Manchego Cheese

Spain's most famous cheese is made in the plain of La Mancha; it is a beautiful cheese with a firm, ivory paste, and a hard rind impressed with plaited esparto marks along the sides. The top and bottom retain the elaborate patterns of the cheese press (where the cheese remains for six to seven hours). The taste, depending on the age of the cheese, is salty, slightly to distinctly piquant, and melting on the palate.