Honey, I Love You!

Hello Cheese Enthusiast!

Image courtesy of National Honey Board

Love…It starts with the perfect pairing!...and nothing loves cheese more than honey…except maybe wine, but that is a story for another day.

I work in the cheese industry and I can tell you from firsthand experience that people are always asking about the perfect cheese pairing, what item to pair with what cheese, what things don’t go together, the list could go on and on.

Image courtesy of Find Eat Drink

I am all about simple…One of the easiest (and oldest) may be honey. How old?....Well, the National Honey Board reports that “the story of honey is older than history itself. An 8,000-year-old cave painting in Spain depicts honey harvesting, and we know it's been used for food, medicine and more by cultures all over the world ever since. Lucky for us, bees make more honey than their colony needs, and beekeepers remove the excess and bottle it. Just like they've been doing since the beginning of time”.

The National Honey Board went on to better explain the story of honey:

How honey is made…

From Bee - Honey starts as flower nectar collected by bees, which gets broken down into simple sugars stored inside the honeycomb. The design of the honeycomb and constant fanning of the bees' wings causes evaporation, creating sweet liquid honey. Honey's color and flavor varies based on the nectar collected by the bees. For example, honey made from orange blossom nectar might be light in color, whereas honey from avocado or wildflowers might have a dark amber color.

To Hive - On average, a hive will produce about 65 pounds of surplus honey each year. Beekeepers harvest it by collecting the honeycomb frames and scraping off the wax cap that bees make to seal off honey in each cell. Once the caps are removed, the frames are placed in an extractor, a centrifuge that spins the frames, forcing honey out of the comb.

To Home - After the honey is extracted, it’s strained to remove any remaining wax and other particles. Some beekeepers and bottlers might heat the honey to make this process easier, but that doesn't alter the liquid's natural composition.

After straining, it's time to bottle, label and bring it to you. It doesn't matter if the container is glass or plastic, or if the honey is purchased at the grocery store or farmers’ market. If the ingredient label says “pure honey,” nothing was added from bee to hive to bottle.

Image courtesy of UC Davis Honey & Pollination Center

But then in 2014, I took a class that hosted Amina Harris, Ph. D., University of California, Davis that will have forever changed my view of honey. This class was a cheese and honey pairing class, and I entered it with low expectations….I mean, we all own at least one bottle of honey at home…Just how different could they be? I left the room speechless! They even created a “Honey Wheel” (see left) which helped show all of the flavor descriptors that can come through in honey. (You can purchase your very own Honey Wheel here).

Here are just some examples of Cheese & Honey pairings from Find.Eat.Drink.

·      Maine Blueberry - Earthy sweetness goes well with Stilton.

·      North Carolina Sourwood - One of their rarest honeys is reminiscent of magnolias and pairs with Brie or Camembert.

·      Washington Buckwheat - Molasses-like flavor works nicely with fresh goat cheese.

·      Colorado Sweet Yellow Clover - Hints of cardamon, buttery, elegantly tames strong cheese like Epoisses and Taleggio.

Each of these honeys were “Single Variety Honeys”, and far different than anything I had ever tried. So many different colors and textures…Some were lightly sweet, watery, and delicate, while others were dark, heavy, and almost molasses-like.

The color, flavor and even aroma of honey differs, depending on the nectar of flowers visited by the bees that made it. There are more than 300 unique types of honey available in the United States alone, each originating from a different floral source. Want to see more?... Just check out this Honey Locator.

The USDA grades honey by color not taste, using amber as the standard. Artisanal honeys are designed around taste, resulting in a spectrum of colors and flavors.

Because cheese is my passion, you can see this love affair I have with my honey and cheese.

Until next week…Stay Sweet!

Trevor