News From The Cheese Caves

A friend told me about a recent cheese shop visit when the cheesemonger told her that the crystals in an aged Parmigiano Reggiano were salt. Alors! Not that there is no salt in Parm but this does not make the cheese sound especially desirable, and more importantly, this is inaccurate information. Had the retailer provided the correct information (that those are tyrosine amino acid crystals) the cheese would have been far more attractive to the would-be buyer.

I like to drop in unannounced at cheese shops from time to time, just to hear what cheese people are saying. Actually, it is a little disturbing, especially when these people try to give recommendations regarding nutritive values and the safety of cheese. I’m sure they mean well. They are often excited to pontificate about their cheese knowledge. Fortunately, cheese tends to bring out the humility in people, especially once you’ve been in the industry long enough to discover how amazingly complex this food group is.

Yet I am concerned. Cheese has suffered quite enough: through mishandling, sloppy packaging, temperature abuses, too little or too much ventilation, abandonment for weeks in hostile storage conditions, left exposed to hungry pests, left on one side for weeks on end to the point that they develop “soggy bottom,” or outright physical abuse.

I welcome the enthusiasm but get the information correct, please. You never know when a customer may be better informed about a product than you are. There are so many facets to cheese that it is impossible to have a full knowledge of the entire lactic universe. We would expect that one would want to know how to convey accurate information. Or if the answer is unknown, that one would admit it, maybe come back to the topic later in the day and study up.

Then there are the “perfect-pairing” suggestions. There are some reliable principles of pairing cheeses with wines, or other beverages. These food and beverage pairing principles can be applied but they should not be stated as dogma. Classic pairings exist, such as Roquefort and Sauternes. On the “pairing” point, it is best to recognize that this is a little subjective.

We expect that the Certified Cheese Professional™ will help the entire industry. American and European cheesemakers are embracing the endeavor, and are applauding our efforts. Some of us are Cheese Educators, so how do we earn that title? As Chairman of the American Cheese Society’s Certified Cheese Professional Committee, I may not be able to take the exam ever. That’s okay though: I believe I may be “grandfathered” in.

I want as many applicants as possible to pass the next exam July 31st at the ACS conference in Madison, which is why in our Master Series we teach everything we believe one should need to know to be a good cheesemonger, whether or not the topics are on the exam itself. It’s the right thing to do.

Again, we need more Certified Cheese Professionals!

- Max McCalman

The fun and friendly crew who signed up for Artisanal’s fondue class last Friday night were rewarded with some ridiculously good eats.

The stage was set to make and consume four different fondues, topped off by a chocolate fondue for dessert.

The popular vote went to the French team of fondue makers who prepared their decadent creation using a pound of Raclette and a pound of Comté. A little taste of heaven on a piece of crusty bread.

An extremely close second place ribbon was awarded to the Swiss – the country credited with the creation of fondue in the 18th century. The cheese blend in this fondue was Appenzeller and Gruyère – a time-honored classic.

America made its debut in the fondue pot with a blend of Fortsonia, a firm, nutty, sweet and dense cheese that was inspired by classic Alpine style cheeses like Gruyère and Comté and Uplands Pleasant Ridge – rock star of the American Artisanal cheese scene, garnering three ”Best in Show” awards at the American Cheese Society conference…kinda like the Oscars, but with cheese.

This fondue was the quite delicious and I hear that Fortsonia was named best cheese in the South by a local magazine. Last year Fortsonia also took third place in the hard cheese category from the American Cheese Society and earned a gold medal from the World Jersey Cheese Awards in the United Kingdom.

Rounding out our melted cheese contest were the Italians. The two cheeses blended together for a palate-pleasing experience. They were the Toma Maccagno (a washed-rind tomme) and Toma Piemontese (one of the oldest styles of cheeses made in Italy). As the team began grating these aromatic wedges they were surprised at how silky and mild the blend tasted when the fondue was done. It was amazingly good.

If you want to try your hand at some fondue olympics…please sign up for the next round of play.  Your taste buds and your tummy will be very happy.

Erin Hedley
Fromagère, APC

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So what does that bring to mind?

Hopefully you are in the cheese cognoscenti – those that recognize that the excitement occurring in the cheese world today is happening right here within our shores. Few American-made cheeses inspired us just over a decade ago but today it is eye-popping, or rather, tastebuds-thrilling.

In addition to some of our long-time favorite American cheeses such as Uplands Pleasant Ridge, Tarentaise, Grayson, Rogue River Blue and Wabash Cannonball, we have some that are aging in our caves right now that will be made available in the coming weeks. You will find many outstanding cheeses from across the country, a full range from the younger milder types like Grassias to the boldest of blues, like the Smokey Oregon Blue.

