How many cheeses, how much of each, how to pick without repeating yourself, and how to cut them without offending anyone.
Three cheeses is enough
Pile on eight and they bury one another until nothing is memorable. Three to five is the useful range. There is an old rule about odd numbers looking better, but the real reason is simpler: with three, soft, hard and strong each get exactly one place. For quantity, count 30 to 50 grams (1 to 2 oz) per person as an accompaniment, or 100 to 150 grams (3½ to 5 oz) if the cheese is the meal.
How to choose without repeating yourself
Vary three things — texture, milk and intensity — and variety takes care of itself. One soft, one firm, one with an opinion. Add a sheep's or goat's milk cheese and you get aromas that cow's milk alone will not give you. Going up to five means adding another axis: change the country, or put the same cheese at two different ages side by side. That second trick lands surprisingly well, because everyone can taste what time does to a cheese in a single sitting.
Vary texture, milk and intensity and you land here:
Three boards you can copy directly
For when deliberation has gone on long enough. First, guests who do not know cheese: fresh mozzarella, gouda and brie, and nobody will be frightened off. Second, a board built around wine: brie, comté and gorgonzola stretch from mild to strong and will meet white or red. Third, when you want it to look considered: burrata, manchego and roquefort put three different milks on one plate, which is a conversation on its own.
Everything the three boards call for:
Three accompaniments, no more
Something sweet — honey, jam, dried figs. Something crisp — baguette or plain crackers. Something sour — pickles or olives. Each does a distinct job: the sweet absorbs salt, the crisp supplies contrast, and the sour cuts the richness before it accumulates. Nuts suit firm cheeses; grapes and apple suit creamy ones. Push past five accompaniments and the cheese disappears under its own garnish.
The ones that most want something beside them:
Mild first, clockwise
Eat the strongest cheese first and everything after it tastes of nothing. Lay them out clockwise from mild to strong and say so out loud — people enjoy the board far more when they know the order. Small labels help even more. When someone knows what they are eating, they taste more attentively, and they can go and buy the one they liked afterwards.
In the order they should sit — mild to strong:
There are rules for cutting
One principle covers nearly all of it: everyone should get the same ratio of rind to paste. Cheese does not taste the same throughout — the centre is usually softest and the rind end most concentrated. So round cheeses are cut from the centre outward like a cake. Cylinders are simply sliced into discs. Pyramids get quartered top to bottom, then each quarter is laid on its side and sliced. Learn that and no shape will catch you out.
Never cut the point off a wedge
The most famous taboo in cheese etiquette. The tip of a wedge — what was once the centre of the whole wheel — is called the nose, and it is the softest, most aromatic part. Slice it off for yourself and everyone else is left with rind. The correct move is to cut lengthwise along the wedge so every slice carries a little of the nose and a little of the rind. It is an entirely reasonable rule once you see it, and at a French table breaking it will earn you a look.
A knife per cheese
Cut brie with the knife you just used on blue and you transfer the mould. A few days later you will find the brie tasting distinctly of the gorgonzola. Aroma travels the same way. If several knives are impractical, wiping the blade on a dry cloth between cheeses is enough. And when a soft cheese drags and tears, dip the knife in hot water, wipe it dry, then cut — the difference is immediate.
Share a knife between these two and you will taste it:
Temperature is half the job
Cheese served straight from the fridge gives up half its aroma, because the fat is still set and cannot release it. Take it out thirty to sixty minutes ahead. Soft cheeses change the most. In hot weather do not leave it much past an hour, or the fat begins to weep — if guests are late, put it back. Cut only once it has softened: cutting cold makes it crumble, and cutting too early lets the faces dry out.
Boards and arrangement
A wooden board is all you need. Marble looks handsome but stays cold, so the cheese takes forever to come up to temperature — which in high summer can work in your favour. Do not crowd the board; leave enough space between pieces for a hand to reach in comfortably. Very pungent cheeses are worth setting slightly apart in one corner, both to stop the smell migrating and to give cautious guests an easy route around them.
Five common mistakes
One: too many cheeses. Two: serving them cold. Three: more garnish than cheese. Four: one knife for everything. Five: returning leftovers to their original wrapper. That last one catches most people — cheese that has been out and back has a changed surface and does better in fresh paper. And rather than eating the remains plain the next day, grate them into pasta or build a sandwich. Leftovers vanish much more happily that way.