The Pairing Zone: Fin du Monde & La Tur

by Chris Munsey

The Pairing Zone.

Advice for Lovers of Cheese for choosing the beverage that goes best with them. Enter a world a bit different than the one we normally live in. A world where Wine and Beer joyously match with cheese creating an unparalleled taste experience instead of brusquely destroying the complexities and nuances of that $20 a pound piece of cheese you just bought.

Enter the Pairing Zone.

Twice each month, Chris Munsey of Murray's Cheese, hardened veteran of beer and wine with cheese pairing will present an outstanding match between fermented curd and grain or grape. It's a hard job, but someone has to do it. Right, let's get to it shall we?

La Tur and Fin du Monde: a truly decadent dessert.

Creamy, dense and intense- what is not to like about La Tur? A cheese from the Robiola family (small round or square Italian cheeses from the regions of Piedmont and Lombardy) La Tur is made from a mixture of cow, sheep and goat milk and is a study in simple addiction (so easy to eat, yet so naughty: like eating mascarpone with a spoon). This rich creamy curd cupcake is even more delicious (if that is possible!) paired with Fin du Monde a Belgian style Trippel (strong golden colored beer) from the Canadian Brewery Unibroque. La Fin du Monde is no pushover, weighing in at 9% alcohol with a robust, frothy champagne effervescence and a deep weighty flavor reminiscent of wild honey. I actually find the beer a bit much on its own, but it truly finds its match with La Tur. The fudge-like richness of the cheese melts away with a sip of the beer, the malty sweet flavor of the beer mellows and becomes less cloying. This pairing would make a wonderful dessert. If you can wait until after dinner to try it!

You Gonna Eat That?

by Zoe Brickley

You can't judge a book by its cover, but a cheese rind reads like a gossip column. That's one of the things that make cheese better than wine; I can spot a Taleggio from across the park, but I might not know a Merlot if I were swimming in it. That pudgy square shape, sticky orange exterior, and tell-tale impressions are dead giveaways to that notorious gooey Italian.

So what are the options here as far as cheese rinds go? At Murray's you can always have a taste of cheese before taking the plunge. But what if you find yourself in some nightmarish situation? What if you must invest in a load of cheese and your fascist cheesemonger won't spare you a nibble? A basic understanding of the few possible cheese wardrobes will help you narrow the field, focus on a concept, and allow your imagination to do the tasting for you.

For most people the biggest mysteries of the cheese rind are: What's it doing there, and can I eat it?

Let's get that one out of the way forever. Go ahead. Eat it. Do you like it? Then eat more. Do you have wax and shreds of cloth in your teeth? Don't eat that one. Sometimes you might have to switch on your 'food-not-food' radar and figure it out.

Barring man-made materials, it's always OK to sample the cheese rind or to leave it aside. Rule of thumb - if it looks similar to the skin of a fruit, like a tomato or kiwi (yep, it can be a little fuzzy) then definitely give it a try. If it more resembles the crust of a bread or rind on a pumpkin, then try it if you like, but it probably won't be flavor packed or palatable. The reasons behind these handy clues lie below.

What's that mottled rind doing there? Is it just for earthy appeal? Wouldn't it be easier to make 40lb blocks of cryovac'd cheese with a bunch of different recipes? Yes - the answer is definitely yes, but the rind is important for more than just rugged good looks.

I've divided cheeses and their outfits into not so air-tight but conceptually functional groups. There are two main headings: surface ripened and internally ripened.

The rind is key for the creation of surface ripened cheeses. These are known for their softened texture and skin-like rinds. They are usually flat or disc-shaped, to give the rind an easier time of ripening to the center. Picture this bunch as little individual gardens, cultivated by the cheesemaker or affineur. Instead of roses or mums, though, the aim is to create a solid lawn of micro-organisms. The lawn, with its specialized enzymes, changes the curdy, feta-like texture just below ground to a creamy and more pungent version of itself. The type of the yeast, mold, or bacteria chosen to seed that lawn determines the sub-family it will belong to: washed, bloomy, or natural.