We will continue to bring in and ripen many of the best of Europe but with the way things are going on this side of the pond, we will have to add more space. In the past we offered classes here featuring American Artisan cheeses but there was surprisingly little interest, or maybe not that surprising considering their general reputation. Many fine cheeses have been crafted here for decades, now there are hundreds, with more coming along every month.

Makes you proud, don’t it? Drop us a line and let us know if you might reconsider attending a class on American cheeses only. In the meantime you will find many of them making appearances in our classes such as our Cheese and Wine 101 class, the 201, Matchmaking, Microbrews, Scotch, and Best-in-Show among others. Likely our entire American line of cheeses will make an appearance in our Master Series.

Watch for many more domestics coming into their primes over the next few weeks.

Max McCalman

Take two pieces of cheese and call me in the morning.

Cheese has components that help alleviate stress. The casein in cheese is a precursor to opioid peptides, which along with helping to moderate our appetites (think: weight loss) can also ameliorate stress and pain. The amino acid Tyrosine (a lot of it in cheese, like those little crystals in your aged Gouda or Gruyère) is a precursor to norepinephrine, known as the stress hormone. This building block amino acid is found in high concentration in cheese. When it was discovered in the nineteenth century it got its name; the root word for Tyrosine is “tyros,” a Greek word for “cheese.”

Cheese offers the full complement of amino acids. For a food that seems to be quite simple, cheese actually offers near-complete nutrition. The “simplicity” of cheese is part of its success as a near-perfect food. Cheese undergoes proteolysis, breaking the complex proteins into their constituent peptides and amino acids, making it easier for our digestive systems to absorb those elemental nutrients and then to use those to build all the protein chains of which we are composed.

Another amino acid derived from cheese is Taurine. It is used to treat anxiety, hyperactivity and poor brain function. I would become stressed if I did not get some cheese-sourced Taurine in my belly.

Cheese also contains the stress reducer Tryptophan, a precursor to serotonin which is responsible for normal sleep. Tryptophan also combats depression, stabilizes moods, relieves migraine headaches, and helps control hyperactivity in children – a stress producing activity in itself.

There are many things cheese has going for it, beyond what it can do to reduce stress. During these holiday times when we can become a little gluttonous, isn’t it good to know that cheese can help metabolize the foods we consume, and that it can help reduce weight? Some studies have found that cheese can help reduce our waist lines!

I suppose some people may become a little stressed just thinking about cheese. They may love it. Those addictive opioid peptides may make them feel a little guilty about consuming this much-maligned food, as though eating it is an indulgence! Cheese should be considered for its marvelous life-sustaining and life-enhancing qualities.

Max McCalman

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We received a call this morning from a customer who said that the Azeitão we sent her was bad. Of course the customer is always right; however, I have strong doubts that there was anything wrong with the cheese. The last two shipments we received were some of the loveliest specimens I have ever tasted. I was reminded of why I chose to write an ode to Azeitão in Mastering Cheese; the cheese can be incredibly delicious!

The thistle renneted sheep milk cheeses may not be for everyone. Many people simply can’t stomach them. This leaves more for the rest of us. The Queijo Azeitão has a very agreeable texture: buttery, velvety, smooth, and unctuous. The aroma/flavor is full but not funky. Some people detect a fishy flavor; I prefer to call it maritime. The cheese is gently salted and it exhibits a little bitter note, though its overall pH is well below 7. These type vegetarian rennet cheeses undergo extensive proteolysis which releases extra aroma on top of that provided by their generous helping of short chain fatty acids. Along with maritime flavors you may detect olive oil, grass and vegetal aromas, as well as an underlying meatiness.

At other times of the year the Azeitão may not be quite so lovely; right now they are at peak. No surprise there – these cheeses were produced in the fall when the vegetation in this part of warm southern Portugal is relatively full. The animals eat well in the fall, hence the full-flavored and especially nutritious Azeitão at this time.

Like most sheep milk cheeses, the Azeitão marries well with many wines, and exceptionally well with some, such as Chenin Blanc, Albariño, Sangiovese, Baco Noir, Tempranillo, Syrah, Ports, and some Pinot Noirs. I recommend that you be careful with throwing any old wine its way though, a full flavored cheese such as Azeitão can thrash certain elegant wines; white Burgundies and Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant Bordeaux are two examples you might reserve for a different cheese selection. Similarly, neither of these wine types enhances the Azeitão.

That could have been the problem with her Azeitão. She may have tasted it with an inappropriate wine partner, or it may have had something to do with other residual flavors from other foods and beverages, or the cheese may have been tasted outside of its recommended progression in a grouping of cheeses. We place the Azeitão on the medium quadrant of the CheeseClock™, as big as it may seem. It is less persistent than most cheeses but a better successor to others. If a poor wine partner was not the problem it may have been when it was tasted among other cheeses.

