Gjetost

At Chez Carthorse, it's always time to stop for cheese and biscuits. I've now become hooked on brunost, a curiously mild, sweet and savoury dense brown goat's cheese with a caramel flavour from Norway. On first buying this in Oslo, I was struck how reminiscent this was of the infamous '70s confectionery the 'Caramac Bar'; one of my favourite sweets when I was a child. Cheese fact: the distinctive flavour of this cheese comes from the slow boiling of milk, cream and whey which caramelises the natural milk sugars. If I'm dropping by to Scandinavian Kitchen for a coffee on a Sunday morning, a few small barrels of Ekte Gjetost get put in the shopping basket. (In the background is page 61 of Signe Johansen's 'Scandilicious' where she suggests toasting the cheese with raspberry jam and a pinch of allspice - it makes a smashing gravy for vegetarian meat(less) balls too.