The Spooky Season Cheeses You Will Love
Mimolette care of Isigny Sainte-Mère
Mimolette is, inarguably, an ideal spooky season cheese and often earns top billing on seasonally inspired cheese boards. It’s not even that Mimolette is perfectly pumpkin-like in color, shape, and even carveability, but it also comes with its own built-in horror story: the microscopic mites who inhabit it and help develop its distinctive texture. Such a cheese very much belongs to spooky season.
Many other cheeses, however, have an equal right to claim a spot on a spooky spread. Orange cheeses, veiny or “bloody” cheeses, ash-coated cheeses, or otherwise black cheeses are thematically relevant, of course, as are other selections with seasonally appropriate shapes, styles, or uniquely ghoulish vibes.
Chällerhocker care of Columbia Cheese
While one cheesemonger who contributed to this narrative wished to remain anonymous for calling out Swiss mastermind Walter Rass and his undeniably creepy Chällerhocker label, I daresay the famed cheesemaker would not be offended. Walter Rass himself “knows what he did last summer,” as it were, and has fully called himself out by previously releasing a Halloween version of Chällerhocker, where the already disturbing kid on the label gets the evil eye treatment. (Also, “Chällerween” is a phenomenon among mongers, where the Chällerhocker label is used for a mask.)
Speaking of self-awareness, let it be known that cheese people in general must have a natural affinity for the macabre. One can assume this is due to the very essence of cheese: suspended decay, abundant microorganisms, and, frankly, dependence on caves. When probed for suggestions for spooky season cheeses, various mongers, makers, and enthusiasts alike literally crawled out of the woodwork — like mites from Mimolette — to submit their favorite grisly selections. So, in perhaps the creepiest lineup of cheeses ever assembled, here are 15 of the best spooky season cheeses that aren’t Mimolette.
Seasonal Spooky Cheeses
Petite Boo care of Marin French Cheese
It’s not only that cheese itself is naturally a little creepy, but certain cheesemakers also lean in even harder during haunting season. A common seasonal gambit uses annatto seed to turn otherwise peaceful bloomy-rind cheeses into something a little more festive and sinister. Marin French Cheese Petite Boo, Jasper Hill Farm Moses Reaper, MouCo Boo, and Boxcarr Handmade Cheese Cottonboo are all seasonally available versions of their less haunted bloomy counterparts, getting not only an October dye job but an on-theme name change in the process of spooky transformation.
Additionally, other seasonally available cheeses with different costume party looks are also conversation starters on a spooky season cheese board.
Murray’s Buttered Pumpkin
From the Caves at Murray’s, Buttered Pumpkin is a limited release cheese that begins with Four Fat Fowl’s St. Stephen. While the look is highly pumpkin, no pumpkins were actually harmed in the making of Buttered Pumpkin, which instead uses annatto and pumpkin spice to transform a portion of St. Stephen, which is then layered back into its bloomy rind format to age.
Jack O’ Lantern care of Jason Frye
From a multigenerational farm in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, (rhymes with Transylvania) Pleasant Lane Farms plays up the “jack” element in Monterey Jack cheese for the season, offering a jack hunk that is both orange, and peppered for a spicy shock treatment.
Vampire Huntress care of Gourmino
Walter Rass isn’t the only Swiss cheesemaker who gets an October participation award. Distributed by Gourmino, Vampirjägerin or “Vampire Huntress” is a black garlic-studded Raclette that’s useful for melting and for keeping all manner of monsters away.
Spooky Colored Cheeses
Part of Mimolette’s seasonal appeal is its very pumpkin-like hue, but given the historical importance of annatto, there are many, many orange cheeses to consider adding to your spread, from conventional supermarket cheddar, to Red Leicester, to Shropshire Blue. Port wine cheese spread can give a deliciously bloody look, and cheeses such as Black as Coal Cheddar or Porter Cheddar can even take you to the dark side. You may also want to consider these other inspired, Halloween-tinted ideas from mongers and cheese educators who clearly appreciate a trick as much as a treat.
Stinking Bishop
Orange hues in cheese don’t always come from annatto, and can be derived on the rind from a somewhat sinister organism known as brevibacterium linens. Such is what makes Stinking Bishop a potential screamer. “Stinking Bishop will scare the timid with its big, funky-as-advertised aroma,” says cheese writer and educator Hannah Howard. “But fear not! This pudgy, unctuous British cow’s milk cheese’s bark is bigger than its bite,” she says. “It’s washed in pear cider and actually finishes with a lovely and balanced sweetness — because Halloween should also be fun!”
Valancay
Ash-coated cheeses aren’t necessarily made to be spooky, they just can’t help it, with their goth-cloaked exteriors. "’I'm supposed to EAT that?’" is the common refrain,” suggests Cheese Study Group member Scott Thomas Miller. On top of its noir-from-the-Loire sensibilities, Britt Bissett, owner of “eclectic fromagerie” The B’s Cheese also suggests Valençay, “because it looks like a tomb or coffin.”
