I really like, to get sheep's milk feta from Bulgaria.

That's good. I also thought feta was sheep's milk or bust.

[mrissa]

This is particularly frustrating because if you say "I don't like feta much," people want to interpret it as "I don't like goat cheese much," and there are loads of goat cheeses I like--basically all of them except feta--so having the ONE I don't like treated as a generic for the whole group is obnoxious--and then finding out that most feta here isn't even goat--argh argh argh.

(But of course it isn't, it doesn't taste goaty at all. Sigh.)

[pameladean]

That is very argh. And why do people assume that feta is made from goat's milk when in grocery store after grocery store and restaurant after restaurant, it isn't? And when the European standard is mostly sheep's milk?

P.

[3rdragon]

I don't know, but people really do like to assume that feta is not cow milk.

[swan_tower]

Cheese is definitely one of those things that can seem totally normal to you if you grew up with it or eat it all the time, and then everybody else is shuddering and saying "I don't know how you can eat that stuff." Which I remind myself of whenever I have the latter reaction to some food that is very alien to me . . .

[pameladean]

Ha, yes, cheese is actually very weird indeed if you think about it.

P.

[alatefeline]

That is an EXCELLENT question. It does kinda sound like you like most of the taste and then there is one specific thing you are tasting in goat cheese that is registering as Not Food.

[alatefeline]

I cannot eat much dairy now, but I used to be able to. The animal and fermented qualities of all cheese are now far more apparent to me than they used to be.

[3rdragon]

I like the mild 'goatiness' in many goat cheeses (in the same way that I'll enjoy a lemon tang to something), but there are others where it's abruptly TOO MUCH and I'm no longer interested.

What I find interesting is that another friend of mine (also lactose intolerant) used to hate goat cheese - reacted to it much like you do - and has learned to like it. I think she started with very small quantities of mild cheese in other dishes, like using a bit of chevre in a quiche with other cheese, and working her way up. Now she puts chevre on her bagels, and quite happily chows down on mild hard cheeses.

As other people have mentioned, honey does something to mellow it. Honey and rosemary and goat cheese is especially nice.

[swan_tower]

This was definitely one where the goatiness hit very abruptly and very strongly. With others it's been more of a gradual thing.

[clhollandwriter]

I hate stinky cheeses (can't touch anything blue) but love goats' cheese and don't find it at all goaty. I couldn't tell you why I like it so much though.

Apparently how goaty the cheese is depends on how fresh the milk is used to make the cheese, as it goes bad more quickly than cows' milk. The older it is the goatier it tastes. And also whether the bucks - who emit goaty pheremones - live in with the does all year round. If they do it can permeate the milk, which might be what you're reacting to.

[swan_tower]

Interesting! I don't feel like that's something I'm likely to be able to judge when looking at the packaged cheese, but it does offer context for the range of effects.

[clhollandwriter]

No, it's not the sort of thing they put on packaging. Maybe they should!