Can you eat coating on brie cheese

The rind on Brie not only protects and encases the cheese — it also adds a subtle, earthy flavor. For Coulommier and Camembert type cheese, the white mold, Penicillium camemberti, is used to give a white felt on the surface of the cheese. Camembert cheese that is going bad typically will develop a hard texture around the edges, darken in color and develop an off smell; if mold that was not a normal part of the manufacturing process appears on the Camembert cheese, discard it entirely.

If a hard cheese such as Parmesan, Gouda or cheddar, has unintended mold growing on it, it might be saved.

If a 1-inch section of cheese can be cut from around the mold on the cheese, the remaining cheese may be safe to eat. So long as the cheese coating in question was not made by man alone like the red wax on Gouda the rind is safe to eat.

Depending on your palate, you may find that a little rind complements the cheese and enhances its flavor. You may also find it too strong, bitter, moldy or textually unpleasant. First wash out your whole fridge with soap then baking soda.

Second rewrap your cheese in freezer bags. If you can still smell them put them in screw top glass jars. Third invest in fridge boxes of baking soda. This edible mold blooms on the outside of the paste and is then patted down, over and over again, to form the rind.

This process gives Brie its distinctive taste. Yes, the bloomy rind is completely safe to eat and even keeps the inside safe from any potentially unwanted microorganisms during production. The rind on Brie not only protects and encases the cheese — it also adds a subtle, earthy flavor.

I would never buy that cheese. Unless I was trying to assassinate someone who liked cheese. Brie is a bloomy rind cheese. That means that cheesemakers inoculate the cheese with edible mold that blooms on the outside of the paste.

That mold is then patted down, over and over again, to form the rind. This is a big part of the cheesemaking process, and cheesemakers spend a lot of time doing this. Whether brie or some other wonderful variety of cheese, there are worlds of flavor in the cheese rinds. The rind provides variety from and complements the paste simultaneously. When you pair that with the super-creamy paste, you get a combination that does a faint impersonation of cream of mushroom soup.

Sure, cream is great. And mushrooms are great. Rinds that are herbed, peppered, wine-infused, and coated in ash including some French goat cheeses, such as Valencay are meant to be eaten. The hard crust on a wheel of aged Parmesan is edible but better utilized as an addition to soups and sauces. Simon Lehrer of Parker's Table , one of the most experienced and respected cheesemongers in town, says when he started in the business 25 years ago, one producer of Brie told him "absolutely not to eat the rind," that "it's the packaging, like the skin on a salami.

And while he admits that he generally enjoys the rind on a Brie, he "wouldn't go back to the wheel just for those crusty bits. Lehrer says wax-bound cheeses, such as Gouda, contain a rind that "while edible is hardly delicious" and that manchego, while considered an edible rind cheese, is coated with an eggwash, which provides a gloss but can also potentially be a magnet for bacteria.

Lehrer says cheeses bound in cotton cloth—so-called bandage-wrapped cheeses, such as cave-aged cheddar—"will give you a floss if you eat it all the way," but most people give up long before that as that cheese "gets funky near the edge.