Hi Susan,
Thanks for commenting on my cheese caves. :-) I have made a lot of Camemberts, Feta and Fresh cheese. I have also made some blues and Cambozolas. I'm new to hard and semi hard cheeses - but I love making them!
I'm looking forward to gaining more info from this forum and hopefully also contributing.
The most famous Danish cheeses are Danbo, Esrom, Havarti, Maribo, Samsø, Danablu and Rygeost. I have found some descriptions on the cheeses on Wikipedia etc.:
DANBO
A semi-soft, aged cow's milk cheese (a common household cheese). The cheese is typically aged between 12 and 52 weeks. Danbo is sold under various trade and brand names, including Lillebror, Gamle Ole, and Riberhus. Gamle Ole is extremely pungent.
ESROM
A pale yellow semi-soft cow's milk cheese with a pungent aroma and a full, sweet flavour. It is a porous cheese, with many small holes throughout, and is slightly elastic and buttery in texture. Commonly used as a table or melting cheese. It is slow ripened from a starting culture for a period of 10 to 12 weeks.
HAVARTI
A semi-soft Danish cow's milk cheese. It is a table cheese that can be sliced, grilled, or melted. Havarti has a buttery aroma and can be somewhat sharp in the stronger varieties, much like Swiss cheese. It is typically aged about three months, though when the cheese is older it becomes more salty and tastes like hazelnut.
MARIBO
A semi-hard cheese made from cow's milk. It has a firm, dry interior, a creamy texture and many small, irregular holes. It's flavour is tangy and it is sometimes seasoned with caraway seeds.
SAMSØ (SAMSOE)
A Danish cow's milk cheese named after the island of Samsø. Similar to Emmentaler, although its flavour is milder, gentle and nutty in young cheeses and pungent with sweet and sour notes in older ones. Samsø's interior has a supple, elastic texture, a yellow colour and a few large, irregular holes. It is the national cheese of Denmark.
DANABLU (Danish Blue)
A strong, blue-veined cheese. Semi-soft creamery cheese. Made from cow's milk, it has a fat content of 25–30% (50–60% in dry matter) and is aged for eight to twelve weeks.
RYGEOST
Rygeost is a specialty smoked cheese and virtually not obtainable anywhere but in Denmark. This cheese is made from a combination of cow's milk and buttermilk. This a non-aged smoked cheese mixture that is roasted over a straw and nettle fire. Sometimes caraway seeds are added to the cheese for flavor.
:-) Danbo
