We love learning, we love reading, and we love cheese, and in this post, we’re combining these loves to share seven of the best cheese books with you!
As a butcher shop, our first focus is meat, as it should be, but as a Wisconsin butcher shop, we also are deep in the cheese game. If you haven’t checked out our well stocked cheese selection lately, you’re missing out. We curate a lovely selection of award-winning cheeses from Wisconsin and beyond.
There are so many choices of cheeses, and it can be overwhelming to learn what the difference between each type of cheese is. Also, with all of the pictures of beautiful cheese boards on #foodstagram, it can be intimidating to try and make your own at home – who can compete with those beautiful boards?
We’re happy to help provide you with advice and wisdom, but we know sometimes you want to learn yourself. We think these seven books are super resources to help you gain cheese knowledge and make great boards and other cheese creations.
Without further ado, here’s our list of seven of the best cheese books! We’re including links to buy on Amazon (we get a helpful commission if you use them, thank you), but you can also find most of these books at your local public libraries as well!
The Best Cheese Book If You Want to Get Into Cheese: Cheese Sex Death
This provocatively named book is written by Erika Kubick, and is a fun read that will get you up to speed on all of the smells, textures, names, and more that you’ll find in the world of cheese.
If you know absolutely nothing about cheese, this book is perfect to read from cover to cover and learn everything from how cheese is made to the different types of cheese, how to buy and serve cheese, and much more. If you’re already have a bit of cheese knowledge and want to refresh yourself, this is also a great book, and it can be used as a reference as well.
We know the name seems a bit out there, but this book is so much fun and so well written. It’s our number one recommendation for a general book to get you up to being “cheese knowledgable.”
The Best Cheese Book for Easy Cheese Plates: That Cheese Plate Will Change Your Life
Marissa Mullen wrote what may be our favorite book about cheese: this one!
We first found Marissa on Instagram @thatcheeseplate where she uses her “Cheese By Numbers” method to make beautiful cheese plates that are incredibly easy to make. She took that method and turned i
Seriously, if you can paint by number, you can use her cheese by number approach to make an incredible looking board. This book is so easy to use and so beautiful, we just love it. Marissa did a great job taking her Instagram posts and turning them into one of the best cheese books we’ve seen.
We promise this book will take your cheese plate game to entirely new levels, whether you’re a novice, or an experience cheese person. You’ll be able to make plates for any occasion, and trust us, these plates will bring much deliciousness and joy to your life.
If you’d like to see a demonstration of how this method works, check out this video of our friend Josie from Hill Valley Dairy making a board on camera with inspiration from this book!
The Best Cheese Book If You Really Like Boards: Beautiful Boards
We just told you that we think “That Cheese Plate Will Change Your Life” is the book to get if you want to make great cheese plates, and now we’re going to tell you that Beautiful Boards by Maegan Brown is the book to get if you want to make boards that include cheese but lots of other stuff too!
This beautiful book has board ideas for six different occasions:
- Anytime Boards
- Entertaining and Special Occasion Boards
- Seasonal & Holiday Boards
- Breakfast & Brunch Boards
- Meal Boards
- Dessert Boards
Many have cheese, but not all of them, so while this book isn’t specifically a cheese book, it is a beautifully illustrated and well written book to give you all sorts of ideas on how to make beautiful boards.
If you love living the grazing lifestyle, this book is definitely for you!
The Best Cheese Book If You’re a Total Cheese Nerd: The Oxford Companion to Cheese
If you’re not aware, Oxford University is kinda a big deal. They publish a series of companion books that basically function as encyclopedias for the subject on everything from classical civilization to wine. This book is their cheese book and it has in-depth entries on subjects ranging from individual cheese types to cheese making terms and much more.
This is not an easy to read book and probably is only useful to cheese makers, cheese mongers, and the very interested in cheese public, but it is packed with so much cheese knowledge, we had to make sure to include it on this list!
The Best Cheese Book If You Love Grilled Cheese: The Great Grilled Cheese Book
This book really is grate! (Finally a cheese pun, and, no, we’re not sorry, this title set us up perfectly!)
In The Great Grilled Cheese Book, author Eric Greenspan shares how to make the best grilled cheese sandwiches you can imagine. Whether you like the American classic white bread and American Cheese, or you want to go a little more upscale, this book has tips, tricks, and recipes for everything grilled cheese.
Our favorite recipe in this book is “The Tomater” – it’s hard to beat the classic combo of mozzarella and sun-dried tomatoes!
If you’re going to buy a cheese-focused cook book, we definitely recommend this one. There are plenty of recipes you can cook with cheese, but it really is hard to beat the yumminess of a perfectly executed grilled cheese sandwich.
The Best Cheese Book If You Want to Make Cheese at Home: Home Cheese Making
Alright, if you’ve read these books in our list of best cheese books, and decided “you know what, I want to try making my own cheese,” then this is the book for you!
This book by Ricki Carroll is an absolute classic that’s now in its fourth edition and has over 400,000 copies in print. Those numbers make it clear: this is a great book!
Home Cheese Making features everything from easy cheese recipes like ricotta to more complex recipes liked washed goudas as well. Each recipe is explained with step-by-step techniques and beautiful photography. If you want to take a swing at making cheese at home, this book is the perfect place to start.
The Best Cheese Book If You Love History: Cheese and Culture
Our last book is super nerdy, but if you find history and how food, culture, and society all come together to weave a story, Cheese and Culture by Paul Kindstedt is a super entertaining read.
This book puts together a 9000-year story that tells how the heck we figured out how to make cheese and how the challenges of historic food production led to the cheeses we know and love today.
If you’re in love with cheese and history, and not afraid to let it show, you’ll appreciate this book.
Online Cheese Resources from Lake Geneva Country Meats
If you need help getting a cheese board together right now, and don’t have time to purchase and read a book, never fear, we have a few online resources that we’ve put together for you:
- Six Easy Cheese & Wine Pairing Boards – an illustrated blog post with super simple boards to pair wine and cheese together.
- How to Have a Cheese & Wine Party at Home – a step by step guide on how you can how host a successful party focused on cheese and wine.
- How to Make a Charcuterie Board for Date Night – we linked to this video above, but it’s a good video featuring Josie Henningfeld of Hill Valley Dairy walking through a charcuterie board inspired by That Cheese Plate Will Change Your Life.
- How to Make Ricotta Cheese – our friend Ron Henningfeld the cheesemaker at Hill Valley Dairy shows you on video how to make ricotta cheese at home.
We hope you found this post with what we think are 7 of the best cheese books helpful. We’re proud of the selection of cheeses we have available at Lake Geneva Country Meats and are always happy to help you pick out cheese that you’ll enjoy. However, we’re people who love learning, and if you’re like us, we think you’ll like these books!
Do you have a favorite book about cheese that isn’t on this list or another resource that you use to learn more about cheese? If you do, let us know by leaving a comment below. We love discovering new books and resources. Thanks for reading and thanks for sharing.
We’ll see you soon at Lake Geneva Country Meats!
*If you make a purchase using our link, we may receive a commission from Amazon. Price are current as of 6/1/22. Thank you for your support!
