And They Ate it Anyway…The Caves and our Cultural Heritage

by
Zoe Brickley

“Behind every cheese there is a pasture of a different green under a different sky: meadows encrusted with salt that the tides of Normandy deposit every evening; meadows perfumed with aromas in the windy sunlight of Provence; there are different herds, with their shelters and their movements across the countryside; there are secret methods handed down over the centuries. [These caves are] a museum… behind every displayed object the presence of the civilization that gave it form and takes form from it.”

-Italo Calvino, Palomar, 1983

Isn’t that fun to think about? Sometimes I feel more like a curator than an inventory manager – caring for fine examples of living history and brokering deals between the buying and selling teams. It’s a good thing that cheese is so fleeting in its prime, or we would be tempted to fill the caves up, and seal them off as a perfect exhibit of these varied stories.

I like to joke that at some point in every cheese’s saga there is a point where something goes wrong – like a mutated gene in the evolution of a species – but either out of necessity or curiosity somebody eats it, despite the apparent flaw, and decides that they’re on to something. In the big picture it begins to look a lot like natural selection; the domestication of a crop whereby a favored plant yields to the forks and turns of humanity’s evolution.

Let’s take the legend of rennet’s discovery for example – that magical enzymatic catalyst, which transforms liquid milk into curds and whey: As the story goes, back in the time when people used dried stomach linings as canteens (perhaps around the year 3000 BCE), an Arab trader thought to bring milk along to nourish and hydrate him on a day’s journey. When he went to drink he noticed that his beverage had quite a different consistency. Scientifically speaking, the rennet enzyme, still active in that dried container (from the tummy of a young calf, yet un-weaned) effectively curdled the milk by re-arranging its proteins into a semi-solid meshwork. The traveler, either parched or hungry, ate the contents and behold – he was pleased!

Rennet is still used today for that crucial step in cheese-making, though synthetic microbial (vegetarian) coagulants are often used in contemporary production. And true vegetable rennets like cardoon thistles and wild artichokes were discovered by people in ancient Portugal and Spain after grazing sheep gorged on the roughage only to give milk that curdled shortly after harvesting. Again, somebody probably had to drink the odd-looking milk to solve that puzzle.

Or how about the monks? They diligently washed developing mold spots from their young cheeses for the sake of purity and cleanliness, only to find an unusual sticky, bright orange surface layer develop. Unbeknownst to the well meaning brethren, they had cultivated a bacterial culture on their cheeses, known today as Brevibacterium Linens. The fact that they used the only sanitary liquids around, booze or boiled salted water, and the regimented way they organized their day further served to consistently select these ripening microbes – which prefer the resulting pH and salt levels. Its plain to see why they kept it up – these ‘washed-rind’ stinky cheeses are famed today for their unctuous puddingy texture and pungent, earthy aromas.

Only nowadays, cheese-makers try to replicate the same set of qualifying conditions that just happened to suit the lifestyle and inclinations of those monastic traditions.

That’s the exciting and tricky thing about modern cheese-making. Sure we’ve perfected the art of refrigeration; we have finely calibrated instruments for measuring temperature, pH, and humidity – as well as others for checking fat, protein and microbe content of milk and cheese. And further, in the places where artisan cheese is being invented these days, basic food needs are pretty well covered. So now, instead of the end (hunger) shaping the means, the means (artistic vision and skilled craftsmanship) must guide a focused end-product.

The challenges facing these cultural visionaries today will be looked at in subsequent posts. But today, let’s marvel at the sheer number of cheeses that, due to the happenstance of climate, tradition, and speciation, have sprung from a relatively small, though rapidly expanding portion of planet earth. It kind of speaks to the diversity of things that humans have been up to since the dawn of time – and how thorough we have been with our innate instruments, which detect ‘food’ and ‘not-food.’

Ooh, by the way – someone’s food radar broke out there in mail-order land: The other day somebody called up about the bland jelly they received in their fed-exed gift box. Armed with her A-1 investigative skills, our kind and patient operator finally deduced that somebody ate the ice pack. Yep – someone partially consumed the thawed gel refrigerant pack and then called up to complain about the taste. It’s true! (It was non-toxic, and our customer had a full recovery.) But that serves as a fine example of a substance that will remain a mere blip on the unfolding timeline of our species’ menu.

So go out there and google your favorite cheeses. Or look them up in the The Cheese Primer to uncover that point at which ‘somebody ate it anyway’. If anything else it will be an ice-breaker at your next schmancy get-together.

Go Big or Go Home Reading Assignment: Cheeses of the World – a big, impressive, looking coffee-table book that’s actually chock full of interesting stuff behind all of our favorite artifacts. And Wikipedia (the online collaborative encyclopedia) tracks a pretty good history of cheese and otherwise.

