the cheese blog

Rambol Fumé

I was hesitant about picking this one up, but I do like to try smoked cheeses. The label just had that “look,” like this was too commercial a cheese despite it being a bit obscure (let’s just say you won’t see it in the cheese section of your local grocery store too often). So, Smoked Rambol or Rambol Fumé is a soft French cow’s milk cheese with a thickish rind with the typical carmel colored rind due to smoking. This is a reasonably spreadable cheese. The taste is very buttery, but with some other unusual flavors and an oddmouthfeel as well. I couldn’t quite place the taste, but it wasn’t pleasant. The cheese was a bit too tangy, bordering on artificial tasting. A quick search on CheeseReviews.org confirmed what I experienced. This cheese seems to generate a very positive or negative reaction. You either love it or don’t. My rating, try it once, see if you like it.

Update: I had to dig into this one some more and found out that this cheese contains vegetable-based gums, emulsifiers, and stabilizers to make it more spreadable. My new rating: Avoid, is this really even cheese?!