WASHED: Some like it hot - and some like more on the balmy side. 54 degrees F and 95% humidity to be exact. If you create just the right balance of pH, moisture, and salt in a fresh cheese - put it in just the right cave climate, and give it frequent sponge baths with a 3-5% salt solution - then you too can be a gardener of stink. Specific conditions are necessary to cultivate Brevibacterium linens, aka B. linens. This bacterial culture effectively ripens the cheese from the outside towards the center. This is the basic principle of all three surface ripening types, but the washers get a more pungent flavor and brighter orange appearance as the B. linens develop. Think glowing Epoisses or that hunky Taleggio for classic examples.

BLOOMY: : The customer concern that makes us snicker the most in or lofty control room: "My cheese has mold on it!" Especially if they are worried about a bloomy choice; these cheeses are encouraged to grow a full coat of fuzzy mold before they're deemed saleable. There are a few strains at play cave dedicated to mold gardening and they culminate as either fluffy white and dimpled, or off-white and brainy looking coats. The molds are functioning in a similar way to B. linens, but at a slightly cooler and less humid environment. A good bloomy rind should be super thin. Like less than a millimeter. So if the thick and chewy supermarket Brie rind is the only one you've endured - give our Brie de Nangis a shot - c'est magnifique! It really showcases the buttery mushroomy thing that bloomy rinds boast at their best.

NATURAL: A little less common - but definitely worth investigating. These natural rinds do the same thing as a washed or bloomy, but the composition of microorganisms is much more random. They typically have quite earthy, musty and complex flavors, resulting from the diversity of molds, yeast and bacteria, which are allowed to populate the surface at will. Instead of being carefully selected or applied, they come from raw milk or the ambient micro-ecology of their original caves. It's a much more laissez-faire approach to affinage. Try St. Nectaire for a classic example, or my favorite, Tomme de la Chataigneraie for a more obscure demonstration.

The internally ripened members of the cheese world are generally more aged, drier curd cheeses that form a crustier and less palatable rind over time. The purpose of the rind is very different here. Instead of actively ripening the cheese, it's usually there just to hang out and protect the cheese from moisture loss and contamination while it stews to perfection. Ripening enzymes are still breaking down proteins and making flavor - only they are doing it anaerobically, deep within the paste. These types are generally taller, or have a greater ratio of paste to rind. There are several formats to look out for.

WAXED - the easiest way to set a rind for long aging. Just dip in or brush on, and rest assured knowing that those anaerobic little bugs are working their magic. The same can be accomplished with those shrink-wrapped jobs. Look to many Aged Goudas, like Boerenkaas.

CLOTHBOUND - Traditional British Cheddars are made into a hulking 60lb keg of a wheel, wrapped with linen, and then rubbed with lard to seal the deal. What doesn't lard make more delicious?

WASHED ALPINE - These cheeses were designed to keep for lean winter months in blustery mountain regions. A drier curd cheese is almost impossible to over-ripen to rancidity, like a wet and gooey one could do within a month. The tight, elastic protein structure in these sturdier cheeses also resists excessive softening. So, washing them to develop B. linens really just adds flavor and aroma, while essentially building a rind from layers of expired B. linens. This is a much trickier feat of affinage, but the hard work pays off in the punch of a heady Gruyere or Comté .

MOLDY - Again, a drier cheese will keep its shape, no matter how much mold collects around the outside. The buildup of surface cultures eventually creates a crusty casing for a developing cheese. Blue cheeses like Stiltonthat aren't wrapped in foil, and mottled looking wheels like Garrotxa are good examples of this bunch. While the mold's enzymes aren't the most important factor for texture and flavor development - they do lend a special 'Je ne sais quoi' that you'll never get from a plastic bag. BRUSHED CLEAN - Picture a Parm! These wheels kind of look naked and straw colored. The goal is to eliminate all types of surface cultures through frequent brushing and rinsing. Eventually a casing of dehydrated cheese forms and thickens over time. A Parmigiano-Reggiano rind is about ¾-inch thick after two full years in a cave.

LEAF OR FOOD COVERED - Self-explanatory. We've got 'em rubbed with tomato paste, coffee/lavender oil, wrapped in bourbon soaked maple leaves, buried in walnut leaves or coated with balsamic must. You name it - and somebody has tried to stick it in or on their cheese. It's actually a pretty clever way of making an instant protective rind, while adding an aromatic boost to developing flavors.

