App of the Week: Fromage

If you’re a cheese lover, like the Accidental Locavore, you probably have lists going of all the cheeses you’ve tasted. But where are those lists when you’re standing in front of a cheese counter drooling? Fromage is supposed to keep all those notes easily available. Since I’d been tasting the “new masterpiece” for Point Reyes, this seemed like the ideal time to put Fromage through its paces. While it does list Point Reyes, when compared to lists I’d started on my smartphone, it came up short. First failure, my all-time favorite, Delice de Bourgogne, not listed. A fairly common, Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, also not listed. You do have the option to add these with photos, but considering how many cheeses I had on my list that were missing from Fromage, this was starting to look like a chore.

When you do find cheeses listed, you can rate them from one to five stars, add them to a list of favorites, sort by type of milk, or firmness of cheese, or region. Unfortunately, some of these lists are long and scrolling through them can be a chore. Some of the entries are pretty pedestrian, for example, multiple entries for Laughing Cow…

There’s a share feature so you can email your choices to friends and if you add a cheese to the list, the share sends the creators an email requesting inclusion. This isn’t a terrible app, just a bit disappointing, or maybe my tastes in cheese are too esoteric.