$A wooden cheese board with three cheeses of different styles, a pot of honey with a dipper, a small jar of fig jam, a bowl of green olives, cornichons, a fan of jamón and a stack of flatbread crackers, with a ruler laid along the edge as a joke$

Cheese Plate Math

Published 9 Sep 20265 min read

Filed under Crackers

A cheese plate goes wrong in exactly two ways. Either there is not enough cheese and the board looks picked over twenty minutes in, or there are seven cheeses and nobody can tell what they are eating. Both are arithmetic problems, and both have arithmetic answers.

How much cheese

As a starter or a party snack: about two ounces of cheese per person, total, across all the cheeses, a little less if a full dinner follows. For eight people, that is about a pound of cheese on the board.

As the meal: about five ounces of cheese and cured meat combined per person, which works out to roughly three to four ounces of cheese with the rest in cured meat. For eight, a pound and a half to two pounds of cheese. A board that is cheese alone wants more, five to seven ounces each.

After dinner: a cheese course wants about an ounce and a half to two and a half ounces per person, up to three cheeses, and something sweet beside it.

Round up if the board is the only food; round down if there is a real dinner coming.

How many cheeses

Three to start, four or five for a party board, and past that it is a cheese tasting, which is a different event. Three cheeses in three styles lets each one be recognized, and the classic split is by texture: one soft, one firm aged, one blue, with a washed-rind as an alternative to the blue. A brie-style or fresh goat cheese; an aged Gouda, Comté, Manchego or cheddar; a Gorgonzola or Stilton, or a pungent Taleggio in place of the blue. If there is a fourth, make it a wild card, a sheep's cheese or something smoked. Buy the three in roughly equal weights.

The temperature rule

Every cheese comes out of the refrigerator at least an hour before serving, unwrapped and loosely covered so it does not dry out. A ripe, runny soft cheese can take up to two hours, and only fresh cheese such as young goat cheese is ready in thirty minutes. Cold cheese tastes muted; the fat holds much of the flavor, and when it is cold the fat contracts and the flavor is much harder to taste. Taking cheese out early is the easiest improvement a board can get, and it costs nothing. Jamón, if it is joining the board, comes out of the pack early too, laid flat until the fat turns glossy and translucent (see the jamón ibérico guide).

Which crackers

Put out three kinds, one plain flatbread, one flavored or cheese-forward, and one with a different texture, and put the sweet biscuits on a plate of their own. Add a loaf of bread if the board is the meal. The crackers guide explains which cracker goes under which cheese; the short version is that strong cheese wants a plain cracker, such as Rustic Bakery's sel gris flatbread (shop Rustic Bakery sel gris flatbread). Goulibeur's sablés (shop Goulibeur Comté sablés) are a savory biscuit baked with Comté, a cracker with cheese already in it, to set out with a glass of something.

What goes around the cheese, and why

Every accompaniment does one of four jobs: sweetness against salt, acid against fat, crunch against softness, or savory depth alongside savory depth. A good board has at least one of each.

Sweet. Honey with blue cheese is a classic pairing; the darker honeys, buckwheat or chestnut, stand up to blue, washed-rind and hard aged cheese, and a runny honey with a dipper is worth its space (see the honey guide). A fig or cherry preserve with a soft cheese, a spoonful only (the jam and preserves guide sorts out the terms). Dried apricots or figs (shop dried fruit). A thread of saba (shop Leonardi saba), which its Modena producer suggests over cheese, or aged balsamic over a hard cheese (see the balsamic vinegar guide).

Acid. Cornichons (see the cornichons guide) and a spoon of Dijon (see the Dijon mustard guide) beside the hard cheese and the meat. A few pickled peppers. Fresh grapes or thin apple slices, which are acid too.

Crunch and salt. Marcona almonds or a roasted nut (shop nuts). Green olives, always, with a saucer for pits (see the olives guide). A sprinkle of flaky salt on a fresh goat cheese (see the finishing salt guide).

Savory. A fan of jamón or a few slices of salchichón ibérico (shop Mercado Famous salchichón), draped rather than stacked. A tin of oil-packed anchovies opened beside the board for the adventurous. Less expected, a spoon of Fat Toad Farm goat's milk caramel (shop Fat Toad Farm caramel) beside a soft goat cheese, one of the uses the caramel guide suggests.

Four accompaniments, one per job, is right. Eight is a buffet.

The board itself

Cheeses spaced apart, each with its own knife, so flavors do not cross. Cut a first slice from each so guests know how. Soft cheeses go on a small plate of their own if they run. Accompaniments in small bowls or in tidy piles directly on the board. Crackers off the board, in a basket beside it, so they stay dry and the board stays about cheese. Label the cheeses if there are more than two; a torn piece of card and a pencil is fine.

The worked example

For eight people as a starter before dinner: three cheeses, five ounces each; crackers in three kinds; a pot of honey, a jar of fig preserve, a bowl of olives, a dish of cornichons, a handful of almonds; one pack of jamón. Everything out of the refrigerator at six for a seven-thirty arrival. The board will look generous and there will be a little left, which is the correct outcome.

For eight as the meal: the same three cheeses at ten ounces each, two loaves of bread and the three crackers, the full set of accompaniments, two packs of cured meat, and the no-cook dinner party menu guide for the rest of the table.

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and products ship across the continental U.S. from theambrosianpantry.com.