In this installment
Intro to American cheeses
How is cheese made?
How to eat cheese
Arugula & Prosciutto Pizza Recipe
City Goat Cheese
Cabot Clothbound Cheddar Cheese
Pleasant Ridge Reserve Cheese
Intro to American cheeses
The American farmhouse cheese revival began about 20 years ago and has been getting stronger ever since. At the American Cheese annual meeting this year, the array and quality of cheese available. in this country overwhelmed me. Sure, some are better than others, but what it really comes down to is that there are a lot of dedicated cheesemakers giving it a go. I take my hat off to them because it is truly one of the most challenging professions you could choose. At Zingerman’s, we look for certain qualities in cheese, with the focus being that it’s traditionally made. So this cheese selection is what we believe to be some of the best traditionally made cheese in America.
What is it about American farmhouse cheeses that makes them so great? Passionate cheesemakers and plentiful, lush, green fields. There are three main ingredients that determine the flavor of raw milk: what the animal eats, the breed of animal, and the weather. You could take the same cheesemaker, the same cow and the same cheese recipe, put them in any country around the world-even different states within America-and the cheese they craft would be different! Within Europe, each country has a different combination of wild grass, herbs and flowers in their fields and mountains, and this gives unique flavors to the milk. Here, we have less variety of feed, but what we lack in variety we make up for in the richness and quality of our milk. Every time I think about how cheese is made, it reminds me how lucky we are for all the patient, farmhouse cheesemakers all over the globe. Without them, our senses would be missing out on an awful lot. If you are interested in learning more about American cheesemakers, you can do so by checking out the American Cheese Society’s website at www.cheesesociety.org.
How is cheese made?
While almost everyone knows what finished cheese tastes like, few understand exactly what happens to make liquid milk into solid cheese. In a broad sense, the process of making traditional cheese is little changed from what it was centuries ago. As you’ll see, traditional cheesemakers really have stayed pretty true to many or most of the old techniques. (The use of starter cultures and the switch to lab-produced rennet substitutes are two notable exceptions.) Even industrial makers follow essentially the same path. But in the move to mass production and ever-increased efficiency, they have modified so many parts of the cheesemaking that the end product is often night-and-day different in flavor and texture from that of traditional cheese. Still, for better or for worse, all natural cheeses are made using essentially the following process.
The field
One often-overlooked aspect of cheesemaking is that of animal husbandry (how the animals are cared for and fed). Remember that cheese starts in the field. Long before milk appears, there are a series of decisions made by farmers which have enormous impact on the flavor of the finished cheese. What type of animals will they raise? Which breed will they bring on board? What will they be fed? What kind of milking cycle will they work with? And, how will the milk be transported from the milking parlor to the dairy?
The milk
Milk is the raw material a cheesemaker works with; its quality and character is the most critical component of the flavor of the finished cheese. With farmhouse or small-dairy cheesemaking, milk may arrive both in the evening and in the morning. Many cheese recipes call for skimming the evening milk (yielding cream for the morning table) to be blended in the next day with fresh morning milk. milk Over the last century or so, most modern dairies have made the move to pasteurize their milk. Many of the best cheeses and certainly the most traditional (and quite often, the ones I like most) are still made from milk that is used in its natural, raw and unpasteurized state.
Pasteurized or not, milk is placed into a metal kettle or vat. Vats vary in size from small to enormous. Small cheesemakers might have vats that hold as little as a few hundred gallons of milk. It’s known to cheesemakers as an “open vat” (a rather revealing retronym of a name which derives its meaning only in contrast to its Industrial Age replacement, the “closed vat”). Dutch-style vats are round, often sided with wood. In Switzerland, round copper kettles are used. In Parma, cheesemakers work with cone-shaped copper kettles. Cheddars and other English-style cheeses are generally made in rectangular, stainless steel vats. Commercial makers might consider these tiny tanks as near antiques. Factories nowadays usually use closed vats to seal the milk off from the risk of external contamination. The closest the human hand gets to the milk in this industrial setting is touching the dials on the control panel, and open- ing the valves that allow the milk in or whey out of the vat.
The starter cultures
Generally, the milk is warmed prior to the start of the actual cheesemaking. The warmer temperatures allow the natural bacteria in the milk to produce lactic acid from lactose in the liquid, in turn providing the proper acidity level for the soon-to-be-added rennet to do its work well, allowing the proteins in the milk to coagulate.
