Taleggio is a square washed-rind cow's-milk cheese from Lombardy, and a protected name. It is named for Val Taleggio, in the mountains north of Bergamo.
The rind is orange and aromatic. The paste is softer and milder than the smell suggests. Eat the paste with or without the rind. The cheese also melts.
History
The cheese is an old one of the Lombardy valleys. Herders and later dairies made a square washed cheese that could ripen in cool, damp cellars and caves while the milk of the valleys was abundant. The valley of Taleggio supplied the name. The protected zone today is wider than that single valley, across parts of Lombardy and into neighboring areas allowed by the rules.
The square shape made the cheeses easy to stack and to turn during washing. That practical form became the way shoppers recognize it. Taleggio did not become a global commodity in the way mozzarella did. It traveled as a cheese-board cheese and, later, as a melting cheese for polenta and risotto in restaurants outside Italy.
How it is made
Cow's milk is set, the curd is cut and placed in square forms, and the cheeses are salted. During ripening the surfaces are washed with brine. The wash grows the orange smear that smells stronger than the interior. The paste ripens toward a soft, sometimes oozing, texture near the rind, while a younger center can stay firmer.
A whole square is the traditional format. Cut wedges in a shop should still show a thin washed rind and a pale paste. There is no bloomy white rind and no blue vein. If a cheese labeled Taleggio is a bland block with no aroma, it is either very young, very cold, or not the protected cheese in any state you can taste yet. Warm it before you decide.
Taste
The paste tastes mild, salty, buttery, and a little tangy, often with a meaty or yeasty note near the rind. The rind smells of washed cheese: pungent, sometimes like brassica or a damp cellar. Together they are milder than the smell from across the room suggests. That gap between smell and taste is the character of the cheese.
A good Taleggio smells strong and still clean. Ammonia that stings the nose, a bitter paste, or a rind that is slimy beyond a light smear means the square is too old. A chalky, tight center means it is young. Both can be useful. The young one slices. The riper one spreads.
In the kitchen
Serve it on a board with bread, potatoes, or a sharp pickle, at room temperature. Melt it into polenta or risotto, or lay slices on a flatbread, if you want a mild funk and a soft melt. Trim the rind for a dish that should stay quiet. Keep the rind for a dish that can take the aroma.
Do not replace it with Brie and expect the same smell, or with a washed Époisses and expect the same restraint. Époisses is stronger and spoonable. Brie is mushroomy and bloomy. Fontina Val d'Aosta is the substitute when you want a washed Alpine cheese that slices more cleanly. A mild industrial fontina will not give you Taleggio's rind.
Around the world
Protected Taleggio is an Italian cheese of its Lombardy zone. In the north of Italy it is eaten with polenta and on the table. Elsewhere it is a cheese-shop cheese, one of the washed rinds people buy when they want funk without the full force of a Burgundy or Alsatian square.
The name is protected. A soft square with an orange rind and this name should be that cheese, not a generic washed block. Other washed cheeses, from Limburger to Munster, are relatives in method and different in place and milk handling. Use Taleggio when the recipe wants this particular balance: a smell that arrives first, and a paste that is gentler than the smell.