The Cheese Plate by Max McCalman, David Gibbons Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Cheese Plate
Book Review: Excellent guide!
Summary: 5 Stars
My husband and I have been to both Picholine and Artisanal and am very happy to have this book. Every page has an interesting tidbit about cheese. We used it yesterday to help select cheeses to go with some very special red wines. Highly recommended.Book Review: Excellent read for cheese lovers
Summary: 4 Stars
I am a lover of cheese. I've dabbled in cheese making at home and have even taken a Cheese Certificate Course but still learned a lot from this book. I find it to be quite thorough and approachable and if it had been up to me I would have recommended this as one of the texts for the class.
The book includes sections on the history of cheese, the basics of cheese, the cheese making process, buying, storing, and serving cheeses, tasting, pairing cheeses, and constructing a cheese course. I found the first three sections to be interesting, but the most comparable to other books I have read like Cheese Primer and American Farmstead Cheese: The Complete Guide To Making and Selling Artisan Cheeses, but it's the chapters on serving, tasting, and pairing cheese where this book really shines. What I love about the book is that it's the perfect balance of theory and practical, hands on tips. The author also mentions that he only shares pairings that he himself has confirmed works which I appreciated. Overall the sections are tremendously educational and I felt that even someone like me who has done a lot of cheese tasting was still able to learn things and refine my knowledge. Basically, you'll find a lot of information here that is well written and researched and some of it that I haven't seen elsewhere.
The bottom line is that this is a fantastic book. If you're looking for specific pairing and cheese course suggestions you will find that here as well as a lot of principles, theories, and suggestions to help you craft plates and pairings on your own. I highly recommend it for a cheese lover's library along with books like The Cheese Lover's Cookbook and Guide: Over 150 Recipes with Instructions on How to Buy, Store, and Serve All Your Favorite Cheeses, Cheese Primer and [[ASIN:1931498776 American Farmstead Cheese: The Complete Guide To Making and Selling Artisan Cheeses].
Book Review: Gorgeous Book
Summary: 4 Stars
I glanced through this book before giving it as a gift. It was well received and the recipient continues to talk about it. She says she learns something new about cheese every day.Book Review: Mad Max....
Summary: 3 Stars
I really am not sure what I was looking for from this book, but I didn't find it. I guess I was looking for a book to give me a full spectrum view of fine cheeses (I don't have any fine cheese experience). Max certainly goes over the entire spectrum of cheeses, however his seriousness and dedication to cheese gets in the way from being able to communicate with a cheese amature like myself. Overall, the book had too much detail and although I wanted to learn about cheese, the book couldn't hold me attention and I didn't get me the education I was looking for.Book Review: Perfect Aid to All Levels of Fromager
Summary: 5 Stars
Masterpiece of a work on cheese. Eight sections guide one through about all there is to know about the subject from a maitre fromager, cheese master.The sections begin with a history of the subject, then proceeding into a needful discussion of the difference between "artisanal" (handmade) versus "process" cheeses. Chapter Three breaksdown the steps in cheese making.
Chapter Four is a most profitable read, How to buy, store and serve various kinds of cheeses. Neat features here are "How Much? Per-Person Serving" Calculator and "How to Detach A Stuck Wrapper."
Section Five gets us where we want to grow, Tasting. It is remarkably similar to wine tasting, with descriptors such as color, modifiers, density, texture, flavor, and subjective elements.
Chapters Six and Seven are the meat of the book: Cheese Pairings and The Cheese Course. Here we learn to put all learned to use at the menu stage, be it appetizer, last course, or whole course itself. Here are practical suggestions with different settings and differing levels of expertise suggested.
Finally, a tour of the world of cheese, country by country with the author's assessment provided. What I really appreciate here is the addition of "Recommended Pairings" and "Similar Cheeses" .
This well done book will enhance anyone's delving into the world of fromage, with this expert guide moving us into new areas of exploration.