For cheesemaker Chris Roelli, last week’s American Cheese Society “Best of Show” ribbon must feel like sweet vindication. Roelli spent years trying to persuade his father to get back in the business after the elder Roelli shuttered his Wisconsin cheese plant in 1991. The family had struggled to make a living producing commodity Cheddar and other low-priced cheese—the type that ends up shredded on a fast-food taco. “When we closed the doors, we were making literally a penny a pound,” Chris told me.
Read moreDeveloping a taste for cheese is easy. Understanding cheese science? Not so much. The chemistry behind cheese is complex and still holds many mysteries for dairy scientists. Recently, I stumbled on a new blog, Cheese Science Toolkit, aimed expressly at people like me—people ill-equipped to wade through technical journals but hungry for more detail than the popular press gives.
Read moreSuch a sad moment for France right now and for those of us who kick-started our culinary careers there. I first learned to appreciate cheese as a college student in Provence—I certainly didn’t grow up with the good stuff—and I had my first encounter with a cheese course in France. At farmers’ markets in Aix-en-Provence, I discovered goat cheeses as quivery as custard and others as hard as rocks. And I began to suspect that I would never exhaust the country’s cheese repertoire.
Read moreNothing makes cheese taste better than seeing the place where it’s made. Alas, most American creameries don’t welcome visitors. Sanitation is the main issue, and few small producers have the staff for tours. But in California’s scenic Anderson Valley, Pennyroyal Farmstead Cheese is charting a different course. In March, the three-year-old Boonville creamery opened a tasting room and began offering tours. From anywhere, it’s worth the journey.
Read moreIt’s hard to imagine how pitiful the American cheese scene would be without immigrants. No Spanish, Dutch, English, Swiss, Italians or Germans? All right then: no cows, goats or sheep. Europeans introduced them all. We would have no Dutch Holstein, English Jersey or Brown Swiss cows. No Spanish La Mancha or Swiss Saanen goats. No Vella Dry Jack or Calabro hand-dipped ricotta (Italian), no Widmer’s Cheddar (Swiss), Cacique Cotija (Mexican) or Marieke Gouda (Dutch). How sad is that?
Read moreHow do you make the world’s best cheese? For one answer, I turned to Marc Druart, master cheesemaker and senior director of R&D for Emmi Roth USA. Roth’s Grand Cru Surchoix scored highest (98.882 points) at this year’s World Championship Cheese Contest, which makes it the World Champion Cheese. I wanted to know how you transform cow’s milk into a wheel that’s just one point shy of perfect.
Read moreGet a hand lens ready. You’re going to want to take a closer look at this astonishing cheese rind. It is quite the wild kingdom, a thick crust of colorful, coexisting microbes. I’m not sure I have ever seen a more riveting surface on a cheese: suede gray, dusty brown, ivory, powdery yellow and rust.
Read moreThe typical grilled cheese sandwich never sees a grill. A panini press, maybe. Or a cast-iron skillet. Or a griddle. But for that flame-kissed taste, you need the grill.
Read moreThe gems from Switzerland just keep on coming. This latest, Vully Rouge, debuted in the U.S. last fall, although it has a 20-year history in Switzerland. Unlike Gruyère, Emmental, Appenzeller and other well-known Swiss cheeses, Vully Rouge is the creation of a single cheesemaker and it has thrived outside the PDO (protected designation of origin) system.
Read moreWhen several merchants I admire recommend the same new creamery, that’s all the word-of-mouth I need. I may be slow to part with my cheese money but I’m not stupid. After hearing about Boxcarr cheeses for the third or fourth time, I bought a Boxcarr cheese. Then I tried another, and another—all of them good. Who are these people?
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