The number of ways in which Milkshroom milk can be utilized is nigh unlimited. However, one of the most beloved uses for this delectable substance is cheese. Darcy has been experimenting with the excess of her brother’s milk harvests, and has come up with a number of unique cheeses—all made with Milkshroom milk, but wildly different in nearly all other aspects. Now, she needs your help!
The Tasting Station
You are presented with several cheeses, each carefully arranged upon a cutting board. Your task is to choose one and taste it—and then describe it! Darcy is looking for the following information:
A name for one of the cheeses above
Its taste; texture; smell
Potential applications for everyday use
Your response should indicate which of the cheeses you’re taste testing, and should be approximately 75 words long.
The Mixing Station
Darcy, perhaps a bit warily, invites you into her kitchen. She’s got all the ingredients you could ever need, and plenty of Milkshroom milk to spare. She wants you to try your hand at creating a cheese from ingredients found in the Cave.
Using an artistic medium of your choice, create your own cheese
Don’t forget to give it a name
The final product you present to Darcy should include a picture of the cheese you’ve created, as well as a name for your cheese.
Food Photography
Motioning to a large refrigerator, Darcy invites you to ‘do whatever’ with what you find inside. These are the cheeses she’s deemed insufficient; the ones that needed more aging; the weird ones. If you can make them appealing, maybe she can sell them.
Take a photo of some cheese you find in your fridge, or craft some cheese out of something you’ve got laying around the house
Name the cheese
Describe the cheese - taste, texture, smell
Consider its applications in a typical Mycenian’s diet
Your response should include the photograph, the name of your cheese, and approximately 50 words of description.
Instructions
Choose one of the activities above and follow the appropriate instructions
You may participate in this activity up to two times in order to earn up to two participation items (Cheese Moon)
Post all submissions in this thread
Prizes
Participation in at least one Moocena Cave activity will earn you a Moocena Cave sticker
Participation in this activity will earn you the Cheese Moon equippable item. Participants may earn up to two total.
Toggles: Moon + clouds
Participation in both Moocena Cave activities (this one and Professor Mariel’s) will earn you the Moonster coat
The Fungianno has a strong, rather pungent odour. Some say it smells like freshly tilled earth, while others say it smells like a teen boy’s gym socks. It is a rather smooth cheese, having a light, spreadable texture. Inside the cheese are small pieces of mushroom. These add the earthy flavor and smell to the cheese. This cheese is often found in the most elegant cheese tastings. It is typically spread across a cracker or cheese, and served with a glass of expensive wine. Fungianno cheese is considered one of the rarest and most expensive types of cheese, due to the scarcity of the mushrooms used to make the cheese.
The Tasting Station - Cheese 8 Emmery Cheese
Emmery cheese, when eaten alone, is a very dry, tasteless cheese. It has a faint herbal scent. Many Mycenians strongly dislike this cheese due to an experience of eating this cheese when it has not been correctly prepared. When eaten alone, Emmery cheese is like eating dust - dry, crumbly, and without any flavor. However, when Emmery cheese is heated, it becomes full of flavor. Basil, thyme and rosemary are most commonly used in Emmery cheeses, although lemongrass and sage may be used as well. Mycenian culinary experts know that Emmery cheese is best used to garnish pasta dishes, chicken, and vegetables.
A name for one of the cheeses above
Its taste; texture; smell
Potential applications for everyday use
The Treese (Prounounced: Cheese)
The Treese (pronounced cheese) doesn’t taste very dairy-like for a dairy product. Rather, it is dry and crumbly in your mouth, bringing to mind some sort of cracker and leaving you in want of a drink to sooth your parched throat. This cheese is rough to the touch and breaks apart into long, barklike, strips. While not everyone’s favorite taste, the Treese makes a very good kindling if you’d like to start a fire.
The Cheelami (Cheese-Salami)
This cheese has a sharp taste in your mouth not unlike cured meat, with the aftertaste of pepper. The skin is much sharper with a ‘meatier’ taste and has the quality of rough paper, while the inside is gooey and melts apart almost instantly. You can rub the goo on your skin to become much beloved of your local dogs. The skin can be used for writing on, or for feeding a sweet treat to your canine companion.
