#Charcuterie

[bouncinghedgehoglikestoeat]

[saltska]

I love charcuterie!! :D

[savorytoothgirl]

Summer Cheese & Charcuterie Picnic Board

[smartypantsshow]

Uh-oh, Tao has everyone HEATED...

[fatty-food]

(via Instagram)

[everybody-loves-to-eat]

[sweetoothgirl]

Valentine's Day Charcuterie Board

[daily-deliciousness]

Fall charcuterie board

[fullcravings]

S'mores Charcuterie Board

[copperbadge]

Behold, a slightly longer video of the cheese conveyor belt!

This is at Culture & Co. in Nashville, which is incredibly and delightfully the second charcuterie conveyor belt restaurant I've eaten at in the last two years, the other being Pick & Cheese in London.

As with Pick & Cheese I do know myself, so I set out the rule ahead of time that I could only take three plates, and thus I chose with care. First course: "Bruleed Brie" with passion fruit caramel cultured butter. This is a brie-style cheese from Pennsylvania (where my yinzers at) which has had one open side dipped in sugar and then presumably melted with a culinary torch; it looks like jam, but as you can see in the second image, when you tap the brulee it cracks like toffee.

Both the brulee brie and the butter were fantastic; the acid of the passion fruit cuts the sugar and the fattiness a little, but it also really emerges as its own flavor. I think this is the most imaginative way to upgrade brie I've seen in a minute. I kinda wanna try it at home.

Second plate was a Cumblerland "tomme-style" natural rind cheese from Tennessee (specifically Sequatchie Cove) with house made potato chive crackers and rosemary. The real highlight of this cheese is, honestly, the rind -- it has a flavor unique from the rest of the slice, which is much milder and reminded me of a young gouda, almost. The crackers don't look like much but however they make them they were really packed with this nice earthy salty flavor.

For "dessert" I almost went with a vegan cashew-based "Gouda" with shiitake bacon, mainly for the bacon I'll be honest, and you can actually see that plate go by, it's the first one you see in the video up top. Instead I decided to go with...I'm not sure even what kind of cheese this is because it's called GOAT RODEO BAMBOOZLE. I mean, the menu said it was a semi-soft washed rind goat's milk cheese, so there's that.

Normally I avoid goat cheese because I find it very dry texturally, but this was nice, it had that kind of gamey goaty taste but was much more buttery. It came with two pecan shortbread cookies (sandies) and a little cup of root beer caramel, which you can see dripping down a bite of the cheese in the second image. I don't know how you make root beer caramel (sasparilla in the milk?) but it had a nice peppery note to it. I wanted to down it like a shot but resisted.

Anyway, all three were fantastic, not a loser in the bunch, and the wait staff were super pleasant and knowledgeable, so it was a pretty great meal, especially for $30 (including tip).

I don't know who's setting these cheese conveyor belts up across the world but whoever you are, if you bring one to Chicago I will be grateful and I will eat there and bring visiting friends there. Some of my friends even drink wine, so we won't be cheap dates, I promise. We're so close to Wisconsin! Think what you could do with the curds, man, the curds!

[mrs-trophy-wife]

[champagnexowishes]

[weirdpngs]

[andallshallbewell]

[smartypantsshow]

On a charcuterie board: crackers are A-tier!

[fatty-food]

(via Instagram)