Starters are sort of the big unspoken “secret” of the cheese world. It’s not that anyone in the industry hides their use, but rather that few consumers seem to even know they exist; cheesemakers rarely dis- cuss them in-depth except with other cheesemakers (after all, who would ask if no one knows about them?). Yet in the modern world, the selection and management of one’s starter cultures can have a huge impact on the flavor of the finished cheese. To quote Dr. Davis, author of Cheese, “If there is one aspect of cheesemaking which is more important than any other, it is the security afforded by a pure, vigorous starter.” The effectiveness of starters may vary from region to region and breed to breed, so one can’t simply assume that an effective starter in one area will attain equal success elsewhere.
Starters are a relatively recent addition to the cheesemaking process, but today they are used almost universally. Back in the pre-Industrial era, cheesemakers relied-for better and for worse-on the natural bacterial behavior in the milk to make cheese. Rennet was added to coagulate the milk into curd, but beyond that the natural bacteria in the milk worked on their own to create the flavor of the cheese. This caused wide-ranging inconsistencies in the quality of the cheese; some days it worked, others it didn’t, and no one really understood exactly why.
Commercial starter cultures came into use in the 1930’s, around the time that pasteurization of milk was coming into use. Because pasteurization kills off all bacteria in the milk, both desirable and undesirable, it’s important for the cheesemaker to reintroduce enough bacteria to get needed flavor development in the milk. Today, cheesemakers generally purchase starter cultures from labs in powdered form. These bacterial cultures help build the flavor of the finished cheese. Selecting and handling of the starters from dairy company catalogs has become a meaningful component in crafting a quality cheese. Quality-conscious cheesemakers change starters from time to time in their search for better cheese. (For some blue cheeses like Stilton, the mold, penicillium roqueforti, may be added to the milk in powdered form at this stage.)
A handful of traditional cheeses are still made with starters cultured on site by the cheesemakers, usually using leftover whey from the previous day’s cheesemaking. Essentially, the process is akin to that used for making sourdough breads. In fact, in some parts of France, these traditional starters are known as levain, the same term that is used for a sourdough bread starter. Bacteria are left at warm temperatures overnight to develop, then added to the milk the following morning. In this way, the characteristic flavor of the cheese (and the characteristic touch of the maker) is handed down from day to day.
But not everyone uses starters. In the Ops area of the Pyrexes, a visit to one of the area’s traditional affineurs (cheese agers) and champions of the region’s traditional sheep’s milk cheese brought out an unexpectedly strong opposition to the use of starters. The affineur, M. LaBorde, is adamant, almost vitriolic, about how the use of starters is detrimental to traditional cheese. It’s a fast, dependable method, “but it ruins the cheese.” On top of all else, “starters are developed for cow’s milk cheeses, and aren’t really suited to sheep cheese making.” People begin to use starters because financially they can’t afford to lose cheese to inconsistency, but the starters ruin the cheese by rushing the process and hindering the development of flavors. Fortunately, he says, “three quarters of my shepherds don’t use starters.”
Randolph Hodgson, from Neal’s Yard Dairy in London, shared a less extreme, but equally interesting perspective. “It’s like the bread that you make at Zingerman’s. Instead of getting a really quick rise and a higher yield by forcing the dough or the cheese through the process more quickly, traditional producers take a lot longer to make the cheese. They use less starter to get the cheese going. The challenge is that, with a slower recipe, there are more things that can go wrong, so the chances of getting wastage are higher. But the chances of getting a great cheese are much higher as well.”
The rennet
At the same time rennet is also added, causing the milk to curdle, separating what was originally a homogenous liquid into solid curd and liquid whey. (The same stuff that Little Miss Muffet was munching on in the nursery rhyme.) Traditional rennet comes from the lining of the calve’s fourth stomach (or from lamb or goat). Who first discovered that rennet would cause milk to curdle no one knows. Legend has it that some prehistoric man or woman must have been transporting milk in an animal’s stomach on a warm summer day. The heat, the turbulence from walking and the rennet lining acted to separate the milk into curd and whey.