Cheese #1: Mooshroom Cheese
This brown cheese might look off putting, but don’t let its looks fool you. It is grown from the mooshroom that is sitting atop the cheese. You might think it’s just been added for decoration, but this cheese naturally grows from the root of this fungus.
The taste is very mild and sweet. It is really smooth and a lot of Mycenians love to use it to make Mooshroom Cheesecake. It’s also delicious spread on bagels for breakfast or just on crackers as a light, fast snack.
The Testing Station: Cheese 8 Mouse Cheese
At first glance, this cheese’s rubbery texture and bland coloration warn against consuming it. It would be a mistake to judge it based on these features, however! Biting into this cheese often results in a ‘squeak’ as teeth slide against it, giving it its iconic name and making it a popular snack among young Mycenians. Older Mycenians, on the other hand, tend to like it for its taste and uses rather than its sound effects. It has an earthy taste with notes of rosemary and thyme. This makes it useful in many recipes, but it’s best when added to hot dishes at the final stages — this lets it melt into delectable strings. It’s most commonly added to roasted mushrooms.
The Testing Station: Cheese 9 Glosse
This cheese is primarily popular for its convenience. It has a mild taste, much like milk itself. This taste does not change regardless of the length of time the cheese is aged. Glosse also retains its soft form over time without having a harder outer layer, making it easy to dig into without having to cut (or carefully avoid rinds). However, because of its lacking taste, it isn’t used much despite its convenience. It mostly appears in the paws of Mycenians who aren’t particularly partial to cheese, though it’s additionally used as a component in quiche and desserts.
A true Mycenian specialty passed down by generations of Drasilis, this cheese is aged with the finest Cat’s Whiskers mushrooms, hence the obligatorily fancy name. The taste is noted for being a bit of an acquired taste, a sharper cheese with undertones of nuttiness and the slightest sweetest of dates to balance out the intensity of the flavor. A pungent cheese, it’s most recommended to consume this cheese with care as to not let its wafting scent spoil your appetite. Once past the aroma, however, it is a fantastically unique cheese in its silkiness, used mainly as a fireside raclette-type cheese. This creamy cheese tops off savory and meaty dishes after a short while bubbling by a campfire, propped so the open side of the wheel melts into gooey, smooth perfection. Sheets of it cover only the finest of Mycenian meats, making for a flavor sensation you will never forget.
Whoever came up with a cheese that can feel and tasted pre-fried was either ascendant or crazy. It’s an incredibly indulgent cheese to say the least, but it must be eaten warm. When cold, eating the outside can be likened to taking spoonfuls of oil and pouring them down one’s throat. The inside also becomes too hard and unmalleable. When warm though, the outer texture of it is crisp and airy in fine contrast to the thick, chewy inside. It is somewhat pungent, but the smell can be an acquired one. The taste is best described as warm, really more of a feeling than a strong flavor. One can tell the second that it touches the tongue that this cheese is very hearty. This cheese would make a very good party finger food. Just make sure to cut it into very small pieces to make it more manageable.
The wispy parts sticking out of the cheese have a fuzzy texture to them that coat the mouth in fine fibres. The flavor of them is creamy and not unpleasant, but nothing to write home about. The smell, however, is extremely pleasant. This part of the cheese would work well as decoration for a dish. The flavor simply is not worth the mouth feel. The main part of the cheese, on the other hand, slices very cleanly and the flavor of it is quite sharp. It cuts through other flavors very readily, so should not be mixed with anything which has an appeal through a more subtle approach. Perhaps it is best served cut into nice shapes on top of a cracker.
The Tasting Station: Cheese 5 Turtle’s Egg Cheese
This cheese earns its name from its method of aging- being encased within a rounded rind and buried like a nest of turtle eggs. Being buried underground allows the cheese to hold in moisture, giving it a very soft, pudding-like consistency. This process also has the unfortunate effect of endowing it with a very potent aroma somewhere in the neighborhood of spoiled milk and sweaty armpits, meaning one should only cut open this cheese in a well-ventilated area. Once the smell subsides, however, Turtle’s Egg Cheese has a pleasantly sharp taste enjoyable by any Mycenian, pairing nicely with some toasted bread chips or being eaten on its own by the spoonful.
