We are in love. Can I tell you about it? Sorry if this gets mushy… Who’s the object of our affection, you ask? It’s the cheesemaker Goot Essa, which means “good food” or “good eating.” Dreamyyyy. A couple weeks ago, they sent us ten or so cheeses to taste and we drooled over every single one. When we receive a bunch of different samples from one cheesemaker, we are wary because it’s very difficult to do a range of styles well. Often, a few have good flavor and the rest are less exciting. Not so with Goot Essa! There’s got to be some kind of magic in the water down there that the animals are drinking or the cheesemakers are drinking or something because they gave us such variety – firm, soft, sheep, cow, goat, aged, fresh – and it was all TASTY.

Perhaps one reason they are so delicious is because there is a mission behind the cheesemaking. The Esh family started Goot Essa in 2001 because they wanted to help their community of Amish farmers stay in business. Cheese adds value to liquid milk, which has extremely volatile pricing. By using their own and their neighbors’ milk to make cheese, which has much more consistent pricing, the Eshes have helped create some stability for the farmers in a difficult market. We are thankful that they did! Not only are they helping very small family dairies survive when so many are going out of business, but as I waxed poetic above, their product is really freakin’ delicious.

We’ve brought in five of their cheeses in this first batch. They all have names that are going to take us a hot second to wrap our mouths around, so if you know how to say them correctly, please help us out.

Alt Medisher – This is a firm goat’s milk cheese that is around ten months old but tastes older. If you’ve had the Scandinavian gjetost before, it’s like an artisanal version of that. If that means nothing to you, then you’re a normal person and I’ll give you a real description. Alt Medisher tastes like a mountainside (yes, laugh at me, I deserve it), by which I mean it tastes grassy, stony and a bit earthy, and it has a touch of ginger spice. Intrigued?

Der Alpen Kase – A firm cow’s milk cheese with one hoof in Pennsylvania and one hoof firmly planted in Switzerland, with nutty, caramel, slightly bitter flavors.

Felsa Yehr – Sheep’s milk cheese that tastes like toast and brown butter. It’s pushing a year and a half old, which helps that sheep become nice and sweet.

Emanuel Vom Tal Kase – While we’ve had other soft sheep’s milk cheeses, I don’t think we’ve had anything like this before. It looks like a tall Chabichou (heart) and it tastes like fresh hay and rich salted butter.

Der Weischen Gel – This little cow’s milk has us all in a tizzy. It’s soft with a lovely white rind and it tastes like, no joke, buttered scallops or lobster pasta. Swooooon.

So there you have it, our new love. Oh! And we also have Goot Essa’s apple butter because it tastes like apple pie in a jar, so it needed to be in this shop like now.

For the love of cheese and Goot Essa, of course,

Kiri

Introducing Goot Essa