Arrogant cheese

When I bought this cheese it was half price and I was intrigued whether it would live up to the title of "world's best blue cheese".

I like many cheeses and, despite blue varieties being divisive, I like blue almost as much as varieties made from sheep or goat milk.

Jindi's "deluxe" blue cheese was nice but seemed a bit half-arsed. It tastes like a camembert trying to be complex. It's creamy and a bit salty but lacking in the variety of flavours, from washing powder to outrageous nasal infection, that usually overwhelm when eating a powerful blue.

The title "world's best" struck me as being incredibly arrogant but, now that I'm looking closely at the label in the photo, I can see it quotes an award.

I'm a bit skeptical of marketing that quotes awards as most seem to be a kind of circle jerk for businesses who pay to enter a competition that probably aims to raise the profile of an industry. Just look at the Academy Awards, which were started as a way for the movie industry to overcome a perception that it lacked the prestige of theatre.

Anyway, now that I look at the award I'm left wondering how long businesses should be able to quote awards in their marketing. This one has probably been used for over five years now.

I'm also left wondering if cheese judges in Wisconsin are the best people to evaluate a "French style" cheese from Australia. Sure it tasted good with potato and pickled chili but that's not much of a recommendation as almost anything creamy tastes good with potato and chili hides a multitude of culinary sins.

On it's own and on a water cracker it didn't hold up.