“This is not food. This is what we call eating something that you shouldn’t” Jera stuck out a tongue, bits of cheese still clinging to it.
“You wanted to help Darcy, so help.” Their sibling smirked, safely out of reach. “You have to help, that’s the deal for getting to sample it!”
“I’d rather shove it down your face, thanks. Bleh.” her nose wrinkled, batting one of the odd plantlike fronds sticking out of the so called ‘cheese’. “It’s like shoving a bunch of roots in your mouth with bits getting stuck every time you chew, and when you get through it your reward is the bitterest dirt you’ve ever eaten. If you wanted to eat dirt. Which I don’t!”
“Really? Didn’t it smell like bread warm from the oven?”
“Smells can be deceiving! And this one is. I’m gonna hurl, this is not food. This is a planter Darcy put out and said was food.”
“I’d pity you if you didn’t totally deserve it. You were planning to lie about everything as a prank.”
“Shut uppppp!” she turned to glare at the bitten sample. “I’d name it after you, but you’re still worse than it.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I will call it The Dead’s Cheese. Because it’s for dead things. And worms. Not sensible creatures. And you can use it as decoration, and tell people to eat it if you want them to choke or be miserable!”
“You aren’t even going to try and take this seriously, are you.”
“Ohhhh I’m serious! It even scares the flies away! Who wants to eat a pest repellent?”
“Ah, that’s why you hate it! You’re that much of a pest.”
She tackled into her sibling as a reply, two rolling away from the tasting counter as a bundle of giggling fur, cheese forgotten.
(hopefully this style was ok, I wanted to have em partake in the april fools festivities xD)
Devil’s Mimic gets it’s colorful name from the fact that from the outside it looks and feels like a deviled egg. However, the inside is unexpectedly crunchy and it’s taste has, on multiple occasion, been compared to a ghost pepper. This makes them a prime tool in any prankster’s mischief kit and a common ingredient in rather daring recipes. However, it’s also commonly used as a home remedy to keep away flies. Historically speaking it was widely believed that setting a piece of this cheese in your windowsill kept pests away.
Brieware cheese is an infamous cheese world renowned for its unique and intense sugary smell. While the taste is subtle it is, more or less, exactly what you would expect of something that smells so sweet. Between it’s candy like taste and soft, almost cake like consistency, it is highly sought after for use in deserts and other such delicacies. However, it’s difficulty to obtain makes it a rare cheese indeed. It’s tentacles, you see, are quite defensive and can make harvesting the final product a tricky endeavor.
Musharella cheese is a soft, gooey cheese, super gooey in fact that when you pick it up it begins to ooze apart in your grasp. It has no strong discernible scent, but it’s taste it another thing entirely. It has a delicate sharp note from it’s cheese quality, but also a earthy note as well due to being made from a mushroom. Some might say it tastes slightly like dirt, but they’re wrong. It’s earthy. This is the kind of cheese that would be perfect on a pizza, or fries, or anything that you think would be perfect loaded with a boatload of cheese.
Shoe Leather Cheese – (12)
It looks like moldy leather. It smells like feet. It is cut in wedges that are as large as an ineki’s paws. It’s no wonder how this cheese came by its name. Despite its smell and appearance, though, it is known for having a delicate and mild taste. This cheese never takes center stage but makes a perfect accent to other dishes that need just a little something extra to make them shine. And smell.
Transdimoostinal Ricotta – (11)
The taste of this cheese is out of this world. Literally. It is so intense that it stretches into another dimension. It starts with a punch to the face and starts to fade into unreality. This cheese starts to dissolve within moments of creation, disintegrating into an alternate dimension and fading from existence. If one wants to try a slice, they must be fast. It is said that this rare cheese smells like copper and electricity, but that might just be the chemical reactions caused by inter-dimensional travel.
The fungi that grow in the cheese have a powerful taste, that resembles a bit a well done and low-fat bovine meat, having a chewy texture and a fragrance similar to shiitake. The cheese have a more mild taste, that resembles Gorgonzola, the texture is soft and feels like it dissolves in the mouth, having a smell also similar to Gorgonzola. The exterior of the cheese is hard, and not very palatable, some describe it as tasting like wood. When cheese and mushroom are paired, they compliment each other well, the cheese smoothing the punch of the mushroom.
