elaine wrote:
> Last night for supper I made a cheese sauce that called for smoked
gouda -
> the sauce was good, but the cheese didn't really melt the way other
cheeses,
> do plus it looked curdled. Is this normal for gouda? Fortunately I
wasn't
> entertaining a whole group of people!
>
> Elaine

Many cheeses simply don't incorporate well into sauces. Generally
smoked cheeses are much harder/drier (low water content) than their
unsmoked counterparts, those are more difficult to combine and often
need to be finely grated and added to sauces a little at a time.
Dry/hard cheeses are more adept at incorporating with more fluid/long
cooking dishes like soups rather than sauces... I wouldn't attempt
preparing cheese sauce with any of the grating cheeses. And as to
processed cheeses, those more easily incorporated and are less
expensive, try one of those smoked cheeses... I think it would be a
shame to waste a fine imported smoked gouda by using it for sauce... a
major component of a fine cheese is it's texture... I'd not turn any
fine cheese into sauce.

Sheldon