Yesterday, Iggy returned from a long weekend in North Carolina bearing pimento cheese and pound cake.

I had first heard about pimento cheese from Jane and Michael Stern‘s Road Food segment on the Splendid Table (wow, that’s a mouthful).  After hearing about the stuff, I was curious and wondered how to get my hands on what I learned was a one those rare remaining regional (Southern) creations.  So I was excited to finally give it a try.

So what is pimento cheese?  At its most basic, it’s cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, pimentos (yeah, those red flecks from olives),and  salt & pepper, but additional ingredients can pop-up.  The mixture can be either blended to a smooth paste or choppily mixed together.

The mixture Iggy brought back was chipotle pimento cheese,  with a little bit of heat added to basic ingredient outline and was on the coarse side of the mixing style.  Keeping it simple, and classy, we ate this new fair onto some Ritz crackers.  And the Ritz cracker were prefect–their crispy butteriness amplified decadent fat going on in the cheese (we also tried it on some of fancy, and neutral,  little cheese toasts to get a baseline).

Now that I’ve had it I want more.  While part of me is ready to organize a second War of Northern Aggression to get my hands on the stuff, I might just settle for making it at home.  If I can get my hands on pimento and a decent recipe, it seems easy enough.  I just keep wondering what else I could do with this cheese.  Grilled cheese?  Burger toppings?  Deep frying?!  If I pull of any of this, I’ll be sure to post!

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