I regularly buy Frico's Beech Wood Smoked Processed Cheese but there's this outer layer, kind of like a skin that I don't understand what it is really.
Label, just in case:
The cheese is, firstly, covered in some sort of protective, dark, plastic (?) layer that needs to be cut before it could be eaten:
(not shown is a clear plastic cover beneath this layer that also needs to be removed)
Then we get to the cheese, itself, however it has this dark… skin(?) which I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with:
It cannot be peeled, it seems to really be just the surface layer of the cheese and I have eaten it without problems, it isn't plastic or something like that, however when I melt the cheese the yellowy innards melt fine, but that skin(?) never melts and rests in the bowl looking like a waste product.
Does anyone know what it actually is and if it should be eaten?
Best Answer
That's called the "rind". It's the outer layer of cheese, hardened by the drying process, and colored brown with food coloring in order to imitate more artisinal smoked cheeses (where it would be actually brown due to smoke). It's perfectly edible, and doesn't generally taste any different from the rest of the cheese food.