Serve Your Fancy Cheese Board At Room Temperature

Cheese is best stored in a cheese cave or the refrigerator (if you’re a peasant), but eating cold cheese — straight from the fridge — is, I am sad to day, a dumb move.

I am not saying there is no room for cold cheese in your life. That would mean giving up shredded cheese, straight from the bag, which is best enjoyed around two o’clock in the morning while basking in the blue light of the fridge.

But fancy cheese — cheese that you paid good money for — should be served warmer than that. Good cheese — cheese you craft a board around — should be served at room temperature. Why?

Taste, that’s why. Cheese is mostly fat, and cold fat is rubbery and flavourless. But once that fat warms up, it loosens up, and the cheese will feel creamy — rather than bouncy — in your mouth.

It will also taste as it was intended, since you won’t have all that cold, flavour-muting fat messing things up. So take your fancy cheese out of the fridge at least half an hour before you intend to eat it. If that seems interminable, grab a few handfuls of shredded cheese to tide you over.