Cheese You Must Seek Out and Devour: Cato Corner Farm’s Hooligan. Mark Gillman created this cheese with his newfangled equipment in that old-world washed-rind style. The name gives away its rowdy pungent kick – but it doesn’t tell you about the soft side of this rascal – the inside that is, where you’ll find a gooey, fudgey texture and balanced flavor. Don’t worry; with most washers and rapscallions alike their bark is worse than their bite – so don’t let the stink scare you away!

Want to work with Zoe and learn the ways of the Murray’s Cheese caves? Check out our job listings to learn about becoming an affinage intern!

by
Liz Thorpe

I got back from France a few weeks ago. I’d expected Obama chatter, with crowds gathered over inauguration footage. Then again, I’d also expected inside smoking to be legal. The times are a-changin’ in good old France. The folks I was hanging with (admittedly, cheese people) were talking about one thing, and one thing only.

Roquefort with a 300% import tariff. That’s up from the 100% that was imposed in 1999. To put it in the numbers we look at when importing:

Roquefort costs 11 Euros/kilo, or 5.00 Euros/pound.

Then we take a small hammering on our currency, so that 5.90 E becomes $6.50/pound

We have to transport it from southern France to the port of Le Havre, where it’s loaded onto a refrigerated container for a transatlantic boat ride. Harbor fees, customs entry and transport tack on $1.40/pound.

So the Roquefort is now $7.90/pound.

And then there’s the import tariff. At 100%, the cost of the Roquefort doubles to $15.80.

Roquefort is suddenly $25.99-$36.99/pound at the cheese counter, when it could have been $19.99/ pound MAXIUM.

The 300% tariff that goes into effect on March 22 will turn the cost of that very same cheese from $7.90/pound to $31.60/pound, and typical retails in the $60/pound range.

Insane. Ridiculous. And why? Why? Everyone in France was decrying the tariff, the Bush administration, the great injustice dealt to small shepherds whose sheep produce the milk that becomes Roquefort. But no one was talking about why the tariff increase was imposed in the first place, and that’s the most insane thing of all.

This was GWB’s great retaliation for the European Union ban on imports of U.S. beef containing hormones. Not explicitly, of course, but when the EU continued to refuse our feedlot-raised, corn-, hormone- and antibiotic-stuffed beef, we lobbed this taxation their way. I’ve not read very much about the fact that when the entire European Union refuses a food of which the average American consumes 64 pounds per year, perhaps we may want to reconsider our methods. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan is far more articulate and thorough than I can hope to be in his investigation of America’s corn-bloated cows. They are brought to market three times faster than their grass-fed counterparts (the hormones are a big help here), and their relative health is maintained, though they be packed together on concrete, with liberal, daily doses of preventative antibiotics. And when the Europeans have the audacity to Just Say No to our prize steer, we respond by taxing some the oldest and most traditional foodstuffs on our planet: French truffles, foie gras (what the Bushies called “fatty livers of ducks and geese”) and other delicacies suffered a hit as well, but no single product was attacked like Roquefort.

2100 farmers in the economically repressed area of southern France where Roquefort-sur-Soulzon is located will take the blow when we, the third largest export market for Roquefort, dries up overnight. My French colleagues seemed sure that we could expect a remarkable glut of inventive, fatty, spicy and delicious blues coming out of southern France in the coming months, for it is only the name-protected Roquefort to which the tariff applies. I wonder who will make this ancient cheese, the first to receive A.O.C. status, and not call it Roquefort. Anyone who wants to stay in business, I wager.

For our part at Murray’s, we loaded up and hope our stock can last us through the beginning of May. It’s a double bummer because we had just decided to change from the Vieux Berger brand we’ve carried for years to the Delice d’Argental brand we only first tasted in early January. Now is your chance to try them both, because they’ll be gone in weeks, and we will have to make due with the (admittedly superlative) sheep blue Persille de Malzieu , from Roquefort’s neighboring town of Malzieu-ville. Make due that is until new neighboring blues are invented, ready for market far south of $60/pound.

by Zoe Brickley

Ok, so everyone got a golden medallion
for participating – but we did finish in the top third – 4^th place
ain’t bad. 

We feel especially good about our
performance because we climbed 8 places from the last competition.  As
impressive as that sounds, it isn’t that Murray’s got four times better at
merchandising, salesmanship and cheese handling; instead we just got better at
playing the cheese game as the away team. 



Our mistake last time was that we tried to
beat the Europeans at their own game.  We attempted to tone down our sales
style, under-fill our case, and present a classic French cheese to a panel of
French judges. 