The cheese can be used to grow the mushrooms, some people only eating the cheese when it stops producing new mushrooms. The mushrooms with the cheese are easily used to as a meat substitute, the mushroom is hardly used alone, as it has a powerful and overbearing taste. It pairs well with potatoes and rice, and some more daring affirm it pairs perfectly with a chocolate sauce. The hard shell of the cheese can be used as a chewy toy for pets, as it’s edible.
Often considered more of a commoner’s carnival food, this cheese is notorious for its high fat and oil content, which makes it that much more tantalizing as a guilty pleasure. A good “B.B.” is always crispy to crunchy on the outside and soft to goey on the inside, if it so happens that the one you’ve bitten into has the opposite textures you’d best spit it out. Strangely enough, it smells faintly of parmesan, which is mysteriously absent in it’s taste, which is of normal brie but breaded.
Pebble Parmesan
The secret ingredient in making a good breaded brie is the correct amount of “Parme Pebbles” added to the breading mix. This otherwise crumbly and dry cheese is always best served alongside another, like a sidekick that helps the hero cheese shine. It does smell of Parmesan, but its taste is nearly bland. It does not melt well, but it can be dissolved for adding an extra fragrance to soups, salads and other dishes that a hint of cheese would do wonders for.
This cheese is very affordable, though its smell is not everyone’s cup of tea. The odeur it emits is similar to smelling a Drasilis’ arm pits after a day spent flying. Who ever would do that though. *cough* But more importantly, it tastes like someone shredded potato bits in between the milk and seasoned with bell pepper. You can definitely feel the texture of those shredded bits amids the cheese on your tongue, and the rough skin covering the otherwise soft inner makes the bite into the cheese quite the tasting adventure.
It’s a good present for PE coaches, they won’t notice the smell. Alternatively use for pranks.
Tillamook Extra Sharp Cheddar;
Rather dry, firm cheese, no real smell because it’s been in the fridge, tastes rather subtle.
Made into twice-baked potatoes; absolutely delicious use very suited to the texture.
Used medium-sized gold potatoes for this, but your favorite potatoes should work fine. (Anyone who wants a finer presentation should probably go for a larger potato with a thicker skin! Leave a bit of margin room left on the potato when you scoop out the centers so you don’t break the skin. We vastly prefer more filling, so I didn’t leave that much for mine.)
Potatoes washed, halved, then soaked in saltwater. Place skin-up on an oiled baking pan (I used one lined with parchment paper) and cook in oven.
Prep filling. I started mine with fresh minced garlic into a hot pan with oil until it fried, added raw, sliced, smoked bacon, making sure to have it be both crispy and soft, added spices and a very generous amount of vodka. Then turned heat low, added sour cream and heavy whipping cream. After those were warmed through, I added the chopped cheddar cheese.
Once potatoes are cooked (face-down side should have a very nice golden fried finish), take out of oven and scoop out the centers. (The fried fronts both make this really hard and really delicious, I used a fork and spoon together.) Throw potato centers into pan with filling, combine until the texture is to your liking.
I added chopped spring onion (because I loath chives), stuffed the potato halves, and threw them back into the oven to bake.
Garnished with fresh hass avocado and pickled bell-pepper (would also be really great with pickles).
Lacy Mooster
A fancy packaging hides a well-aged cheese full of holes. A choice generally reserved for those with gems and gems to spare because of how much of a pittance you receive for a frankly absurd amount of gems. However, those myceneans who choose to purchase this cheese are inevitably intrigued by a strong taste belied by the delicate appearance and lack of scent. The firm texture when sliced and smooth finish melted make this cheese a delightful choice for everything from cheese platters to sandwiches. The most wealthy myceneans have even to be known to make a batch of mac and cheese, which the light texture of the cheese is said to be unparalleled for. Layers very well with black truffle, which imparts the after taste this cheese does not. All the comfort of a good, rich mac and cheese with none of the horribly bloating after effects!
