unusual places with good cheese

[alacarte]

Steven,

Thanks for answering my earlier question, and sharing your insight with us. I've been reading every word...

The question asked about Sardinian cheese sparked this question for me -- obviously France and Italy are reknowned for their cheeses. What is the most unusual place you have ever found outstanding cheese?

Before someone makes a joke about things found in the back of the roommate's sock drawer let me clarify -- which country/region has great cheese that we'd never suspect? For example, yak cheese in Tibet, or the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, etc....how far have you gone for great cheese?

[master cheesemonger/grocer]

Australia (and Tasmania) and New Zealand? Boring. All dead (pasteurized); except for their butter and cream and clotted cream -- excellent. Tunisia? Derivative, pseudo-French stuff. I have yet to find anything worthy of report in far-flung locales, primitive locales, extra-European locales.

I am wild about the cheeses of Sardinia and Corsica, but we all know that. Greece and Macedonia have some primitive sheep cheeses; neolithic cheeses. Sicily is doing wonderful things now that they weren't marketing outside the sub-regions twenty years ago (ricotta, Ragusano). Campania is making noise with the astonishing burrata. Watch Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. If they ever get out of the 19th C we may learn that their cheese heritage has been a great deprivation to those of us who care (Russian bastards!). Latvia is an amazing place for food (bread, cranberry candies).

We have access to an embarrassment of cheeses. I do not feel compelled to find more in obscure countries. I just don't.