We would love to keep these several Azeitãos to ourselves but that wouldn’t be nice.

Max McCalman

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Merlot (pronounced mehr-LOT, as in “like-it-a-lot”) was featured at our “Meet the Winemakers” session recently. Special guest producers included Roman Roth of Wölffer Estate, Gilles Martin – winemaker for McCall Wines & Sherwood House, Russel Hearn of T’Jara, and John Cleo of Clovis Point. Each winemaker (German, French, Australian and American) had their own styles of wine making. Along with those four wineries we also tasted Raphael’s 2005 First Label Merlot, and the group effort 2010 Merliance.

When I made the cheese selections for this class I looked at my database for Merlot-friendly cheeses. I also referenced Mastering Cheese, in which I recommended sheep and cow cheeses, pressed and/or cooked, and blues usually. Based on these recommendations I chose Chaource (cow, but not pressed or cooked, but with noting Merlot successes in the database), Roncal, Seven Sisters, Gruyère (Beeler’s of course), Roomano, and Shaker Blue. Of the seven wines we sampled, two were 100% Merlot. Looking at those two, the cheese pairing scores were not quite identical but close. The McCall 2008 Reserve has a little better synergy with the Shaker Blue than the 2010 Merliance. Apparently the extra aging helped tackle the blue.

The other five wines were blended with as little as 3% Cabernet Sauvignon in the Wölffer Estate 2010 Lambardo, to as much as 35% Cabernet Sauvignon and 25% Petit Verdot in the Sherwood House 2007 Sherwood Manor. The T’Jara Vineyards 2007 Merlot had the biggest mash-up of varietals: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot, and the grape Australians can’t seem to resist – Syrah. And with all that was going on in the T’Jara, it was the most successful wine partner for all the cheeses, delicious, though not my favorite wine in the group.

It would have been more instructive had a I selected at least one cheese type which can clash with Merlot. Instead, I chose cheeses that “like” Merlot. As it turned out, there were several cheeses in the lineup that liked the Merlots a lot. The standout successes were with the Roncal, the Seven Sisters, the Beeler Gruyère and the Roomano. The Chaource fared well with all of seven of the wines and the Shaker Blue came up just a little short with three of the wines, though it was delicious on its own. And interesting to note: the Shaker Blue was the one cheese produced in the same state as the wines. I did not choose any goat cheeses because I had recorded very few successes with Merlot.

You might try some of these cheeses with your favorite Merlot. You will likely enjoy the experience a lot.

Max McCalman

I recently put together a wine and cheese club selection for a local wine retailer in New Canaan, Connecticut. The concept is to offer clients a nice bottle of wine that is perfectly paired with an artisan cheese, a condiment and some sort of cracker, crostini, or cookie.

One of my favorite party cheeses is Vermont Butter and Cheese Company’s “Cremont” which is a delicate, creamy, goat and cow’s milk creation that, if one were not practicing the art of moderation one could easily devour this 6- ounce pillow of decadence in one sitting.

I paired this great little cheese with Mitica’s Spanish Fig Jam and some Austrailian crispbread crackers. The wine selection was a Bodegas Valserrano Rioja Blanco “En Barrica” 2009. This lovely wine hints of floral and sweet fruits, pear, grapefruit peel, with soft toasty and sweet spices such as vanilla.

The very next day I received several “thumbs up” accolades in my email in-box from the satisfied people who tried the selections. Seems they loved everything. So if you’re looking for a sure-fire culinary sampling to serve your family, friends and guests, this medley is sure to please.

Erin Hedley, Fromagere and Instructor for Artisanal Premium Cheese

A recent “GoodEats” online article offers advice on foods that can help defend us from the cooler season’s coughs, colds and the flu. I had to check to make sure that dairy was included in the short list. The entire onion family is recommended for its antioxidant called allicin, reported to fight bacterial, viral, and parasitic infections.

The article also recommends mushrooms for the elevated levels of zinc – which stimulates the production of infection-fighting white blood cells. Zinc also happens to be found in milk, especially cow milk that has not been subjected to excessive heat treatment.

Wait! Why would pasteurization reduce the zinc levels in milk? It is because zinc is chelated (attached) to proteins, proteins that can be denatured by heat. Fortunately we carry many cow milk cheeses uncompromised by pasteurization.

The incredible edible egg is also recommended for its choline (in the B vitamin group, and also found in cheese), the anti-oxidant selenium (a varying though small amount in different cheeses too), and zinc. (See above.)