The Dragon’s Egg cheese is housed in an olive-green rind, and formed into a oval shape like an egg. Unassuming guests will be delighted when they crack it open to reveal the gold hidden inside. The rind is bitter, smooth and rubbery, and is not usually eaten, serving only as a dish for the rich cheese inside. The main event is the golden “yolk” - a mild, creamy cheese with a light and fluffy texture. It’s a popular cheese to eat on crackers, or with other savoury snacks.
Mushrella Cheese
Mushrella Cheese subtly smells of the tiny mushrooms placed throughout, but mostly there is no smell at all. It is slightly bumpy on the tongue due to the shrooms, but if used as an ingredient and mixed + melted, it is mostly smooth. This cheese is very flavorful, sweet with small bursts of savory as you eat it.
While most often used as an ingredient for the famous Mouse Tusou’s Mushrel Cheesecake, Mushrella Cheese is a delicacy best tasted everyday! For a small snack, it’s best paired with dried fruits such as marzi berries or sweet peaches. If you’d prefer a meal, try a few slices with artisan cracker chips and chorizo sausage.
Concrebert
This cheese has a musty, almost earthen smell to it, though it isn’t readily apparent unless you’re up close and personal with it. While the outside texture is smooth and polished, the inside of this cheese is horribly rough, gravely, and incredibly hard. Cutting through it with a knife is almost impossible, if not a downright dangerous affair. Using your best knife is ill-advised, as it’ll leave your poor cutlery dull and bent - and forget about spreading it on a cracker, all you’ll end up with is sad, broken crumbly cracker pieces. The Cave Wide Cheese Guild recommends using this cheese as a doorstop, or for filling in potholes in the street.
The Tasting Station - Cheese 13
Brizza
Brizza is like a slap to the face - a delicious, buttery, creamy slap that melts in your mouth. Its odor is fair and pleasant, like a summer field filled with herbs and wild grasses where an all star rock concert blasts at ultimate level volume. If you squints your eyes just right you can see neon lights flashing while eating it. Best consumed with a glass of red wine while your neighbors yell at you to turn your music down.
Baconshroom Cheddar is a jaw-achingly strong cheese filled with smoky baconshrooms. It’s a mystery how the baconshrooms find their way in there; even the makers claim not to know, although surely they added them? The Cheddar is chewy and smells like the bottom of a barn, but the flavour explosion is well worth it. Smoky bacon and intense cheddar cheese whirl around your mouth. Baconshroom Cheddar can also be used as an antibacterial cream when blended.
4. West Mycenian Crunch
The West Mycenian Crunch is a deliciously creamy cheese. Famous for that crunchy casing, it has a slight pickle tang that hits the tongue just as your wrapping it in mild, creamy cheese. It smells of the field and is traditionally wrapped in woven grass mats, to give you that authentic “from-the-Milkshroom-to-you” feel. If you don’t want to eat it, you can always store it - one-year hardening in the basement, and you’ll have the best doorstop ever.
Caseus pulchritudo recently came into popularity over the past decade. Marketed as a latex-free product, C. pulchritudo is not eaten. When consumed, it has a bitter, rubbery aftertaste. Rather, it is used in the cosmetic industry. C. pulchritudo is a top-rated makeup sponge which eliminates lines and streaks that other blenders leave behind. Once the proprietary, sponge-like surface soaks up the water, the cheese expands in size, leaving no room left to absorb makeup.
Caseus Stercus is a bland tasting but stinky cheese to eat. Its smell is strangely sweet, but rotten, not unlike spoiled meat. As a result, the cheese is often used for practical, composting purposes. C. Stercus usually holds a hard, thick, outer shell, which allows for the weight of the compost to be upheld. The nutrients in the cheese itself have bacteria and molds which break down garbage, allowing for Mycenians and business to go green by reducing waste.
This cheese is soft and lightly fragrant, the smell of cream tinged with an earthy odor. When cut into, it’s goopy as if it’s already melted, and the skin is soft and silky. On its own, it tastes remarkably like butter, cream, and peppercorns, with a spice that catches on the back of one’s throat moments after eating. Given its consistency and versatile, creamy flavor, this would fit anywhere from on a cracker to omelettes, cheese-based pasta dishes, or the little something extra one needs to elevate a grilled cheese sandwich.
