Um guia de especialista para comprar um ótimo queijo no supermercado –

• Encontrar queijos de alta qualidade no supermercado
• Características importantes de alguns queijos disponíveis no supermercado
• Recomendações de queijos de supermercado confiáveis por uma especialista em queijos

In an ideal world, we would all be stocking our cheese boards with only those hunks acquired from a farmers’ market or specialty cheese stores. In the real world, most of us are picking up cheese while doing our regular grocery shopping where the requisite mongers or cheesemakers who might guide us are entirely absent from the proceedings. This is not a reason to despair, as there is high-quality cheese to be found at the supermarket if you know how to seek it out. “It’s really hard sometimes just to know what exactly a particular cheese is, especially if it’s a generic, plastic-wrapped piece of something you’re not familiar with,” says Hannah Howard, author and cheese educator. “It could be incredibly delicious. It could be incredibly disappointing.”

Many excellent cheeses from around the world have the necessary scalability and distribution required to allow them to share shelf space with the shreds and slices that we buy for cooking and sandwich-assembling convenience, however. To start, head away from the basic dairy aisle in your supermarket and over to what I like to call “cheese island,” where the “fancy” stuff is kept. (You know what I’m talking about.) Many excellent grocery stores such as Whole Foods and Kroger have worthy cheese counters, but even conventional grocers without a designated cheese department are guaranteed to have some really good stuff lurking in the selection. Howard recommends 10 grocery store cheeses that you can always count on: they are as easy to find as they are appropriate to serve to company.

La Gruyere is a perfect addition to your next cheese board. I’d stake a claim on Le Gruyere AOP being the cheese with the most history, pedigree and care to be routinely available no matter where you shop. Even Trader Joe’s has it. A classic cheese from Switzerland — not to be confused with the generic category that we call “Swiss cheese” — “there is an incredible amount of care, love and attention to detail that goes into every single step of the process for making the cheese, from treating the cows well, to getting the very freshest milk, to the cheesemaking heritage, which has been passed down for over 1000 years,” says Howard. “With Le Gruyere AOP, you can feel completely confident that the flavor, the texture, the caliber and everything that went into making that cheese is of the very highest quality.” Le Gruyere AOP is also among the most flavorful cheeses available in a grocery store, with its washed rind and raw milk pedigree. (Raw milk cheese is permitted in the U.S. so long as it ages for at least 60 days, so no worries, as Le Gruyere AOP ages for six months or more.)

It is also a terrific melter, perfect for all manner of cooked cheese preparations like fondue, grilled cheese, or mac and cheese. It bears mentioning that the term “Gruyere” here is not enough, as the U.S. government has deemed the term a “generic” one, although those that rightfully favor the real thing would say that there’s nothing generic about Alpine pastured cows and a millennium of precedent. So take care in observing the label: “You want to see that AOP,” says Howard, which indicates it’s actually from Switzerland, “and the ‘le’ is also a good sign.”

Parmigiano Reggiano is called the king of cheese for a reason. Often deemed the “king of cheese” by those in the know, Parmigiano Reggiano is another selection that is broadly available, but that must be sought by its official name. The term “parmesan” was developed to get around name-protected restrictions, and anything labeled as such is a far cry from the real thing. “‘Parmesan’ in the supermarket could be anything at all,” says Howard, “whereas, you know that Parmigiano Reggiano is crafted in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy. It’s a very different cheese than Le Gruyere AOP, but like it, there is a dedicated consortium that is committed to honoring every single step of the process so that nothing gets stamped with that label that isn’t incredibly high quality,” she says. You can typically find the real thing next to the parmesan shreds and powders. Even if it’s shrink-wrapped and cut into uniform pieces, so long as it’s called Parmigiano Reggiano you’re getting the good stuff.