We are students of cheese and admit to having a mental list of cheese we want to try. Vella Dry Jack has been on that list since we saw it on Steve Jenkins list, "American Treasures: the best American Cheeses" in his book Cheese Primer
It is not widely available in this area. So when Penny saw it at Whole Foods on Cambridge Street, she grabbed a wedge.
This cheese has a wonderful history and others have told the story well, so we'll just link to those reports.
First, there is the family's own history on the Vella Cheese website. And, Janet Fletcher wrote about it in the San Francisco Chronicle: Vella Dry Jack's dark brown coat makes an instant impression.
The process that created that brown rind you see above is one of the interesting notes mentioned by most people writing about Vella Dry Jack. To protect and preserve the wheels, cheesemakers rub them with a mixture of oil, pepper, and unsweetened cocoa during the aging process.
This is a hard cheese with nutty, sweet, caramel tones. You can pick up a scent of chocolate, but not the flavor.
Dry Jack was originally sold during World War I as a substitute for Parmigiano-Reggiano. With the recent destruction of so much of the supply of Parmigiano by the earthquakes in Italy, we could find ourselves looking to California cheesemakers to create more of this rarer, dry version of Jack Cheese.
Related Posts:
One of our all time favorite cheeses was created by a cheesemaker from the Vella Family.
Rogue River Blue, Amercian Cheese Society Winner
And, here are other items from our Cheese Tray!
What's on your Cheese shopping list? Here are some great books about cheese.
Details:
Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photography: © 2012 Penny & Ed Cherubino
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