Name: Neon Shroom Cheese
The cheese smells…interesting, like shoes that got left out in the rain, only sweeter. (Am unsure if the mushrooms are an intentional part of the cheese or if they grew on it after some time in Darcy’s fridge. I’m a bit afraid to ask.) The flavor is rather more mild than the almost violent, retina-searing color would suggest. It tastes mostly like a mild white cheddar, but with some rich earthy undertones (from the mushrooms, presumably). As for texture, it’s surprisingly soft, very easy to cut even with a table knife. No hard rind like on some cheeses.
After finding it more edible than first appearances suggested, I experimented with what might be the best use of it. While it can be eaten straight, I found it to be good in a sandwich, or grated over pasta, where it added some amazing pops of color to the plate in addition to a nice taste.
It could also be a fun prank to play on your friends, since it looks almost like cake at first glance. Just make sure to somehow mask the odd smell.
Found in only the most remote locations, Log Cheese is only found beneath felled logs that have been decaying for over 50 years. With a distinctly musky and old smell, Log Cheese is only for the most devoted cheese connoisseurs. It is also known as the oxymoron cheese: with it’s smooth, buttery texture, Log Cheese presents an initial appeal that is immediately quelled by it’s painfully sour taste and overwhelmingly woody after-notes. Most common uses for Log Cheese include door stopper, critter repellent, and rolling pin.
Affectionately known as the Window Box cheese, this curious-looking cheese is for only the most fearless of cheese consumers. Many people admire the tenacity of the mushrooms growing out of any part of the cheese that has been exposed to the air for more than 12 hours, though how these sprout up so fast is a mystery. Because of the dubious nature of eating a cheese presumably laced with mushroom spores, many people miss out on the subtle, earthy flavor it possesses. It reads almost dirt-like to the unrefined palate, and smells very similar, with a hint of nuttiness. The texture is firm, with a nice chew, but not rubbery. Typically used in cooking, especially in Alfredo dishes, some people find it works well paired with turkey and apple on a warm sandwich. Then again, some folks, uninterested in eating it, use it as a genuine planter, keeping intriguing displays of mushroom growth in their homes.
Bamboo Cottage is a loose-curd made and stored in a small bamboo container, which gives it its name. The cheeses are handmade in small batches, and do not keep long due to their storage method. However, the bamboo imbues a distinct earthy flavour into the cheese, belied by it’s fresh, airy scent. Bamboo Cottage is very soft and melts in the mouth, lending an addictive quality to it.
It’s an incredibly versatile cheese, being able to be eaten on its own, used in cooking as a base for sauces, in pancake batters, and even as an ice cream base.
Marasmius Blue or “the double blue” as it’s more commonly known, is a cheese produced in a faraway cavern. Although it appears to be two cheese wheels, they are intended to be eaten simultaneously. The smaller wheel, which is slightly more aged, is dense and heavy, with the blue mould having a relatively mild scent flavour. The larger wheel is much softer, both in texture and flavour, allowing the blue mould’s flavour to shine through more strongly. When eaten together, the two combine to create a truly unique taste.
Given the distinctness of the two cheeses, they don’t have much use beyond a delicacy, and are generally only eaten on cheese platters or picnics.
The Tasting Station – Cheese 9 This Is Your Grandma’s Cheese
The cheese has a very strong lavender and rose smell and taste to it. Some of the smell and taste have been known to change with how long the cheese has been left to sit in a pantry. The lavender has been known to eventually overpower the rose. The texture is very creamy and has the consistency of melted peanut butter. This cheese is often used to accent pita chips, and some have even managed to utilize it as a spread for quiche. Pairs well with a glass of fruit wine. Also, it does make a great little cheese to leave open if you want to be reminded of grandma’s house.
The Tasting Station – Cheese 6 Holy Garlic
If you don’t like garlic stay away from this cheese because it is 100% garlic. The curds have been infused with garlic puree, and with they are ready to start forming the cheese cloves are garlic are placed inside the cheese to meld to it. Besides the smell and taste, the texture itself isn’t too crazy, it has been described as being soft like mozzarella. This is the cheese for pizza, pasta, bread, fries, and garlic food lovers in general.
