Age is of no importance unless you’re a cheese. ~
For those of you who are struggling to remember Billie Burke, what’s wrong with you? Glinda, the good witch on Wizard of Oz. Remember now? I don’t know why she displayed such disdain for the human aging process, but she had a point about cheese. That’s just one aspect of cheese making I’ll explore. But first, origins.
Where and When Did Cheese Begin to Grow on Us?
I looked to the National Historic Cheesemaking Center for the answer. It doesn’t have the year nailed down, but an educated guess is 8-10,000 years ago. That is probably well-founded, since it’s about the time livestock domestication became a thing, and I can’t imagine a scenario where someone would try to milk a wild beast. Nah. Interestingly enough, the way cheese came about is not a sure thing, either. There are at least three possibilities.
- Milk stored in containers made from animals’ stomachs “separated into curds and whey”. That was a result of exposure to rennet, endemic to cud chewers’ 4th stomachs.
- Another possibility springs from the long ago habit of salting milk for preservation.
- Lastly, some early-era humans added fruit juice to milk, and the acid would have made the milk curdle.
We do know, thanks to documentation, that cheese-making was widespread in the Roman Empire and then into Europe and the Middle East. Cheese arrived on this continent with European settlers.
- The output for a cheese product is often a ratio of 10 parts milk to 1 part cheese. That is, it takes ten pounds of milk to make one pound of cheese, on average.
- Cheese is not naturally deep yellow. Its color is dependent on the color of the milk used, and that depends, in part, on what the cows have consumed. The color of cheddar is achieved by adding annatto. Why change the color?
- Gouda accounts for more than half the world’s cheese consumption. How do they know? Just because it’s purchased doesn’t mean anyone ate it.
- The state of Wisconsin produces more than 2.5 billion pounds of cheese annually. *An update found in WisconsinCheese.com reflects closer to 3.5 B, 25% of the country’s total.
- There are about 2,000 varieties of cheese to choose from.
What's the Process?
Back to Wisconsin Cheese and some very basic information. There are four components:
- Milk,
- A friendly bacteria to convert milk sugar into lactic acid,
- An acid or an enzyme to curdle the milk, and
- Salt for preservation, flavor, and texture.
Note that some cheeses require an additional ingredient, a friendly mold. In the case of brie, that mold creates an edible rind. Also, understand that ingredients are combined according to a specific order and with careful timing. That is, each ingredient is given time to do its job before the next one is added. Once curds develop, they are cut into pieces to release the whey*. The size of the pieces varies based on the type of cheese being produced. Larger pieces produce softer cheeses. Once the whey is drained off, the curds are pressed into molds. *Undeniably Dairy explains this as liquid protein. After it’s pasteurized, it is used to make protein powder and other health foods.
The last step before packaging (if any) is aging, and that, too, depends on the type of cheese. Time spent undisturbed in a controlled environment allows the enzymes and bacteria to continue the transformative process that impacts the flavor. Among the varieties subject to aging are: cheddar, asiago, blue, and parmesan. Aged cheese generally has a more robust flavor. However, some cheese is delicious fresh. For that, I give you mozzarella.
Back to Billie's Comment
With all due respect to a lovely lady, I believe she is wrong. Or maybe she was just being funny. Aging matters desperately to us humans, but not always in a positive way. Some of us view it as a slow fade into the next world. Perhaps it is that in a small way. But like cheese, we become more complex with age. Our “flavor” changes as we know more and experience more. Perhaps we, too, benefit from time alone in a controlled environment, absorbing what we’ve heard and seen. Hopefully, that time can foster more adept–and civil–interactions.
My father was a cheesemaker at a little plant named Kentucky Cardinal Dairy. He often brought home aged rounds of cheddar from the dairy. The whey was much prized by local farmers. They fed it to their hogs. Thanks for bringing back fond memories of my dad.
Cheese is my favorite snack and also high on my Protein diet. Lots if information that i did not know. My cousins i grew up with always had cheese on their table. Once their Dad bought Limberger cheese that smelled terrible. I never tasted it Thanks for telling us about. cheese