We used to eat cheese as a snack, before serving the main course. However, in the Mediterranean countries (France, Italy and Spain) this product is offered to guests after a meal. When everyone is already full and a little rest from food, you can start a meal and serve sweet snacks in the form of fruits, jams, as well as a wooden board on which to lay various refined sour-milk products. This dessert in France is called “Cheese plate”, however, it should be remembered that the best houses in Paris still serve a wooden (marble or granite) plank.
You need to responsibly approach the choice of such a plate. Cheeses, as a rule, are bought not a week before, but a day before the proposed meal. Again, you can’t remove them from the refrigerator and immediately serve: the fermented milk product should warm to room temperature, otherwise guests will not enjoy the full taste and aroma. Be sure to consider the design of the appetizers: the board should be without any decorations, because the main thing here is the cheeses themselves. Nearby you need to put a few jams (at least two - sour and sweet, for example, cranberry and fig), a vase with fruits, among which grapes are desirable, a vase with dried fruits or nuts and a separate bread box with a crispy cut baguette. The latter can be replaced with a cracker, but without additional taste.
What should a cheese plate consist of? Its composition should be diverse. It's not about how many types of products you put on it, but about the fact that the varieties are combined with each other. In addition, guests should have a choice - someone does not like the goat “fromez”, and someone does not tolerate moldy cheese. The board should please not only the stomach, but also the eye: in general
put a large piece (you can round Camembert), and on the edges - smaller ones.
Even the smallest cheese plate should contain products made from cow, sheep and goat milk. The same applies to the aging of fermented milk products: fresh, soft, semi-soft, hard. However, a very strict rule applies: cheeses are laid out clockwise - from the most tender, cottage cheese varieties to the sharpest and seasoned, piquant. After all, guests are not required to determine in appearance where a product is, and they will immediately understand.
What should an ideal, festive cheese plate contain? Assorted assumes to take "Ricotta" as a fresh cottage cheese, complement it with seasoned fresh "Clochett" or "Valencia". Mandatory soft "Camembert" or "Brie", semi-soft cow products, "blue" or "green" ("Roquefort", "Gorgonzola" or others), hard ("Grana Padano", "Emmental", "Cheddar"). In the center, you can put some specific specimen - for example, with herbs, which has an additional taste. To please the adherents of Russian classics, you can also put the usual variety known from childhood: “Estonian”, “Swiss”, etc. They should not touch each other, as gentle varieties absorb the smells of piquant species.
The cheese plate should be designed for the number of diners, otherwise guests will be shy to take pieces. Proceed from fifty grams per one eater. Serve a special knife to the board, on the end of which there are bisected cloves. If you do not have such a knife, you can do with a simple knife and a dessert fork. Cheeses are served with wine, but can also be served with cognac. You should start to try them the same way as the wine - on the rise. If you first try the spicy variety, then the soft varieties will seem tasteless to you.