These days, many, many cheeses are made with what is often referred to as “vegetarian rennet.” Vegetarian rennet is a lab-produced rennet substitute which allows for lower cost, easier access, and a cheese that is acceptable to strict vegetarians. Tom Vella, the man who started Vella Cheese earlier in the century, was one of the first in this country to use it. (His son, Ig, still makes some of America’s all-time best cheeses, Dry Jack and authentic Monterey Jack.) Vegetarian rennet has become quite common these days, and real rennet is getting harder and harder to find. In Britain, no one actually makes it any more. Traditional cheesemakers who want real animal rennet have to buy it from France. In some parts of Spain, Portugal and Provence, natural vegetarian rennet has been used for centuries. Someone discovered that a particular small, purple thistle worked the same way as rennet, causing separation of curd and whey. Torta del Casar and Queso de la Serena are two traditional Spanish cheeses made using thistle, as are a number of excellent Portuguese cheeses rarely seen in this country.
The amount of rennet used varies from recipe to recipe and maker to maker. The action of the rennet causes the curd to “set up”: it slowly solidifies, looking like a big block of tofu (ever wonder why they call tofu “bean curd”?). The temperature of the milk is usually maintained somewhere between 70°F and 95°F. Generally, lower temperatures lead to softer curd; higher temperatures to more rubbery curd. Moderate temperatures are usually the most desirable for making the best cheeses; total setup time takes roughly a couple of hours. Once the curd has set up, it is cut or broken in order to release the liquid whey that would otherwise be trapped inside. The cutting is accomplished with what are known as curd knives. The Swiss call them cheese harps. Wires or blades are run the length of a rectangular frame. The entire frame is passed through the curd mass, cutting it into smaller sections. The harder the cheese, the smaller the curd will be cut.
In making the best fresh goat cheeses, the curd is never actually cut, but rather gently broken as it is hand-ladled into small plastic or wooden molds. Commercial versions have long since abandoned this time-consuming technique, but hand-ladling protects the integrity of the curd in these delicate cheeses, and makes for more flavorful, more delicately textured cheese.
During the cutting, the curd may or may not be heated, depending on the type of cheese being made. The more heat is applied, the more whey will be expelled. Hence, recipes for soft cheeses call for lower temperatures, hard cheeses higher ones. Some cheeses with more crumbly textures, like Roquefort, are not heated at this stage at all. Regardless of recipes, when the proper texture is attained, stirring stops and curd is allowed to settle to the bottom of the vat.
Draining the whey
When the right moment arrives (different moments for different cheeses), the whey is drained off from the curd. Many traditional dairy regions make a cheese from the whey, the most famous of which is probably ricotta. By reheating the drained whey, whey solids can be separated and then gathered from the liquid whey. Whey cheeses are often eaten fresh, but can also be aged (ricotta salata from Italy and gjetost from Norway, made from goat’s whey, come to mind). Some cheesemakers will make whey butter from the bits of curd remaining in the liquid whey.
Additionally, whey may be fed to pigs. In Parma, the whey from the area’s famous cheese is a key component of the diet of the pigs that later become Prosciutto di Parma. Sprayed onto fields in limited quantities, whey will also serve as an effective natural fertilizer. Whey is also used in large quantities commercially to make whey powder, which you’ll see on many processed foods. Whey disposal can be a big problem, as it can be a serious pollutant if released into rivers because of its high acid makeup.
Setting the curd
Once the whey has been removed, the new curd is allowed to rest, or “set up.” During this stage, acidity rises and the bacteria multiply, all acting to develop the flavor of the cheese in progress. Although different cheese recipes have their various nuances throughout the making, at this point in the process recipes really diverge.
For example, blue cheeses aren’t cooked at all so that the curd stays loose, allowing in air which will activate the all-important mold growth.
In making Swiss-type cheeses, the curd and whey are heated together to about 120°F. This seriously alters the texture of the curd, creating the smooth, slightly rubbery texture we associate with Swiss. cheese. Later, the curd is removed from the liquid whey, which is left behind to make whey cheese.
To make mozzarella or other pasta filata cheeses like provolone, the maker takes drained curd, then heats it to allow the curd to be kneaded and stretched much like bread dough. The results are known as “pulled curd” cheeses. Mozzarella would be eaten fresh; provolone put up to age for a few months on up to a few years.
