Page 16 - Unlikely Stories 4

Gorgonzola

Elster Steinman, obsessed by cheese, spent his inheritance on
purchasing an upscale cheese store in a wealthy suburban mall in
Colorado. He disliked running a business, however, and after a
couple of years found a buyer for it. Yet the experience had taught
him that the best cheeses commanded disproportionately high prices:
they had an addictive quality sending well-heeled turophiles back for
more, after ruining their taste for any lesser product. Elster therefore
had a new plan: he would take over a failing cheesemaker’s business
in a depressed part of the country, lock, stock and barrel for a song,
and produce a superior blue cheese. He had tried them all, domestic
and imported, and knew, thanks to his own sophisticated palate and
the purchasing habits of his former clientele, the good from the bad.
Agribusiness had driven out small American dairy farmers, in the
process churning out inferior versions of cheese with traditional
European names for sale nationwide at low cost in supermarkets.
Elster would take advantage of the situation to crack the small but
high-profit boutique fromage market—people who would pay almost
any price for a cheese organoleptically superior to its competitors.
Despite his understanding that crafting a new cheese was not
simple—it required years of development before an uncertain success
would arrive—a shortcut occurred to him. All he had to do was copy
the best, particularly one that was not well known outside of Europe.
He chose Salvezza Cieca, a gorgonzola made only by one small
dairy in an obscure town many miles from Milan. He sent a sample to
a food chemist for analysis. With a list of specific bacteria and mold
strains in hand, he found a dilapidated family-run dairy farm in
Wisconsin formerly making soft cheeses. It was in receivership. He
took it over, its old cheesemaker grateful now to earn minimum
wage. He knew maintaining it would burn cash rapidly, so he and his
hired hand set to work following instructions in a do-it-yourself guide
to cheese fermentation. The turnaround for ripening blue cheeses
was rapid, compared to hard cheese: he had anticipated getting a

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