The beta carotene in orange colored vegetables is recommended for its ability to keep bacteria out of the blood stream. Goat milk, as well as the cheeses produced from goat milk, is another source of beta carotene. Sheep milk generally supplies a little less, depending the breed and the fodder, ditto for the cows.

Finally, the article recommends grapefruit, not only for the vitamin C content (sorry, virtually zero in cheese) and for the bioflavonoids (also lacking in cheese). All in all however, the cheese is looking like an excellent source for most of the other defenses against those cold weather challenges. A recipe in the article that follows the mention of eggs includes cheese as an ingredient. But does cheese get any credit?

Another nutrient the article could have mentioned is one that I have mentioned here before – lauric acid – which has been shown to be an effective bacteria killer and a virus killer, two causes for colds and flu. Coconut is a great source for lauric acid, dairy too.

There are combinations of nutrients in foods which can help keep us healthy, of course. A generous amount and variety of them are offered in cheese. If my job did not demand it I probably would not eat quite as much cheese as I do. I can’t recall when I last had a cold or the flu. There could be something about cheese (or many things) that is helping. Fortunately, I just love the stuff.

Max McCalman

I usually recommend that you buy less cheese but that you make sure to buy it often. The ideal is to have cheese on hand for today or possibly a few days’ consumption. This is certainly true for the softer, wetter cheeses. Those types reach their peaks and then fade quickly. Hurricane Sandy reminds me that it is better to be prepared for emergencies, so that you have a good amount to sustain you, should you not be able to count on your regular cheese procurement channels.

We were fortunate here at the Artisanal Cheese Center. We did not lose power on our block so our cheese caves kept working just fine. Our cheeses came through the brunt of Sandy in fine form, though we were unable to ship them out for a couple of days.

Hopefully you were well stocked with cheese over the past several days. If you did happen to lose power in your neighborhood, or worse, if you are still without power, the firm cheeses can survive without refrigeration, almost indefinitely. Likely you have a cooler area in your residence where your cheeses can be kept until the power comes back on. Even the softer cheeses can hold up above 38° F for a few days. For centuries many Old World styles of cheeses never saw temperatures that low anyway. Refrigeration simply slows down ripening to extend the life of the cheese.

The advantages to stocking up on cheese are numerous. It does not have to be cooked. Cheese has an excellent track record for food safety and it supplies near-complete nutrition. It does not require refrigeration so long as it is protected from pests, drafts, too much sunlight and excessively dry environments.

So I suppose I have to take my words back and advise you to stock up on the harder cheeses to be better prepared for life’s unwanted surprises.

- Max McCalman

I had not tasted one of these rare beauties in several moons. Castelmagno is one of the rarest cheeses produced in Italy. It is a good thing that the cheese has been awarded DOP status. This should help sustain it, and for what little is produced, that it will continue to be unique and inimitable.

When I spotted these new arrivals in our caves they appeared to be completely infested with cheese mites. They looked a little haggard and unkempt; the mites seemed to have made quite a feast for themselves. I suppose one could say that a mite knows a good cheese when it sees it.

I took a picture of the wounded soldier and sent it back to our supplier asking that, sadly, it be returned. The mites had eaten their way almost a centimeter in some parts of the rind. Within a couple of hours I received a call from our friends urging me to cut into it and try it. I am so glad that I did! The paste of the cheese was absolutely beautiful: creamy-colored, moist and crumbly, a little splotch of blue here and there. The taste was piquant, savory, just a little salty, a little tart, and resplendent. The flavors are still lingering across my taste buds.

The first time you taste a Castelmagno it may be a little more than you expected, or something a little unusual. The goal of these cheesemakers is to preserve the rich alpine milk – milk from some very lucky cows grazing on the upper elevations of Italy’s Piemonte. The blue gradually finds it way into the paste, uninvited, not added. The blue (just like the mites) knows a good cheese when it sees it. The blue does not overwhelm the flavor; it only adds a little accent.

As for the mites, they add little to the flavor of the paste, very little if anything. Whereas the taste of the mites themselves (perfectly safe to eat, though an acquired taste) is a little like curry. Some aficionados rather enjoy a few mites with their cheeses. Having seen cheese mites under an electron microscope, I would rather skip them entirely.

I have found mites on many other magnificent cheeses, some of the finest in the world, such as Vacherin Fribourgeois. (Only the best Vacherins Fribourgeois appeal to the mites!) I remember now that this is not necessarily a bad thing—a heavy coating of mites on the surface of a cheese. Had we returned those Castelmagni I know they would have perished. Instead we will have a few days worth of these very rare and fine cheeses available, only for the Castelmagno cognoscenti.

Max McCalman