Cheese board ....... What's your favourite?

[iwantavuvezela]

I am providing a cheese board as part of Christmas lunch at friends. I would like to put together a wonderful feast of cheese as someone else is cooking and hosting.

Can you tell me your must have's or recommendations.
I will source cheese from an independent or local grocer, but would love to be armed with a list

Yes Appenzeller definitely similar to other Swiss cheeses like Emmental and Gruyere.

My advice with Swiss cheese is to make sure it's definitely Swiss as you can get French, German etc "Emmental" and it's crap and rubbery. Whereas the real thing is nutty and lovely and not so rubbery/bendy! My other advice is to make sure you buy mature Swiss cheese otherwise it's the equivalent of getting mild cheddar... i.e. nothing special.

Oh, and really good Emmental has salt crystals in the holes and that's so delicious. That's how you know it's really good Emmental!

Cambozola is nice in small amounts, it's creamy and soft like brie but tastes like mild blue cheese in the middle.

Hard, soft & blue plus one you just happen to fancy. Really big lumps of the stuff.
Something British

Applewood and Stilton.

I'm loving a cheese called Y Fenni at the moment which is made with ale and has mustard seeds running through it. Would definitely have this on my chessboard along with a lovely ripe brie, a roule, an extra mature cheddar, blacksticks blue, a, locally sourced goats cheese and the king of cheeses, Roquefort.

Ooh yes as well to the cambazola mentioned upthread. Not in small amounts for me though, I can't help devouring big wedges of it in one go, it's delicious

I'm quite minimalist when it comes to cheese - all you need is 2,3 or 4 nice cheeses!
I'd have
one hard cheese, like a tasty cheddar
one Stilton, and for me it has to be Colston Bassett Stilton. Luckily I live relatively close to the dairy so it's easy to get hold of. I can't eat any other after Colston Bassett.
one soft cheese like Brie de meaux or Pie d'angloys
Finally, a cheese board doesn't seem right without Boursin.

My cheese board for myself would be feta (especially the M&S marinated feta but it's a bit messy for a cheeseboard)

Might try Manchego if it's vegetarian ( I can tolerate sheep but I'm not good with cow dairy)

For everyone else -
good strong chedddar
a danish blue
a Wendsleydale (with the cake)
a Somerset brie

We've just visited the best cheese shop ever! Its the Courtyard Dairy here and they deliver. So many divine cheeses....

OP, if you have any vegetarian guests and are only serving 4-5 cheeses you might want to make sure one or two are suitable for them to eat.

70, Tesco Finest Manchego is suitable for vegetarians.