TBT Gear: Cheesecloth

from Amazon

I was pleasantly surprised at the modest popularity of my Pecorino Romano cheese article.  The Pecorino Romano cheese really is ideally suited for outdoor pursuits.

On a recent trip, the someone and I enjoyed the cheese, some dates and nuts on our hikes.

Somewhere, a distant ancestor was smiling. 🙂

I loved writing the article itself as it combined three of my passions in life: Food, history and the outdoors.  What’s not to like in writing an article about a 2000 year old source of hiking food?

Out of that article, a few people mentioned cheesecloth.

Another older item has that fallen out of style but still works remarkably well.

Truthfully, I was not personally familiar with this material. That is until my Central European born someone introduced me to the wonders of cheesecloth.

So, what is cheesecloth exactly? Wikipedia has a nice summary. 

From an outdoors person perspective? It keeps the cheese fresh and helps keep it from spoiling while out in the backcountry. Used extensively in pre-refrigeration days. A bit of lost knowledge now.

For hiking, no special preparation is needed as you will be eating it and not storing the cheese long term.  Simply wrap the items in cheesecloth, keep the cheese in your pack and go forth hiking.

How well does cheesecloth work?

My someone reports she used it extensively with Muenster cheese or similar softer cheese while out in the backcountry of  Arizona in all seasons. To quote someone: “After ten days, the cheesecloth was green…the cheese was still good”. And someone’ standards are a bit, er, higher than mine in certain situations. 🙂

So get some cheesecloth. Pack your cheese of choice (I still think Pecorino Romano is the perfect one!) and enjoy.

Another older piece of “technology” that works well.

Cheesecloth is not expensive. If you can’t find it easily locally, the ever handy Amazon has cheesecloth for sale.  And it has more uses than I ever imagined! 🙂