Feta

Let me tell you about feta, and about brine, because you cannot understand one without the other.

Feta lives in brine. That salty bath is not decoration — it keeps the cheese moist and supple, and gives it that clean edge on the tongue. Leave feta out on a dry plate and watch what happens: the surface turns dull and stiff, the edges start to crack. So buy it swimming, not sitting dry.

Look at the cheese itself. Good feta is white, never yellowish, and it breaks — it does not slice clean like a young gouda. Crumbly, a little grainy, that is the texture you want in your hand. Smell it: milky, salty, a fresh clean tang. Nothing like ammonia. If ammonia hits you, put it back.

Some people say feta is a dry cheese, and you should drain the brine and store it in the fridge uncovered. No! Do this and soon enough you pick it up and feel a hard, leathery crust, crumble it and find the inside gone dry and chalky, a cheese good for nothing but the bin. Always keep feta in its own brine, or make fresh brine yourself, and store it submerged. Dry fridge air is the enemy here, not your friend.