So the next time you're perusing the case, play the classification game and see if you can determine the genus, species, and sub-species of your favorite cheeses. The more practice you get, the better you can order with your eyes closed…

Go Big or Go Home Reading Assignment: The Cheese Plate - crammed with full-color glossy pin-ups of the fanciest cheeses from home and abroad. Hone your identification skills without leaving the house!

Cheese You Must Seek Out and Devour: Bucheron - This is a great example of a surface ripened cheese with an intentionally thick cream-line. It's a fun exercise to try the gooey ripened part just below the surface of the bloomy rind, next to the 'fresher' crumbly chevre near the center.

MAKING THE CUT: AN INSIDER’S LOOK AT CHEESE SELECTION

by Zoe Brickley

FAQ #1: ‘What’s your favorite cheese?’

FAQ #2 ‘How much cheese do you eat on a daily basis?’

Subset of #2 - ‘Why aren’t you super-fat?’

FAQ #3 ‘Where do you guys get all this cheese, and how do you decide which to sell?’

By now I’ve done my fair share of cave tours, fromager events, and ‘Cheese 101’ classes for enthusiastic Murray’s patrons. It is absolutely true that somebody asks at least one, if not all three of these questions every time. And they are still hard to answer.

As for the first two, I suppose that upon seeing where our 200 cheeses live, or hearing my full spiel, the only question left surrounds how we feel about them. After swimming in cheese for a couple of years, do you get sick of it…lose the ability to enjoy run-of-the-mill types or to suspend judgment for the sake of a snack (or breakfast sandwich)?

Yes and no, but mostly no. If we didn’t love cheese, then we’d work next door at the fish place. Or the sausage or bread or guitar store. Or Bear Stearns. Nope – dairy is our jam. We even like bad cheese because it makes us feel smart.

So it’s impossible to name a favorite. It’s like asking an artist what their favorite color is to paint with. One color just isn’t enough for a work of art – and isn’t as meaningful without contrast from the others. (Unless you are a crazy monochromatic mosaic painter or worked at that all-Comté store down on Essex).

But maybe that full-spectrum painter could name the right color blend for a February oceanscape. In the same way, I know of the perfect sausage eating cheese (Piave) or the best for blue cheese dressing (Mountain Gorgonzola) or my favorite walking down the street eating cheese cheese (Boerenkaas). To impress the in-laws? Tomme Crayeuse. Book Club? Constant Bliss. Fall Picnic? Vermont Shepherd. The best dessert cheese when served with peppered strawberries and truffle honey? Monte Enebro of course.

So, FAQ#1 = unanswerable! Customers rightly use any and every excuse to come pick out cheese and after helping them for a couple months you start to develop your own set of stock answers, read: favorites.

If there is one thing that tries our undying love for queso, it lies in the answer to FAQ#3. The tasting committee is not for the weak at heart – or tummy. Between all of the samples we invite from cheese-makers, distributors, and importers- and all the ones they submit for our consideration, it adds up to hundreds every year.

One of my jobs here is to collect the samples on a weekly basis, slice them up and present them with all pertinent production and pricing info, make sure they get tasted thoroughly (with proper respect and enthusiasm), commented upon from all five sensory elements, rated on a numerical scale, considered by all four departments and finally logged into our master database.

As much as we love to help our cheesemaking friends out – we just can’t pick-up every tasty and well-made morsel that comes along. If we did, our five thousand cheeses would crowd out all the customers. Instead, we must deliberate about how a potential new guy fits in; we can only have so many semi-soft cows. No more than a quarter should be washed rinds. Eight goudas, tops. One Limburger is fine.

So when we evaluate we try to assume that we have all the styles we need covered – like a set menu outline- and that a delicious cheese will have to compete with the niche and price of an existing Murray’s choice. It’s like King of the Cheese Hill. We try to keep our total number the same and slowly improve over-all quality and value over the years.

The role of stenographer for these meetings has been pretty fun. You start picking up adjectives you never would have thought of: ‘This tastes like pencils!’ Canned corn and pineapple are mentioned. Fishy, earthy, grassy and dirty – but in a good way- aren’t uncommon.

And as our company grows, so too does the committee’s appetite for cheese. Our collaboration with Kroger supermarkets for instance, brought about an unprecedented tasting. To determine the best brands for our test locations in Kroger, we had to squeeze a lot into a single meeting.

