Yes, that is blue mould, but it's tasty.

I’m not too proud to admit it, my first experience with Garrotxa left me a bit confused.

The reason for my confusion was that I went out looking for what I thought (had been told) was a Catalonian aged hard cheese made from Goats milk, and that’s not what I ended up with. What I actually came back with was indeed a Catalonian goats cheese, but it isn’t really very old, and it’s semi-hard.

I am however more than happy to overlook the fact that what I got wasn’t what I thought I was getting, because I think I could very easily fall in love with this cheese.

All about Garrotxa

Garrotxa is also known as ‘formatge pell florida’, which means ‘flowery skin cheese’, this name comes from the unusual blooms of mould that cover the surface (but we’ll get to that in a minute).

It is a pressed cheese made from unpasteurised goats milk, and produced in the region of Girona in the north of Catalonia. Girona is unpolluted, rainy and mountainous. You might not want to live in the grim weather, but it does mean that the grass is lush, and the goats produce great milk, this is the basis of Garrotxa.

A lot of people think that Garrotxa is a new cheese, but they couldn’t be more wrong. It is actually a very old traditional cheese in the region, it’s just that the recipe was forgotten for while.

Following the Spanish civil war and the second world war, Spain was left in poverty. In a bizarre and misguided attempt to combat this poverty, the Spanish government implemented a policy which meant that small scale farming and production were essentially made illegal. Limits were set in place which meant that farmers had to produce large amounts of milk per day, or stop production altogether. This forced artisinal cheese making underground, and whilst the majority of cheeses survived, some (like Garrotxa) disappeared completely.

Only in the 90′s did the cheese reappear, made according to the traditional recipe, but with a slight twist given by modern production methods, like changes to the way that the curds are washed.

As it starts to age Garrotxa quickly develops an unusual blue-grey and almost suede like fungus on the outside. This is where the alternative name comes from.

The taste

Don’t be put off by the blue grey mould, this outside is completely edible, and doesn’t take a lot of chewing. It is much more like the outside of Brie, than the rind of Parmigiano or something similar.

The cheese inside is snowy white in colour, and has a moist but flakey texture that melts easily in the mouth.

It’s a bit fruity, a little bit herbal and there is also a bit of hazelnut in there. A lot of people seem to get hazelnut as the predominant flavour in this cheese, but I must have odd taste buds, because whilst it is definitely there I get it as more of an undertone.

What I love and what really sets it apart for me is the lemonyness in its taste. Lots of cheeses are citrusy, but not many are actually lemony like Garrotxa is.

Garrotxa is firm but creamy and slightly tangy, and in short fantastic.