Moliterno al Tartufo
Proof that the macabre and the decadent are not mutually exclusive, “whenever I do higher budget Halloween pairings, I always love Moliterno al Tartufo,” says cheese storyteller and educator Anne-Marie Pietersma of Trust Your Taste. Moliterno is a Sardinian sheep’s milk cheese veined with spidery black truffle paste. “That thick black veining can read as pretty spooky,” she says, “especially with some charcoal crackers, deep purple grapes, or dark forest honey by its side. I think those earthy notes real truffles give are also perfect for the season!”
Red Rock care of Murray’s
While plenty of orange cheeses have spooky party potential, only one of them has a blue cheese scar. Made in a Frankenstein-ish square, “I’m going Red Rock if I am looking for an orange cheese that’s a fun twist on a classic cheddar,” says Carrie S. of Justice of the Cheese. Hailing from Wisconsin’s Roelli Cheese House, Red Rock is “kinda like a trick or treat for your cheese board,” she says, “when someone isn’t expecting it to be a cheddar and a blue as well.”
Spooky Shaped Cheeses
October party spreads often feature otherwise innocuous rounds of brie carved into eerie shapes, but macabre mongers also pointed out several cheeses that have a little something naturally creepy going on with their form.
Ovalie Cendrée care of Mons
Like its brethren Valençay, Loire Valley goat cheese Ovalie Cendrée wears a haunting cloak of ash, and can also be put to an even darker purpose. Meaning “ashed oval,” “if you cut it or a similar oval-shaped cheese in half, they look like tombstones,” offers Formaticum’s Emilia D’Albero.
Coupole care of Vermont Creamery
Vermont Creamery’s Coupole, and other cheeses that share its distinctive geotrichum candidum rind, have one perfectly ghoulish thing in common: “IT LOOKS LIKE A BRAIN,” (sic) says Rachel Jackson, current zombie, former cheesemonger, and co-owner of beloved Brooklyn restaurants Gertie, Trudie’s Tavern, and Gertrude’s.
Boulette d’Avesnes care of Jennifer Greco
Also known, wonderfully indelicately, as “the devil’s suppository,” “Boulette d'Avesnes is smelly, pungent, fiery and very unique,” says Jennifer Greco, founder of Paris-based Chez Loulou cheese and wine tastings. You might have to go to France to find it, but it’s a worthy pilgrimage for fans of both cheese and horror. “It is made from Maroilles curd and is often flavored with tarragon, cloves, parsley and pepper, and sometimes washed in beer. The little cones are shaped by hand, then sprinkled with annatto or paprika, giving it a bright orange appearance,” she says. When you’re in for a night of hair-raising delights, “this cheese is not for the faint of heart!”
Spooky in Vibe Cheeses
Certain cheeses evoke shivers in name alone, some of which are available year round. Switzerland lays claim to cheeses called Red Witch and Old Witch, Crosswinds Farm & Creamery in Rock Stream, New York, produces cheeses called Goblin and Ghost, and who can forget about Morbier, which sounds, frankly, morbid. (In truth it’s named after its village, but vibes are vibes!) Because cheese people are nothing if not storytellers, though, here are several other cheeses that might create a tingle at the back of your neck.
Tete de Moine
Well known for the girolle that’s typically used to make delicate rosettes, aspects of Tête de Moine can also be viewed through a darker lens. “The translation of its name is ‘Monk's Head,’ which has a macabre, medieval feel, and the rotary cutter gives a scalping visual, especially if you set it up near the board,” says Patricia Racine, founder of Sandusky, Ohio’s Snack Social. “The little rosettes are beautiful by themselves, but can be grouped together to look like a brain.”
Artisou by Emily Monaco
France’s Artisou may sound quaint, but is actually named for the critters who inhabit it. “Artisou is made with a rugged, “artisou” mite-infested rind similar to a real Mimolette,” says Emily Monaco, founder of Paris’s That Cheese Girl and co-host of podcast Fishwives of Paris. As though Mimolette were the only cheese to have an insect infestation at its heart. “It’s a little creepy, a little ghoulish,” she says, “but not nearly as scary as the insect-infected cheeses of Corsica and Sardinia…”
Anthill care of Woodside Cheese Wrights
We’ll get to Sardinia in a moment, but on the insect front, Australia’s Woodside Cheese Wrights offers a buggy cheese that actually isn’t prohibited anywhere or particularly hard to come by. A fresh goat cheese square is rolled in native lemon myrtle and Australian Green Ants, which are themselves dressed with kaffir lime and lemongrass for a tangy bite that is almost as surprising as its infested look.
Casu Marzu
No spooky season roundup would be complete with Sardinia’s famed, maggot-infested cheese, which obviously takes the prize for the most legitimately creepy cheese of them all. Maria Burke of Texas’s River Whey Creamery noted how Casu Marzu recollects a classic, spooky folk song: “the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out…”
Not Spooky, But A Sweet Treat
And finally, while October parties have a certain macabre spirit about them, let us not forget that candy is a star player, at least in modern celebrations of Halloween. Therefore, here’s a final, spooky season cheese to end on a “treat” note:
Gjeotst
Haley Sugg of Pittsburgh-based Mrs. Cheese has included gjetost (or brunost) in classes on a theme of “Scary Good Cheeses.” “This mixed goat and cow milk cheese is whey-based and so sweet that you might mistake it for Halloween candy,” she says. “Gjetost is delicious on its own or with slices of apple to emulate the autumnal classic of caramel-coated apples.”