Cheddar makers cut the curds into rectangular shapes, then pile the curds into bricks, allowing them to knit together. The natural weight of each block on the next expels additional whey and makes for a more closely textured cheese.
Additionally, some recipes require that the curd be milled to make it even finer and expel even more whey. Cheddars and Cheshire come to mind.
Pressing
The curd may be pressed at this stage. The more the curd is pressed, the more whey will be expelled and the firmer the texture of the finished cheese will be. For example, finely textured cheddars are pressed for up to three days; the more crumbly Cheshire is only pressed for twenty-four hours. At the end of this process, the curd is removed from the vat and put into molds or forms, which will give its characteristic shape. In days past, forms were made of wood. Today, more often than not, forms are made of plastic or stainless steel.
Salting
Somewhere along the line. salt is added. Poor salting can make for a very poor cheese, in spite what might have been excellent milk. Too little salt usually means too much moisture, poor (rapid) ripening and poor flavor development. Too much salt creates a dry, salty, very slow-maturing cheese.
Salt serves three primary purposes in cheesemaking:
- It adds to the flavor of the finished cheese. Without it the curd will most likely be bland.
- It removes additional moisture from the curd.
- It slows, but doesn’t stop, bacterial activity in the cheese.
There are four main methods of adding salt:
- It may be added right to curd, e.g. cheddar.
- It may be done by brining the young cheeses, as is the case with Gruyère, Emmental and Parmigiano-Reggiano.
- Alternatively, the rind may be rubbed with coarse salt. This is done with Comté and Roquefort.
- Washed-rind cheeses are rubbed with brine, which may contain other ingredients in addition to salt.
The latter two techniques help to enhance rind development as well. In all three of the latter scenarios, salt is pulled into the interior of the cheese and moisture is pulled out through the process of osmosis.
Maturing and ripening
Once the cheese has finished draining and/or brining, its final form has basically been determined. From there, the process of maturing begins. For fresh cheeses, this may last a matter of mere days, or even just hours. For long-aged cheeses, it may go on for months or even years. During the maturing process, microbes in the cheese slowly change its texture and flavor. Each cheese has its own “recipe” for maturing, and even within that each affineur will have his or her own style. In general, maturing takes place in conditions of relatively high moisture-usually at least 80 percent, but often up into the high 90s. Maturing temperatures range. from 50°F to 60°F, depending on the cheese. For slow maturing, colder temperatures will help. Soft cheeses have higher moisture levels and hence, more hospitable hosts for bacteria; often they are matured at cooler temperatures to avoid risk of rapid over-ripening.
Proper maturing is, after the role of starters, another of the “secrets” of great cheeses, yet it is often overlooked in this country. A matter of months (or sometimes more) in an affineur’s cave does for fine cheese what a few years in a wine cellar will do for a well-made wine. On the other hand, most industrially made cheese is sealed in plastic early on, then stored at very cold temperatures to prevent mold growth and moisture loss (a.k.a., cost), in which case “maturing” really doesn’t matter. But well-made cheese, properly matured by a master, is something special.
How to eat cheese
To ensure you eat great cheese, the most important thing is to eat your cheese at room temperature. Only bring to room temperature what you will eat in a sitting, as repeated temperature changes can affect the flavor and texture. Like wine, cheese tastes different at different temperatures. If it is very cold, all you will taste is salt and mold, the texture will be tight and firm like cold butter, and the aroma nonexistent.
Once a cheese is at room temperature, it is truly in its element. The aroma alone will tell you a lot about where the cheese is made. As the cheese warms, the texture begins to relax and open. Camembert is a great example of this; when cold it literally shrinks and the inside of the cheese looks dull, but when it is warm the interior will have a glossy sheen and voluptuous creamy texture. The actual taste will have a magnificent spectrum of levels that cold cheese definitely lacks. Why not get the most flavor you can for your money?
Up to a half-pound of cheese will take approximately 30-45 minutes to reach room temperature. Always keep it wrapped in cheese paper while it’s coming to the proper temperature.
My favorite meal is a great piece of cheese, a loaf of crusty bread and a baby spinach salad. By eating cheese in this simple fashion, you are able to experience the flavor of the cheese in its most splendid form. This is also a meal that can be eaten in any season for lunch or dinner.