Here’s how we redeemed ourselves: 

Setting
the Case:  Frankie and I had an hour and a half to cut 30
cheeses down into retail sized pieces, and arrange them into a small (much
smaller than we remembered) case.  We were judged on our selection and
presentation.  This year we went with our signature robust display of a
solid wall of cheese.  Little brown craft paper signs with cheeky
descriptions made each mysterious wedge more approachable.  We topped it
all off with farmstead honeys, jams, crackers, a fat wedge of Parm and some
foodie mags.  In my opinion, compared with all the tight-laced and sterile
cases – ours looked like it would be the most fun to hang out around. 

Sales:
We proved our playful aesthetic in the next round with the sales test.  A
trio of judges successively visited each case and asked the same questions –
typical cheesemonger FAQs:  ‘We’re having a party for twenty and we need 6
cheeses… how do you serve that sort of thing… any suggestions for pairings or
accoutrements…’  This was my event and I played up our approachability
factor.  ‘Hey guys – welcome to the US – whatcanIdoforya?’   

Even though I thought I had a couple mis-steps (the only red wine I could think of to pair on the fly was Pinot Noir – so lame!) I think we scored at the top for the event because I was able to cut and wrap while talking about what the next choice might be. Also – as the catch, a third judge came running up pretending to be double parked and impatient. I successfully and politely kept her at bay while finishing up with my primary customers – bonus points. I ended up finishing a minute early, while others struggled to get all the cheeses wrapped and the customers out the ‘door’ within the ten minute limit. Perhaps their cute little Euro shops have never seen relentless village tourist traffic like we entertain here on a regular basis. 

Next, Frankie and I had individual events. He tackled a multiple choice quiz (with insane questions like ‘how many gallons of milk went into the production of Ossau Iraty last year?’), while I blind tasted a sampler of cheeses and attempted to name their regions, milk type, and age in number of days. I was not expecting that last part, which was a new twist this year. I was confident about 5 out of 6 – but we never found out the right answers. Frankie rocked the exam and scored at the top. 

Now that our style, brains, charm and
palates were evaluated, it was time for the physical challenges. 

Cutting:

Frankie was charged with tackling the giant British cheddar. A 50lb clothbound wheel needed to be accurately halved using only a double handled wire – one half into quarters, with one cut in thirds and the other into twenty 250g pieces. Frankie had the most beautiful and saleable wedges by far – but there was a trick; in order for the quarter to be cut into 20 equal sized pieces that all fell within the accepted weight range, either a two pound chunk needed to be removed from the quarter first, or the nose needed to be lopped off of each wedge, rendering them ugly and wasteful. Frank is genetically programmed not to waste cheese, so his cuts were on the heavy side, but even with this snafu, we still did pretty well.  

Wrapping:
During the cutting frenzy, I stepped up to the plate and deftly wrapped 20 odd
shaped pieces and bagged them in order of softness within ten minutes – with
three minutes to spare! My holiday gift production marathon really paid
off there. The only head scratcher was a leaky, perforated cup of fresh
cheese.  I ended up neatly gathering the paper over the top and giving it a
decorative twist. I thought it
was a pretty slick move… 

Presentation:
And finally… drumroll as I swallow my heart… the presentation of a cheese for the judges to taste. This is the reason I did not sleep the night before. (while cheddar nerves kept Frankie up) I paced my hotel room trying to keep my schpiel within ten minutes, and as my mother suggested, worked on my enunciation and audience eye contact. I was so nervous, A.) because 20 of the most accomplished cheese dorks in the universe would be hanging on my every word, and B.) I chose to bring an American cheese, based on a French recipe, and I really wanted the judges to like it and for the cheesemaker, a great friend of ours, to be represented in the best possible light. I was even more nervous after I saw the elaborate gastronomic creations other countries had assembled. (Did I miss a memo here, or were we just supposed to present a cheese?) Whatever.    

We were rewarded in the end for sticking to our principles of simplicity, clarity, and farmstead value. The cheese, Upland’s Pleasant Ridge Reserve (which we smuggled in several suitcases, just in case) was met with rave reviews by many of the judges, and by the public who got to taste a wheel after the show. Our pairing with Ommegang’s Rare Vos Ale from upstate NY was said by one judge to be a panel favorite. By skipping the antics we were able to really elaborate on how carefully the cheese was made and how it fit into the greater framework of the American Farmstead Movement. I think we changed some minds about where, as a whole, our American cheese scene is. 

In the end, the score spread from first
place to fourth was within 10 points, and many judges later told us they had
hoped to see us on the podium, so that’s pretty cool.  We were just nosed
out by the French (home team advantage?), Japanese, and British in that order. 
All of whom were cool cats and kindred spirits that we were glad to see
recognized. 

Besides, it’s nice for them to have one
last whiff of glory before we knock it out of the park in 2011, right? 

More CASEUS Coverage:


American Cheesemongers: the New Curds on the Block



Blog from the Front
Lines: Murray’s VP Liz Thorpe Featured on The Feedbag





Watch Footage of the Events on Sirha