Pungent and funky
Strong, farmyard and meaty: Epoisses, Limburger, Munster and the washed rinds.
Pungent cheeses are the strong-smelling ones: farmyard, meat broth, cabbage, old cellars and, some say, socks. Most are washed-rind cheeses whose orange, sticky rinds carry bacteria that make sulphur and other volatile compounds. Époisses, Limburger, Munster, Maroilles, Livarot, Herve and Taleggio are the classics. A popular story says Époisses is banned on French public transport, though that is a joke repeated so often it is taken as fact.
Where the smell comes from
The bacteria of washed rinds, especially Brevibacterium linens, break down amino acids such as methionine into sulphur compounds, including methanethiol, which smells of cabbage and onion. Other compounds bring meaty, fruity and ammonia notes. Related bacteria live on human skin, which is why the smell is often compared with feet. Inside, the paste is usually mild, sweet and meaty, and many people who flinch at the smell enjoy the taste.
Strong cheeses of the world
Belgium's best-known strong cheese is Herve, from the plateau east of Liège. In Germany and Wisconsin, Limburger is eaten on rye bread with raw onion. Harz cheese of Germany and Olomoucké tvarůžky of the Czech Republic are small, strong sour-milk cheeses with a smell to match. Norway's gamalost, old cheese, is a hard, brown, sharp sour-milk cheese with a long history, and Corsica and Sardinia have strong sheep's milk cheeses of their own.
Living with pungent cheese
Keep strong cheeses in paper inside a sealed box, away from butter and milk, which pick up smells easily. Serve them at room temperature with plain bread, boiled potatoes, beer, or a fragrant white wine such as Gewürztraminer with Munster. In Alsace, Munster is often eaten with a sprinkle of cumin seeds. For anyone new to strong cheese, start with the paste and a little of the rind, and work outward from there.
Worth knowing
- Époisses: Burgundy cheese washed in marc
- Limburger: Eaten with onion on rye bread
- Munster: Alsace cheese served with cumin
- Maroilles: Strong square cheese of northern France
- Livarot: Normandy cheese bound with sedge
- Herve: Belgium's best-known strong cheese
- Olomoucké tvarůžky: Czech ripened sour-milk cheese
- Gamalost: Norway's sharp old cheese
Sources and further reading
Original text by the EveryCheese desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Customs are described as tradition, not as advice. If we have something wrong, tell us.
Pungent and funky on EveryCheese
The cheeses written up so far, best known first.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Tibetan cheese: Alpha, CC BY-SA 2.0, source