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A selection of the 2,000 cheeses Atalanta Corporation in Elizabeth imports to the U.S. from around the globe.

Cheese platters: Pair with wine and accompaniments for easy holiday entertaining

Not far from the banks of Newark Bay in Elizabeth, there is a massive cold-storage warehouse filled with cheese.

Racks rising 30 feet high are stacked with 75-pound wheels of Grana Padano,
100-pound logs of provolone and smaller rounds of piave, all from Italy. There are pallets filled with Chimay from Belgium, manchego from Spain, vlaskaas from Holland, butterkäse from Germany, Morbier from France, halloumi from Greece.

This warehouse at the headquarters of Atalanta Corporation houses a literal world of cheese. More than 2,000 varieties are flown or shipped in from more than 40 countries and trucked out for distribution to specialty stores, supermarkets and restaurants in New Jersey and across the nation.

Selections from Atalanta’s numerous cheese offerings can be found under brands such as Celebrity, Zerto, Coombe Castle and Collier’s at AP, Fairway, Trader Joe’s, Wegman’s, Whole Foods and other stores.

Atalanta, the nation’s largest privately owned specialty food importer, began shipping Polish hams to America in 1945 and is now chaired by George Gellert, whose father-in-law started the company.

At a family-owned concern dealing in so much cheese, there are more than a few people you can turn to for tips on putting together a platter for holiday entertainment. But among the most enthusiastic is John Stephano, a former investment advisor who at age 40 gave up finance for food. A Culinary Institute of America-trained chef, he now teaches staffers and retailers how to sell the company’s various brands. He can talk cheese for hours and with great passion.

Atalanta is the exclusive importer of Beemster cheeses from Holland. Beemster XO is aged more than 2 years to develop its flavor.

“To understand cheese, you have to eat it and you have to talk about it,” he says. And while cheese like wines can be known for the terroir associated with their place of origin, there’s less snob factor with cheese: “People taste it and they can define it in a simple way.” With cheese, there’s usually no subtle nose of cigarbox and wet saddle leather with vegetal undertones to discern.

Nevertheless, Stephano acknowledges that offering a platter of unfamiliar cheese can be an intimidating prospect. “When people first make a cheese plate, they do a cheddar, a soft cheese like Brie, and a blue. It’s a classic cheese plate,” he says. “Because there are hundreds and hundreds of cheese choices, you can start with those basics and keep working up the ladder.”

Cheese pairing: Filling your platter

The first step: How much cheese? Figure on an ounce or so of each type per guest as an appetizer portion. Move up to about three ounces with paired noshes if wine and cheese will be the main event.

Keep it to three to five cheeses, Stephano advises. “Too many, and there’s risk of palate fatigue. You lose the ability to understand the taste. Also, when you have five cheeses, you can talk about those five cheeses. More than that, you might not even remember the names.”

When deciding on the cheese, your guiding goal should be a variety of textures and milk types. Pick at least one each of goat, sheep and cow’s milk cheese. Within that group, be sure there’s a soft, ripened cheese (Brie, many kinds of goat cheese), a semi-firm (cheddar, manchego, Gouda) and one hard (grana padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano).

If it’s a five-cheese platter, add a washed-rind (bathed in brine, wine or spirits) cheese (Morbier, taleggio) and a blue cheese (Stilton or Gorgonzola). “This is the blueprint that teaches you cheese plates,” Stephano says. “Each time you’re confident in your cheese choices, you always want to reach out and explore again.”

Selecting cheese all from one country is a fun option. Stephano also recommends minding the colors. “Cheese is really visual. The color is so inviting that a cheese plate can be very spectacular.”

Accompaniments such as fruit and wine not only complement the cheese, but serve as palate cleansers, Stephano says. “The fruitiness and the juiciness takes the
film off your tongue. Breads, crackers, they all do that.” Grapes, pears and apples are good options (dip slices in vitamin C-fortified apple juice to prevent browning), as well as dried fruit, fruit spreads, honey and drizzles of balsamic vinegar. “A soft, ripened taleggio with the crispness of an Anjou pear would be incredible,” Stephano says. “If you move to a pinot grigio, its sparkle and effervescence just takes all of those flavors and enhances them. Once you’ve done that, you get to start all over again.”

Once mastered, a cheese platter can streamline home entertaining, he says. “You don’t have to sweat over it. You don’t have to cook anything.”

A good place to learn more about cheeses is Atalanta’s cheeseoftheday.com. While not updated daily as the name suggests, the website features informational posts several times a month on its various cheeses. To encourage experimentation, Stephano offers the dozen-cheese starter list with pairing suggestions for easy mixing and matching. In addition to the go-to cheddar and Swiss, he includes a cranberry- and cinnamon-coated goat cheese for a sweet option as well as the wine-soaked Don Wine, a semi-soft goat cheese: “You always need that cheese that no one has ever experienced.”

Cheese platters: The perfect match

•?La Tur, Italian soft, mixed-milk: green grapes and crusty French bread, sauvignon blanc or Champagne

•?Celebrity Cranberry Goat, Canadian soft goat cheese: ginger snaps, pinot grigio

•?Pecorino Toscano, Italian semi-hard sheep’s milk: fig, pears and raw honey, Chianti Classico

•?Don Wine, Spanish semi-hard goat: flatbread, crackers, Rioja

•?Beemster XO, Dutch hard cow’s milk: candied walnuts, fruit spreads, port

•?Grana padano, Italian hard cow’s milk: prosciutto, melon and aged balsamic vinegar for drizzling, Barbaresco or cabernet sauvignon

Chimay, a Belgian cheese imported by Atalanta, is a washed-rind cheese that’s sometimes soaked in beer.

•?Chimay, Belgian washed-rind cow’s milk: salty nuts, pretzels, beer •?Collier’s Cheddar, Welsh semi-hard cow’s milk: fig spread, crisp apples, chardonnay

•?Stilton, English semi-hard cow’s milk: crusty bread, dried apricots, fine port

•?Taleggio, Italian washed-rind cow’s milk: pears, flatbread, savory breadsticks

•?Époisses, French washed-rind cow’s milk: Niçoise olives, sourdough bread, white wine from Burgundy or Sauternes

•?Gorgonzola Dolce, Italian soft cow’s milk: raw honey, fresh figs, California zinfandel

Kimberly L. Jackson may be reached by e-mail.

Cheese & eggs with Bill & Sheila

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