>>Young cheeses are a completely separate category. I was actually missing all the variety while I was in the US - there was only cottage, ricotta and sometimes queso fresco and that was it. Here we have at least a dozen of those in any place; if you drive just 20 minutes away, at least four of these are different. And no skimming, most of them are full fat.
These days I go to US supermarkets and find really good cheeses out of Wisconsin as well as OK cheeses from Europe for the snobs.
>>Once in Germany I tried a slice of cheese which stank of... manure. I almost wanted to return it but they goaded me into eating it. Two days later I didn't want to eat any other cheese.
I haven't found those in the US yet and it really is an acquired taste. Worth noting that In the post War period, smelly French cheeses were a well-known theme in the US presumably as servicemen reported their experiences. There's an old joke in the fridge in Mickey's kitchen in Disneyland: there are two cheese rounds, one labeled "Gouda" and the other "not so gouda."
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