A spread of five cheeses is a lot for a meal. Ten is plenty for a party. Twenty is pushing it for a product-line sampling. But a SEVENTY cheese tasting is enough to put you down for the count.

It started with just 30 or so possible picks: a reasonable fraction of what the total number might be. But to be fair we also got 30 or so alternatives from other producers; it became a grueling six category Ultimate Throw-down for the Murray’s seal of approval.

And still, this is nothing compared to actual on-the-books award ceremony style competitions, like the World Championship Cheese Competition. Rob just returned as a judge for the coveted titles and actually put 250 different cheeses in his mouth, more than we carry in the store, over the course of a weekend. And there were more than 1500 others that he didn’t get around to. A few cheeses we carry made the cut that weekend, but I think Rob is the real winner here.

Events like this do tend to make recreational enjoyment a little less likely – but not out of the question. And all other parts of my job ensure that I unpack, flip, scrub, heave and otherwise physically move cheese around more than I actually consume it. So that’s why I’m only a little bit fat.

So if you don’t know, now you know… But if you’re still curious - FAQ #4 is an easy one: ‘Do you ever eat American singles?’ Yes. On Eggs. But that’s technically not a cheese question; it’s a food-dyed-milk-powder-and-hydrogenated-oil question. As my definition of cheese cannot be extended so far, I can enjoy it (with a little ketchup) in the food pyramid apex category of ‘other’.

THE MERCURIAL SPLENDOR OF CHEESE SEASONALITY

by Zoe Brickley

April is the cruelest month, breeding

Lilacs from the dead earth, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliot wrote that opener to The Waste Land when he was having a nervous breakdown. Perhaps the onset of this celebrated season, classically employed as a figure of hope and rebirth, was unbearable in the actuality of his despair. The typically saccharine, floral images are reworked to reflect instead the springtime of his troubled psyche. Eliot might have experienced emotional limbo, haunted by a past abandoned and fraught over the inevitability of his undoing. Or maybe he was just having trouble finding a good sheep’s milk cheese.

That’s what’s been eating me lately. I’ve been trying to hold down the last few wheels of 2007’s Vermont Shepherd from cave pillagers – the famed Vermontian reinvention of the classic French Ossau Iraty. A few valued restaurant clients still boast it on menus, audacious enough to defy a plain law of nature: lambing season.

May was in like a lion, and out like a hurricane of baby sheep careening down wooly birth canals faster than farmers can keep up with. Due to the finicky way ewes breed they are all on the same cycle – which means that for the next month or so greedy little lambs will be monopolizing our milk supply in the northeast. It follows that well aged cheeses won’t be made, cured, and ready for eating until August at least. By the time they are extra-aged with bigger, nuttier flavors – about a year from now – they are all but sold out after the holiday drain.

If you’d like to finger blame, please look past the sap responsible for sourcing your farmstead picks, and focus instead on Mother Nature’s convention of short-day breeding. While humans and cows follow a lunar cycle of fertility, a ewe’s inner Gaia revolves around the solstice. I think it has something to do with serotonin levels and pituitary glands, but the basic result is that all sheep in our longitudinal neck of the woods can only breed during the shortest days of the year. Here lies some of the pain and the beauty of cheese seasonality.

What to expect – if you’re looking for ewe’s milk cheese in the spring – Keep your eye out for the younger styles like Willow Hill’s camembert types, which show up in late spring or early summer. Larger productions with more aged varieties, especially in Europe, can guarantee availability all year round – go with Ossau Iraty from the Pyrenees if you have a hankering that can’t wait until fall.

Goats are similarly inspired when days begin to shorten. In natural nature this serves to spare newborn kids from harsh midwinter conditions. However, goats are more easily fooled by urbane tricks of husbandry like the rigged lighting used to mimic long summer days, and central heating. Also, the most popular goat cheeses we carry are the younger variety, so seasonal consequences are more immediate and predictable. Supply issues are easily mitigated because the ‘lightly-aged’ niche is pretty well saturated within the artisan market. Fresh chevre also freezes exceptionally well compared to all other cheese types, so that really helps to bolster our late winter stash.

