"Olivers" > wrote in message
...
> Kenneth Coble muttered....
>
>
> >
> > Anyway, $0.02 more from my corner. BTW, Olivers, what part of the US
> > are you from? Around here hoop pretty much means yellow, and what you
> > (and lots of other people) call hoop cheese we call Farmer's cheese.
> > Just curious, I'm starting to wonder about the geographic distribution
> > of this terminology...
> >
>
> Central Texas, but have lived and worked over much of the US except for
the
> Northwest, years of it in Florida. I'd never encountered "hoop" cheese as
> anything other than a white "young" cheese, while what you're describing
> sort of travels under the Cheddar, Colby, Longhorn or Rat (Trap)
> designation (sort of depending on strength of flavor, but even that can
> vary and today's US Cheddar is pretty mild "Wisconsin" style except for
> gourmet varieties and some places like cabot which mass market sharper
> cheese).
>
> In the US, red or black rinds on "Cheddar" used to be indicators of longer
> aging, but red seems simply ornamental these days.
>
> TMO

Interesting to know. The cheese we bought at that little store followed the
black rind = sharper rule. And I have heard it called rat-trap cheese
around here. Colby I never really heard that much until the advent of
mass-market Colby Jack cheeses. Longhorn isn't one I've heard around here.
It is interesting to see how people react to true Cheddar cheese when they
have it for the first time. I remember it took me a while to appreciate it,
and while I like it now I still really like a couple of pieces of the
'rattrap' cheese with plain saltine crackers.

It's interesting to trace these different local names for stuff... thanks
for replying. We could probably get a halfway decent new thread out of the
topic... Anyway, I'm off to have dinner, and a big chunk of Maytag Blue
(thereby neatly stepping out of the whole yellow cheese arena!)

Thanks again,
Ken Coble