Molto Formaggio cheese shop in Dallas just got best cheese ever known to mankind

by Teresa Gubbins

Molto Formaggio cheese shop just received a shipment of what is possibly the best cheese ever known to mankind, and you can tell by the awesome name: Gubbeen cheese, a washed rind cow's milk cheese made in Ireland.

Molto Formaggio co-owner Michael Perlmeter brought the prized Gubbeen cheese in as part of a shipment from London-based retailer Neal's Yard.

According to the Gubbeen website, the cheese has been handmade by Giana and Tom Ferguson since 1979, from cows on the Ferguson family farm, which has been in the family for five generations. The cheese is semi-soft -- neither hard like Parmesan nor runny like Brie -- and they describe the flavor as "creamy with lots of mushroom and nutty aftertastes."

This site references the "well-tended herds of Friesian, Simmenthal, Jersey, and Kerry cows," and further clarifies that the Gubbeen follows the "Swiss and French" cheesemaking traditions. That makes sense, since some people have described it as being similar to Edam. Except that it's awesomely better.

A cheese review site called CheeseReviews.org notes that the flavor of Gubbeen can vary depending on age. It's milder when it's young, and turns stinky when it ages, which is probably the case by the time it arrives in the U.S. CheeseReviews doesn't like stinky cheese, which is a helluva thing for a cheese review site to admit, but in any case, Gubbeen is hardly a stinker next to a blue cheese or even a ripe, creamy Italian taleggio.

Gubbeen cheese is rarely sold in the Dallas area but it's common in Ireland and England where you can find it at gourmet markets such as Harrod's. That's where I saw it, in 1999, when I went to England by myself and felt a bit lonely and so when I ran across it at the cheese counter, with the name Gubbeen -- so similar to Gubbins -- it was like an old friend, like my personal cheese. I don't want to gloat because gloating is small and petty, but when Kim liked a cheese from Molto Formaggio, it was a Roquefort called Carles, which sounds nothing like "Pierce," and when Nancy went to Amsterdam, her cheese infatuation wasn't "Nichols," it was Beemster, which sounds like a car.

Despite the name's fortunate similarity to "Gubbins" (which in England means "rubbish" or "nonsense"), Gubbeen is, according to this site, "Gaelic for 'gobin', meaning small mouthful."

When Central Market first opened in Dallas in 2002, they were trying to look expansive and make a good first impression, so they brought in a bunch of cheeses from Neal's Yard, including Gubbeen, and times were good. It was Gubbeen cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But then when the wheel ran out, they chose, as Central Market so often does, not to replace it.

Perlmeter, who has a couple of wheels of the Gubbeen (well, actually, one of the wheels is now only half a wheel) and is selling it for about $20 per pound, was understandably jubilant about its arrival, describing it as "really good."

He also has a Neal's Yard cheese from Ardrahan, another Irish cheese made in an artisanal manner, i.e. by a mom-and-pop outfit in small batches with careful attention, love the cows, and so on. Perlmeter says its flavor is milder. Sounds good. But it's no Gubbeen.

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