Fresh cheese works incredibly well mixed with other ingredients. On their own, these ingredients are tantalizing, but when combined, they create a flavor greater than their separate parts. For example: ricotta and honey; mozzarella with salt, pepper, and olive oil; fresh chèvre with fresh herbs; ricotta-filled ravioli; mascarpone with fresh fruit… the list is as endless as your imagination.
One of my favorite ways to eat cheese other than straight up is on pizza. I think because of the small amount of cooking time, the cheese does not separate nor do the flavors disappear with the other ingredients. In fact, it is probably one of the main dishes that cheese can be the focal point. Apart from the rising time for the dough, pizza is quick and simple and creates almost no dishes.
Arugula & Prosciutto Pizza Recipe
1 tablespoon instant dried yeast
1 teaspoon salt
400g (2-2.5 cup) AP four
1 cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoon olive oil
Toppings: simple tomato sauce, 2-4oz grated cheese (like Pleasant Ridge Reserve), 4 thin slices prosciutto or roasted red peppers, two handfuls washed and drained spinach or arugula
Mix yeast and salt with flour. Mix 1 tablespoon olive oil with the water and beat into dry ingredients using a dough hook. Knead until mixture is smooth and elastic, about eight minutes. (This can be done by hand but will need 10-15 minutes of kneading).
Grease bowl with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Transfer dough to bowl, then cover with plastic wrap or a tea towel and allow to rise in a draft-free place until doubled in size (about 1.5 hours).
Knock back dough, then fold gently in four and allow to rise again, covered, for 30-45 minutes.
Heat oven to 450. Divide dough into two, and either with hands or a rolling pin, flatten until thin and 12″ in diameter. Lightly flour baking sheet or pizza tray using semolina flour. Place flattened dough on tray.
Spread a simple tomato sauce on the uncooked pizza dough. Place pizza in oven and bake for 15 minutes. Using an oven mitt, carefully slide pizza off of tray onto oven rack. Bake for 5 more minutes to crisp the base of the crust.
When done, place cooked pizza on board or plate and arrange prosciutto (or, if vegetarian, roasted bell peppers) on top of pizza, then place arugula or baby spinach on prosciutto. Sprinkle grated cheese over greens, top with a little olive oil, and serve.
City Goat Cheese
We’ve spent a lot time and focus on the types of cheeses that are well aged and develop their flavors slowly over time, but there’s another side of the cheese spectrum that is just as enjoyable and perhaps an even more important part of the cheese making operation: fresh cheeses.
For many creameries, the fresh cheeses are the engine that powers the business until the more aged (and expensive) cheeses are ready for market. While you may not see a lot of these cheeses in your grocery store, they are a staple and prominently featured on restaurant menus and catering trays across the country (for many creameries, restaurants account for 50-75% of their annual revenue).
While most of the fresh goat cheeses you do find in the grocery stores are bland, waxy, and gummy, this cheese tastes bright and citrusy and clean because it’s made with super fresh, hand-ladled goat’s milk, It’s great to serve when company shows, but it has far more uses than “eat and serve.” Try the whole round in a saute pan with a can of crushed tomatoes for an easy (and really tasty) pasta sauce.
Cabot Clothbound Cheddar Cheese
Two brothers, Mateo and Andy Kehler and their wives took over Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, Vermont in the summer of 1998. They struggled for a while…trying to find a way of making money while producing a good product and maintaining their land. After a lot of visioning, designing and fundraising they set about to build a vast, seven room underground aging cellar.
It’s all about farm viability. Mateo and Andy work with small local dairy farms who are looking to add value to their milk. They show them how to make cheese, help them design cheese recipes, buy all the their ‘green’ cheese and mature it in the new facility. Once the cheese is tasting good, the brothers market and sell the cheese for the smaller farms. It’s a model that hasn’t been seen before in the U.S. You could liken it to a Neal’s Yard Dairy (in London) type model, except that the cheeses matured at Jasper Hill Farm will maintain more of their own farm’s ‘brand identity’ and not be a product of Jasper Hill Farm. Mateo sent Andy on sabbatical to Neal’s Yard Dairy in London. As the younger brother, Andy has taken this whole cheese venture more or less on Mateo’s word. So after working with cheese folks in England like Joe Schneider at Stichelton, Jamie Montgomery at Montgomery’s Farmhouse Cheddar and others Andy started to get the picture. They now have the capability to insure high quality for not only their cheese, but for the cheeses of the small dairies all around them. Everyone wins.
