Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese

Pretty good tasting cheese for a place off the beaten track. We’ve gone there a number of times and have enjoyed sampling unusual cheeses.
We are never dissatisfied with the taste or quality of the cheese however the packaging and marketing is wanting.
You can only purchase tiny blocks of cheese at a high cost per ounce. It’s way overpriced! There are no options for larger purchases or bulk buying. No way to either purchase more than a small block or get a discount by purchasing quantity.
Until Kenny’s offers a reason to travel so far for cheese, we won’t go out of our way to buy small samples of cheese.

Raw pleasure!
I discovered Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese thanks to the Kentucky agritourism website (
) by accident while looking at details for Habeggar’s Amish Market. Since I was planning on being in the area today anyway, I decided to check out their cheese store.
The store itself is in a small building attached to their cheesemaking facility, nestled between a farmhouse and a barn. The surroundings are lovely, although the exterior could use a bit of tidying, as their were hoses laying around and lots of flies. The interior facilities were immaculate, so it isn’t a problem, but it could scare cityfolk away. The cheese store itself is rather small, considering primarily of a refrigerator and a desk. What makes the trip worthwhile is what is in that fridge.
They present an excellent selection of raw milk cheese. Yes, that’s right, raw milk. They use only vegetable rennet, so no dead baby cows, too. Their selection ranged from softer cheeses like Bleu and Gouda, to somewhat harder Cheddar and Norwood, plus hard cheeses like Asiago. The prices were incredibly reasonable, making a trip to the store worthwhile even if the cheeses were mediocre. I probably paid about half what this amount and quality of cheese would have fetched locally.
But the cheeses aren’t mediocre, they are amazing! Everything had an amazing softness and earthy flavor that is painfully hard to describe. If you’ve only eaten industrial-​scale production cheese, you’ve never eaten cheese. I left with four cheeses: Gouda, smoked Gouda, aged Cheddar, and Norwood.
The two Goudas were so soft and delicate it was shocking, based on the Gouda I’m used to from most grocery stores. They both had a mild floral or fruity note, but those words are imprecise. It was a planty taste that was very welcome, but hard to pin down. The Cheddar was soft and mild. Maybe too soft and mild for a Cheddar, but it paired really well with Woodchuck 802 cider, so I can’t criticize it too much. The real star was the Norwood. It had an amazing warm flavor that I’m struggling to describe.
My only critism, beyond the cleanliness of the exterior, would be that I don’t feel they are experimenting enough with their own cheese varieties. Instead, it appears they are mostly replicating common varieties, except in the realm of Bleu cheeses. I’d really love to see them branch out into some new directions. I’d also love some more really hard, dry cheeses, to counterpoint their excellent softer cheeses. But, I suspect their passion is in softs and Bleus, and I can commend them on following their passion.
Some bad news… because they use raw milk, they cannot sell cheddar cheese curds. Bummer. They are available locally, see Habegger’s Amish Market (not fresh), and the raw milk cheese is worth this inconvenience!
I can totally recommend Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese! I can enthusiastically recommend a trip up to their cheese store, too. The prices are great, the staff friendly and helpful, and you can watch them making the cheese from the store! Plus, the area has more than a few other attractions.
**Online Ordering Update 11/​30/​11**
I recently placed an order for some more Norwood via the Internet. Their online ordering process was quick, accurate, and a great option for those of us who don’t feel like driving to Kentucky or tracking down the cheese locally. Shipping was fast and they packaged it well. The Norwood was again excellent, if a bit softer than last time. Speaking of softness, I was a little disappointed in their Asiago… it is too soft. Actually, it was even a tad bland, but the softness was my real complaint, and my only e complaint about Kenny’s. Their cheese trends softer than I prefer. Still great cheese though!

Blessed are the cheesemakers!
I discovered Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese a few weeks ago on a trip to the East Nashville Farmers’ Market. We bought some of the basil and sun dried tomato cheddar, which I highly recommend crumbling up on pizza or cheesebread, or just eating in chunks, by itself. Little did I know, until perusing their website, that they also supply to some of the best restaurants in town, and I must have eaten it there too. For example: Marche, Margot, Acorn, F. Scott’s. It is also available at Whole Foods and The Turnip Truck.
Their cheese contains only vegetable rennet, so it is suitable for strict vegetarians, and the cows are not treated with any hormones (bovine hormones frighten me) so that’s good to know. They are also pasture fed cows and the cheesemakers rely on this to cultivate the taste of the cheese. They even remark on the website that the batches of cheese will vary in taste according to what the individual cows eat. How cool to have those idiosyncrasies in an ever more mass-​produced world!
Today at the Franklin Farmers’ Market, they had a stall set up with at least ten of their cheeses available for sampling. My favorites were the garlic cheddar and the havarati.
I would love to take the reasonably short trip up to Kentucky to see them making the cheese. If you contact them, you can make arrangements for a tour of their farm and cheesemaking facilities.
You can meet the team from Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese on Wednesdays at the East Nashville Farmers’ Market and on Saturdays at the Franklin Farmers’ Market.