For about two years the answer was without a doubt No. Sometime after its early 2009 make date, Snow Canyon disappeared into the depths of Rockhill Creamery's aging room. If it was MIA, went AWOL, or was taken as a POW, we may never know. But it did resurface recently, and was taken on the trip of a lifetime.
Fast forward to late August 2011. If you were in San Francisco during this time, chances are you did see Snow Canyon.
Because it was literally everywhere.
Not so sure you had a sighting? If you recall a white-blonde pixie cut with a mischievous grin attached to it bobbing nearby, sighting confirmed. And if you saw it and tasted it, consider yourself a lucky one.
Snow Canyon, on its home turf in Utah.
And in SF...
Rockhill Creamery of Richmond, Utah (way up north) is a "micro-dairy" with only six cows, and an impressive eight or nine cheese types. Snow Canyon is the more aged Edam style, big sister to four month and younger Dark Canyon, and doesn't usually stay uncut longer than six months. While the "Brown Swiss-Six", Ingrid, Iggy, Heide, Gabby, Elsie and Eve, produce milk that makes a mean cheese at any age (try the young Belvedere Tomme with apricot preserves), the 900 day old Snow Canyon we tried rivaled a two year old Dutch Gouda.
Just split...
Success!
Caramely, nutty, salty and a little sweet, with evenly distributed crystals and a toothsome waxiness that quickly melts in your mouth - it was like enjoying a bag of warm sweet 'n savory nuts at a Sunday ballgame. For those who enjoy spending their weekend otherwise engaged (or who wouldn't waste the stomach space on anything other than beer), it was everything one could hope for in an aged Gouda-style cheese. I hope the success of this lost-then-found wheel might bring about others in the future, maybe this time intentionally.
Photos (and humor) courtesy of Abby Phunder,
the blonde fox who transported the cheese, cut the cheese, and fed us the cheese.