Foodie Flashcard!

There are two types of people in the world: people who love cheese, and liars. Born and raised in the state of Wisconsin, I’m a certified cheesehead through and through. I always thought I knew a thing or two about cheese, but … No Whey! This week in Pollenzo we had our first seminar in Food Technology and Tasting and I quickly realized my hubris. After first learning all about the sense of smell and how it works (or doesn’t work in some cases,) we launched into a two-day cheese extravaganza …. everything you ever wanted to know about cheese, from why and how cheese is made, what accounts for a particular cheeses flavor, what types of milk are used in cheese making, to what gives different cheeses their distinctive color and texture, and how to distinguish one cheese from another. Then there was the tasting – 19 different cheeses. That’s a lot of cheese, even for me.

But don’t feel bleu!  With all this new cheesy knowledge under my ever-expanding belt, I felt it time to cut the cheddar and deliver a new word for the day. Hold onto your hats, this one’s a cracker:

Caseophile.

A caseophile is a lover or connoisseur of cheese, especially one with a keen interest in its production and consumption.     Aka ‘curd nerd.’

Now, all you need are a few Cheese Facts to make you the delight of any cocktail party conversation:

*did you know that only cows produce natural yellow cheese? It’s due to the beta carotene in the grass. Beta carotene does not pass into the milk of goats and sheep so their cheese is creamy white to pure white. Buffalo milk produces the whitest cheese. (Whey.)

*there are over 1000 types of cheese! Cows need to be milked twice a day and cheese was originally invented as a way to preserve the milk.

*cheese making involves 4 steps: coagulation/clotting, reduction of water content, salting, and ripening. The amount of time ripening determines the hardness of the cheese. Smaller wheels ripen faster.

*the holes in certain types of cheese are formed by a bacteria that is added to the milk during the fermentation process. Some cheeses are are punctured with tiny holes and bacteria get in there and create a mold inside (bleu cheeses.) Other cheeses are sprayed with bacteria in the ripening phase to create an external white mold (camembert, brie.)

*artisan mountain cheeses are produced entirely in the mountains. (I know … shocking.) The most popular of these is probably fontina, which is the only cheese in Italy where the government regulates the type of indigenous breed of cow that the milk must come from. (Valdosanto.)

*Mountain cheeses are very flavorful and aromatic due to the diet of the animals. We tasted a whole plate of mountain cheese ranging in taste from slightly musky and vegetal to downright stale and fecal; from lusciously creamy to dry, crumbly, almost gritty. But these artisan cheeses were definitely my favorite.

Is all this cheese information starting to grate? I will leave you with this … So gouda!

 

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