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    Ohio’s Own: Firelands Cheese Curds

    Bellefontaine’s Blue Jacket Dairy makes cheese curds that are interesting right now for a couple of reasons:

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    1) The curds were found at a Kroger, and that’s not the typical stomping grounds for hunters and gatherers of local eats.

    2) It’s cheese season. Cheese baskets and cheese plates have worked as holiday gifts since the dawn of time.

    Sadly, no one ever puts cheese curds in the gift basket. Instead, it’s always filled with that super aggressive stuff, or the sorts of cheeses that come encased in wax. Cheese curds are perhaps not fancy enough. There’s no slicing with cheese curds, and utensils of any sort would be weird. If people are pairing cheese curds with wine, it’s news around here. Cheese curds are the perfect low brow finger food.

    And Blue Jacket Dairy makes them in flavors, lots of flavors: Horseradish, Dill, Ranch and (the choice of the day) Firelands.

    Like all cheese curds, they’re squeaky and a little bouncy. As the moniker suggests, it’s got some chipotle chiles in the Firelands mix. It adds some heat that’s not cruel, but complex as it starts out with more of a smoky accent.

    While poking around the company website, it turns out that Blue Jacket Dairy has some other really interesting things too. It has something called “Quark”. It has quark in several flavors (lemon is said to be popular with berries). Evidently, this product is comparable to yogurt or cream cheese as a substitute, and is very popular in Europe.

    If quark wasn’t interesting enough, Blue Jacket Dairy also sells whey-fed hogs, a specialty heritage Red Wattle breed. The livestock is hormone and antibiotic free and whey-fed (whey is a bi-product of cheese making, smarties). Customers can elect to go whole-hog and buy one of those particular piggies direct from the dairy.

    Cheese curds, quark, and a big pig would certainly make a remarkable Ohio gift basket.

    For more information, visit www.bluejacketdairy.com.

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    Miriam Bowers Abbott
    Miriam Bowers Abbotthttps://columbusunderground.com
    Miriam Bowers Abbott is a freelancer contributor to Columbus Underground who reviews restaurants, writes food-centric featurettes and occasionally pens other community journalism pieces.
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