Cheese Buying Tips from the Cheesemonger

Aired on: September 5, 2012, January 9, 2012

Fairway Market's Master Cheesemonger Steve Jenkins tells you the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to buying supermarket cheeses.

• "Don't buy pre-grated, pre-sliced or pre-shredded cheeses," Steve says. "Buy it by the chunk and do it yourself, it's a lot cheaper that way. Plus, you get the rind which you can use for soups and stews."

• Regarding packaged cheeses in the dairy aisle, Steve advises, "You've got no use for cheese that has chemicals and dyes in it. It's like eating soap, there's nothing there for you." But if your store doesn't have a specialty cheese section, Steve says that packaged blue cheeses in the dairy aisle are high in quality: "The Danish Blues, the Australian Blues, the French Roguefort, the domestic and imported Gorgonzolas, all of that is perfectly fine to get from the dairy aisle, as well Mascarpone or Crème Fraiche."

• "The fetas you find in the dairy aisle are not real feta cheese," Steve says. "They've got to be made with sheep's milk and come from Greece or Bulgaria or someplace like that."