Raw cheese

I seem to remember this being covered before, but can't find the thread on the Other Board: where can I buy raw cheese in Chicago? I found something that said The Cheese Stands Alone on Western has it, which doesn't surprise me; I was just wondering if there were any additional options (or any more raw milk buying expeditions coming up). Thanks!

Any place that sells fine cheeses should have some cheeses marketed as raw milk cheese. But even Jewel and Dominick's sell raw milk cheeses. A lot of the great and traditional European aged cheeses (Gruyere, Parmigiano-Reggiano) are made with raw milk. Is there anything in particular that you're looking for?

I suspect she was looking for raw-milk cheeses that are younger than 90 days, which cannot legally be imported into the US last I heard.

There may be some locally made ones, but I'm not sure those are legal either..

-ed

While it is technically illegal to sell unaged raw-milk cheeses, most decent cheese stores (fox and obel, whole foods,etc) often have young ripe cheeses that they claim are unpasturized. I am not sure how much i trust the store labels, or the salespeople, but if you can see the original labels, on the european cheeses it will almost always say "lait pasturize" (sp?) if it is pasturized, or "lait cru" if it is made from raw milk. My personal favorite cheese is St marcellin, a small ripened goats-milk cheese from france. I have bought 3 different brands in Chicago, Curet and one in a ceramic dish, both of which are pasturized, and one that was raw and was about 2.5x the price of the others. I couldnt tell much difference. The Curet is the most often available, and if you let it sit in the fridge until you see liquid being released by the rind (usually about 4-6 weeks) it is unbelievably good. I serve it on a good brick rye or pumpernickle.
-Will