Months ago international cheese consultant Ivan Larcher surprised me with this response when I asked what trends he was seeing in the cheese industry: “What I’ve been seeing is that everybody tends to use the same starter cultures. In the United States, Quebec, England, Sweden, or even Northern Africa, they’re using the same starters, and the main consequence is that the final products tend to lose their diversity.” Hearing this, I feared that cheese cultures—the microbes added to...
Cheese IQ
The Culture Cheese Style Guide
The world of cheese is vast and diverse. Generally that's something to celebrate, but it also makes for a little head scratching as we try to learn about the hundreds of cheeses available to us...
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This past year, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) put up a series of billboards in Albany, New York, displaying a man’s belly bulging over his belt, captioned “Your Abs on Cheese,” and another of a woman’s large dimpled legs, captioned “Your Thighs on Cheese.” Their point? “Cheese is loaded with fat, cholesterol, sodium, and calories,” states...
Winter 2012
The rind of a cheese can tell you a lot. In the case of Parmigiano Reggiano, it can tell you its life story.
Or at least most of it: the wheels that survived the double whammy of two major earthquakes earlier this year will not bear any markings of their travails.
All told, the Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano estimates the damages to its producers from the quakes to be upward of $185 million....
Fall 2012
Coming Soon!
A complete guide to choosing the right cheese for your fondue!
Web Exclusive
You know what a cheesemonger is, but are you a true turophile (lover of cheese)? Use this handy vocabulary list to impress your friends like the cynosure (celebrity, big cheese) you are.
Alpage: A French term for the alpine fields where animals graze during the summer months, which enhances the flavor and complexity of their milk and the...
Summer 2012
What do French Mimolette, British Red Leicester, and certain Wisconsin cheddars have in common? Besides being cheese, that is.
Different as they are, all these cheeses have a deep orange hue. And all share the same coloring agent: annatto, a tropical plant whose seeds have been used to color everything from Aztec paintings to cosmetics and food.
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Spring 2012
A microbiologist explains how to keep cheese safe from bad bacteria
Catherine Donnelly is a research professor in microbiology, associate director of the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese (VIAC), and an expert on the subject of Listeria monocytogenes—a microorganism that has recently been in the news as the cause of several creamery closings. Culture recently caught up with Professor Donnelly to ask her about the nature of this pathogen as it relates to cheese.
Fall 2011
Cheese flavor and texture begins with choosing the right bacterial culture
To some extent you might think of cheesemaking as farming conducted at a microbial level. The character of a cheese is mostly derived from the nature of its microbial populations, so cheesemakers, like farmers, carefully nurture their desired crops of bacteria, yeasts, and molds. Bright orange washed-rind molds or striking blue veins easily get our attention, but most often it is actually the...
Summer 2011
ed. note: Formaticum supplied us with professional-quality cheese paper for this article. Credit was accidentally omitted from the original article: you can find their products and more cheesewrapping advice at formaticum.com.
Call me a sad cheese geek (I will readily confess), but wrapping cheese carefully has always given me particular satisfaction. Perhaps it’s my own small “homage”...
Winter 2010
Mighty mechanical helpers have become part of the artisn cheese movement.
Nothing seems more antithetical to the world of artisan cheese than robots. They might build cars and microchips, but cheese is the product of a bucolic natural world, all happy dairy herds and rugged farmers. There is something mystical about turning milk into cheese, harnessing bacteria, molds, and enzymes invisible to the naked eye. Indeed, in my imagination cheesemakers are the Jedis of the gastronomic...
Winter 2010
