On Food and Cooking

the original food, but not beyond the point of edibility. In cheese, animal fats and proteins are brok ...

Surrealist poet Leon-Paul Fargue is said to have honored Camembert cheese with the title les pieds de D ...

Blue Molds Penicillium roqueforti, as its name suggests, is what gives sheep’s milk Roquefort c ...

aroma. White Molds In addition to the blue penicillia, there are the white ones, all strains ...

In the last stage, ripening, a host of enzymes work together to create the unique texture and flavor of ...

different kinds of curd structures — acid a fine, fragile gel, rennet a coarse but robust, rubb ...

How Some Familiar Cheeses Are Made Draining, Shaping, and Salting the Curds The curds can be drained of their w ...

whey from the curd particles, but also affects bacteria and enzymes, and encourages flavor- producing chem ...

Ripening, or Affinage Ripening is the stage during which microbes and milk enzymes transform the salty ...

is stored, conditions that determine the moisture content of the cheese, the growth of microbes, the activity o ...

slowing its aging, and extending its edible lifetime. The Sources of Cheese Diversity So these are the ingr ...

group them by their moisture content and the microbes that ripen them. The more moisture removed from ...

called peptides, some still tasteless, some bitter. Usually these are eventually broken down by microbial enz ...

(short-chain) have a peppery effect on the tongue and an intensified sheepy or goaty aroma. The blue molds ...

admitted (p. 53). A late medieval compendium of maxims and recipes for the middle-class household, known as ...

understand that bulk supermarket cheeses are only pale (or dyed) imitations of their more flavorful, distinc ...

Cool, Not Cold If cheese must be kept for more than a few days, it’s usually easiest to refriger ...

Cheese Crystals Cheeses usually have such a smooth, luscious texture, either from the beginning or as ...

Loose Wrapping Tight wrapping in plastic film is inadvisable for three reasons: trapped moisture and rest ...

Simply trimming the surface will not remove mold filaments, which can penetrate some distance and may carry ...