Page 5 - EI Catalog 2018-2019 Revised flipbook 7-18-18

A Prelude to Cheese Culture
Mankind has been making and cultivating cheese for thousands of years. Through careful refinement and cultivation, often through special aging – or as the French would say, affinage – many styles, textures, flavors and aromas have been developed. It must be remembered that natural cheese began before electricity and refrigeration as an innovation to preservation. Milk was saved and flavorful, nutritious food was provided – food that was sturdy enough to journey long distance for trade and nutrient rich enough
to serve as travel rations and sustenance
for long winters. Earthen cellars and
stony caves, with high moisture and cooler temperatures, became the warehouses of numerous delightful cheeses. With the dawn of industrialization, electricity and modern practices, cheese became mass produced, often losing distinction and character. Much like the craft beer movement, cheese has come into its renaissance, a great resurgence across our country. Cheese is a traditional food, its care and craft developed long ago, and it has proven safe and wonderful, making it one of the great food creations in history.
Cheese can be made from whole
or skimmed milk, depending on the
style and texture one wants to attain.
Traditionally some fat (cream) could
be skimmed off to make butter, but
others might have fat added in, making
them double or even decadent triple
creams. The milk may stem from one
specific breed of one particular animal,
or milks can be mixed – across breeds and types of animals – resulting in completely different flavor profiles, each having its own merit.
In some countries, such as Spain, sheep
and goat’s milk cheeses can be as common as, or perhaps even more common than,
cow’s milk cheese! Milk can be pasteurized
or unpasteurized (raw); though law requires unpasteurized cheeses be aged a minimum
of sixty days, and even then, soft versions
are never allowed into the United States. Unpasteurized cheeses are most often made on small farms where the milk need not travel and the inherent greatness of the milk is neither damaged nor altered by heat treatment.
Many cheeses can be enhanced with additive flavors, but many traditional connoisseurs and chefs frown upon this practice, as they see it as covering up
the inherent flavor of the cheese. That
being said, there are numerous and long standing practices to enhance cheese:
herb coated Fleur de Maquis from
Corsica, wine soaked Queso Murcia al
Vino from Spain, typical Pecorino with peppercorns or truffle from Italy, Gouda
with nettle or Leyden with its potent
cumin seeds from the Netherlands. 03
CHEESE • CHEESE