Cheese

[Trax]

Cheese, I like it, but, what I would like to know, how long can you keep it? Plus, what the best way to keep it?

Well, I say I like it, I do, but not the sweaty sock stuff, I will leave that for my Dad. Guess its something to do with taste buds and age.... Mind you, blue cheese mixed in with Leaks, Spinage, cream..... yums.

Anyway, back to the question. We always seem to have cheese go off before we eat it all. Parmasen, love it, but as we only grate it over stuff (unless making a Carbonnara), the big chunks that you get in Supermarkets, seem to go off before we use it all, and gets thrown away. And, well, due to it stinking anyway, how do you know its gone off?

We keep it in the Fridge, and wrap it in cling film. Is this good/bad? How long should it last after opening?

[dickymint]

Buy smaller amounts and use it before it ages too much. With Parmesan you could cut it into smaller chunks and freeze it.

[Bec]

Wouldn't worry too much about a hard cheese like parmesan going off - in effect it is just turning into a blue cheese, so it won't kill you in small doses. You can freeze cheese, just beware that if it is something like camembert and you leave it in there for more than a month or so, it will stink the place out (we had the bright idea of a trip to Calais to stock up in October once, I still can't really eat the stiff 10 years later. Every time you opened the freezer the aroma of boiled cabbage hit you!)