The Good: Taste great, Generally natural, Good source of calcium
The Bad: I'd prefer a sharper cheddar taste.
The Basics: A good cheese treat, Yancey's Fancy Chive Cheddar Cheese Curds are little cheese bites of heaven with a delightful flavor!
Irony might well be my wife splurging on such yummy treats like Yancey's Fancy Chive Cheddar Cheese Curds earlier in the same night that she got into a car accident, resulting in us needing to come up with enough money to cover the deductible for the repairs. Of course, this is not an issue of Yancey's Fancy cheeses, but it is exceptionally rare that my wife and I can justify shelling out for these $6.99/lb. treats, so I've been feeling a little bad about hoarding these since the accident. The truth is, whenever I've been feeling anxiety and wanting to relax, I find myself nibbling on the Yancey's Fancy Chive Cheddar Cheese Curds and that makes it a great comfort food in my book!
Basics
Yancey's Fancy is a manufacturer of Artisan Cheeses here in upstate New York. The intent of most Yancey's Fancy cheeses is that they will be cheeses that hold their own as snacks that may be served to consumers in fancier settings. They specialize in cheddar cheeses that have different flavors infused into them: champagne, jalapeno, various nuts, etc. Yancey's Fancy cheese curds are intended to be little bite size cheese snacks that consumers eat to enjoy their love of cheese and indulge themselves every once in a while. The Yancey's Fancy Chive Cheddar Cheese Curds come in tubs or bags. Bags of cheese curds are commonly found on-line in one pound sizes and in stores, it is possible to find custom made plastic tubs of these cheese curds with varying weights to them. Locally, we find ours for $6.99/lb, but frequently find the tubs which have a half pound of cheese curds in them.
Chive Cheddar Cheese Curds are a pasteurized process cheddar cheese product that is flavored with dehydrated chives. Mixed throughout the white cheddar blobs of these cheese curds are the actual Chive pieces and they enhance the flavor of the cheddar wonderfully.
Ease Of Preparation
Yancey's Fancy Chive Cheddar cheese curds are a cheese curd product, so basically, one opens the container they came in and they begin devouring them. Opening the bag is like opening a bag of chips: open, eat. It's a pretty simple process!
Yancey's Fancy Chive Cheddar Cheese Curds are soft and require refrigeration. While cheese curds may be hard to work with for things like hamburger garnish, they melt exceptionally well and things like omelets may be zested up with these little cheese pieces extraordinarily easily.
Taste
On its own, the Yancey's Fancy Chive Cheddar Cheese Curds has a scent dominated by the chives. Opening the little tub of them (with only enough left for me to review, methinks!) I smell chive and a scent that is most analogous to cottage cheese. This is a more subtle cheese smell.
This prepares the consumer for the taste of the Chive Cheddar Cheese Curds well. The soft, mild cheddar cheese melts away like margarine on the tongue, leaving a slightly tangy taste and the taste of chives to linger. The cheese itself is very giving and is a fairly mild cheddar. In fact, this cheddar is so mild that it almost tastes like American cheese as opposed to something as forthright as a cheddar. The aftertaste of these cheese curds is one of chive and that does spice up the cheese sufficiently. In fact, as the cheese curds warm toward room temperature, the chive flavor increases and they taste very much like flecks of a vegetable instead of an herbal garnish.
Even when melted, the Chive Cheddar Cheese Curds have a slightly salty taste to them and when I'm in the mood for salty and cheesy, this is a treat I enjoy quite a bit.
Nutrition
Yancey's Fancy New York Artisan Cheeses and cheese curds are not intended to be all that one lives on. But for those who try, the Chive Cheddar Cheese Curds are a particularly poor choice. The chives do not seem to add anything of note to the cheese of nutritional value (this cheese has 10% of the RDA of Vitamin A, which seems to set it apart from most other cheeses). A serving size is considered a one inch block (1 oz.) and some of the cheese curds I ate from my current tub were about that size or a little larger, though most were about 1/2" spheres. In the recommended serving, there are 100 calories, 70 of which are from fat. This cheese has 25% of one's daily recommended saturated fat intake and 7% of the RDA of sodium. On the plus side, it does have 20% of the RDA of calcium and has six grams of protein.
Obviously, Chive Cheddar is a dairy product, so those who are lactose intolerant will have problems with it. This cheese is made primarily of pasteurized milk, cultures and salt. That makes it mostly natural, but it does have the preservative potassium sorbate to keep them fresh.
Storage/Cleanup
As a cheese, Yancey's Fancy Chive Cheddar should be kept refrigerated. So long as that happens, it ought to stay fresh for several weeks. Oddly, ours had a "sell by" date only five days after the packaging date and no expiration date I could find. So long as it is kept in an airtight, cold environment, it ought to remain fresh and supple. But, again, it's a cheese, so why would you want it sitting around indefinitely? Eat it!
Chive Cheddar cheese curds are a cheese, so they are not going to stain or ruin anything unless it is ground into a fabric. Baring that, cleanup of nonporous surfaces is as easy as wiping them with a damp cloth.
Overall
I enjoy Yancey's Fancy Chive Cheddar Cheese Curds as a treat and as a treat, they are wonderful. But as a general food, they are average. Still, those with a dairy tooth will enjoy these, even if they do find themselves wishing for a sharper cheddar flavor than these possess.
For other Yancey's Fancy cheese reviews, please check out my takes on:
NY Maple Cheddar
Strawberry Chardonnay Cheddar
XXX Sharp Cheddar
Wasabi Horseradish Cheddar
Champagne Aged Cheddar
6/10
For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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