The cheese blog is back with what my local hippy grocery store bills as a classic Wisconsin cheese, Mammoth Cheddar.

Sadly, this is one classic that’s better left in the past.

Wisconsin Mammoth Cheddar
Obtained from: Madison Whole Foods (University Avenue)
Price: $3.99/lb

Yes, you’re reading that price correctly. This Mammoth Cheddar is the least expensive cheese we’ve ever reviewed here at the HCT Cheese Blog, comparable in price with some stuff from the Kraft section of your local market’s dairy department.

The cheese itself is a standard, stereotypical orange color, with a nice softness to the touch when you examine it in the store. Combined with the lower price, this means you can buy a great big squishable hunk and have your very own cheese plush toy (at least until you get hungry).

This is a very young cheddar, as the store pointed out in its display, so I expected it to be very mild, but I was shocked at just HOW mild it turned out to be. This cheddar doesn’t really taste like a cheddar at all. In fact, in terms of both texture and flavor, this is a Colby.

I don’t like Colby much, and never have, even as a child. Colby cheese differs from cheddar largely in that it lacks the ‘cheddaring’ process that makes it sharper and richer, so I guess that it figures that a cheddar that wasn’t given a great deal of time to age might turn out like a colby… still, I was disappointed. I had been hoping for a soft, very mild but-still-cheddar cheddar, possibly something smooth and creamy with a lot of moisture in it, suitable for sandwiches. Instead I got a colby, all springy and with that distinctive colbyish sour blandness. Blech.

We tried using this Col-Cheddar with a variety of meals, and it didn’t stand out in any of them particularly. The texture, while pleasant in the store, isn’t anything special on the plate, and the taste is.. well, there isn’t much really. It’s a poor substitute for our usual cheddars from Brennan’s.

The roommate largely agreed with me, though I’m not sure she shares my general hatred of the Colby Arts. In the end, a huge hunk of neon orange colby makes for a better toy, wrapped in cellophane, than a cheese for this blog.

Final Scores:
Me: C-
Roommate: C-