Now, Cabot Creamery has been making cheddar in America for over ninety years. Nearly all of what they make is standard fare, wrapped in wax. It’s good, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that wax wrapped cheeses don’t evaporate and breathe the same way as those wrapped in cloth. It’s much more difficult to age cheese in cloth, and the cheese loses weight faster, which makes it cost more.
Enter Mateo and Andy. They’re buying wheels of clothbound cheddar from Cabot and aging them in their cheese caves in Vermont.
Why all the fuss? Clothbound is the way cheddar was made originally (and still is at Montgomery’s, in England). To my mind it has a far more compelling flavor. Cheddars aged in cloth have a complexity and length of flavor that’s unmatched by wax. The wheels we get are specially selected for us by the team at Jasper Hill. The rinds are brushed with lard, and they have a beefy, brothy flavor. Aged at least 9 months, it’s a sturdy cheese with a complex, lingering finish you can’t shake. A great cheese for serious snacking or on a world class cheese platter.
Pleasant Ridge Reserve Cheese
Mike Gingrich-the driving force behind Pleasant Ridge-and his partner bought the farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin in 1994. They had a clear vision of what they wanted to do right from the beginning and have been working long and hard to get ready to make their dairy dream a reality. They’ve been doing pretty much everything right, at least by my traditionalist, artisan handbook.
Pleasant Ridge is making a true farmhouse cheese, using only the raw, un-pasteurized milk of their own mixed herd of 140 or so Holsteins, Brown Swiss and Jerseys. Production is very small-about 6000 wheels a year. That’s a far cry from the volume of industrial creameries and the cheeses they crank out by the ton. At Pleasant Ridge they’re up at about twelve hundred feet (low for the Alps, meaningful for the American Midwest) where the grasses are a bit more interesting in the pasture. A more diverse diet for the cows means a more complex flavor for the milk, which makes for more flavorful cheese. The way that they manage their herd means that they get smaller milk yields per animal, but the quality of the milk is proven out by the greatness of the cheese it makes. Also they use a seasonal, open-grazing system, which means all of the milk used to make the Pleasant Ridge Reserve is taken when the cows are out in the open pasture.
The grazing in the open pastures is a big thing. As with the issue of raw vs. pasteurized milk, you can make great and bad cheese with milk from open grazing herds or from those who are eating well- made silage. But there are a number of studies starting to affirm what most traditional cheesemakers and these new American artisans probably already knew anecdotally: the more varied and interesting the animals’ diet, the more flavorful the cheese that’s made from it. So by definition, animals eating out on open grazing land are going to produce more flavorful milk than those getting a pre-fab diet back in the barn. Over 90 percent of the country’s dairy cows are confinement fed.
Since we’ve been working with Mike from the beginning we have the opportunity to select specific days of cheese, tasting from a series of different days of production to pick the most flavorful of the bunch to bring to Ann Arbor. It’s the same type of relationship we have with Neal’s Yard Dairy in London, actually selecting specific wheels from specific dates because we like the flavor best. When we select, we look for wheels with a little more age on them-the ones we call “Reserve”. While you can find Pleasant Ridge sold in many places these days, it’s usually a younger version, aged under a year. Ours is a year and counting, sometimes almost a year and a half, and it’s got much more intense flavor.
Truly artisan products vary from day to day. The variations can be small or swing widely. This is just part of the fun of working with small scale producers. We love Pleasant Ridge wheels that are nutty, sweet, fruity in a citrus way and really rich on the tongue. Wheel after wheel, bite after bite, we keep coming back to Mike Gingrich and his cheese. Hist cheese is certainly one of our favorite American cheeses, period.
Most folks enjoy Pleasant Ridge Reserve as a table cheese served at room temperature with some nice crusty bread, slices of apples or pears or green grapes. Nuts like pecans and walnuts are also great with Pleasant Ridge Reserve. It’s a great melting cheese and can replace mountain cheeses like Gruyère or Comté in recipes like fondue or French onion soup. Chop and serve in salads as well.