What to expect – from the goats at this time of year: Blue Ledge farm’s Crottina, a little bloomy cheese is aged for only a few weeks, so they’ll be ready and for sale here in April. Also – Mozzarella Company’s Hoja Santa is double seasonal because of the fresh chevre involved as well as the hand-picked Hoja Santa leaves, which are harvested in the spring and used as an aromatic wrapping. All of our little goats will improve at the grass becomes greener and they spend more time outside – this is especially true of the texture and flavor of cheeses made from frozen milk in the winter.

Cows, as I mentioned, need little more than some frozen stock and a latex arm sheath to get the ball rolling. Most bovine dairy farmers use this flexibility to keep their herd on continual rotation for a more consistent milk supply. But this does not exempt them from seasonal fluctuations in milk composition, quality and supply.

One of the most impressive reflections after a year in the cheese biz is how noticeable these changes truly are between seasons, months, and even from batch to batch. How our affections shift as a pretty good cheese starts ‘hitting super-hard’ or another looses that special je ne sais quoi.

But what accounts for these fluctuations, besides our snobbery – I mean… connoisseurship? ‘Tell me what you eat, cow, and I’ll tell you what your cheese is like’. It makes a big difference. When a cow, goat, or sheep is grazing on pasture they are fulfilling their evolutionary destiny. In fact, people started keeping these ruminants, or four-bellied lawn mowers, to take advantage of that abundant green resource, which we can’t digest ourselves. Seasonal and annual fluctuations in weather affect the nutritional content of grass and other grazed plants. The diversity and type of browse also lends aromas and subtle flavors, which are proven to translate into the milk, probably by piggybacking fat globules.

Where an animal is in terms of her gestation cycle, physical activity and nutrition causes drastic changes in the levels of fats, proteins, sugars, minerals, microbes, and aromas that can be measured in the milk. In winter the cows are more sedentary and are probably getting dried hay or supplemental grain to make up for grass shortages. Also, cows give richer milk just before they are given a 2 month rest from milking – which is often mid-winter. This results in a fattier winter cheese, often with a rich and creamy texture.

When grazing animals are in their tawny summer mode the milk is leaner of fat and protein but higher in sugars and volatile aroma compounds – so the cheese may be a little less unctuous but surprisingly more complex, floral, and flavorful. For most cheese types, ‘summer milk’ and ‘grass-fed’ are the hot-button terms.

Why then, does Classic-Sharp-White from the grocery always look and taste exactly the same? Measures have been taken to ease your suffering and stifle your joy. Very 1984. The cows behind that milk probably live inside and eat cereal all day, all year round. The milk never picks up that pretty buttery yellow color, which comes from the beta carotene involved in a pastured diet. Don’t confuse this with that lovely cheddar-orange color, which would be annatto- a flavorless vegetable-based dye. (And don’t worry, goats convert all that beta carotene into vitamin A, so their cheese will always be milky white, even when pastured. Sheep’s milk cheeses are usually off-cream colored no matter what.) It goes without saying that commercial milk never gets those volatile aromas from a varied, seasonally-evolving diet either.

The last key difference is breed. The indoor uber-yeilding cows are the iconic black and white spotted Holsteins that have come to symbolize dairying in the US. They are prized for giving lots of clean tasting milk on a diet of just about anything. Well, that’s not exactly true; the breed has been selected to grow so fast and give so much milk that for most of the year they need supplemental grain; grass alone is not enough to fuel these SUV’s of the bovine world.

Other ‘heritage’ breed cows are more traditional and, around here, typically include Brown Swiss, Jersey, Guernsey, or Ayrshire. These varieties tend to give less milk, but richer, more flavorful and colorful milk. They can subsist on pasture and hay in ideal conditions just fine. If you don’t believe me try and find a pint of Evan’s Farmhouse milk. And buy the whole milk too – its way more delicious, and the only way your body can absorb all the vitamins, minerals and calcium which are naturally packed into this luxury-grade product.

What to expect - from the larger cud-chewing contingent in April – Expect shortages from smaller producers who practice total seasonality (see the must-eat below) or even those who keep the herd on seasonal rotation. Jasper Hill Farm up in VT has a small herd of Ayreshires whose total number of milkers fluctuates from 30 - 46, with the lull at the start of each year. We’ve been tragically low for a few weeks now, but bigger batches are underway in newly expanded aging caves and supply should be back to normal by May.

So celebrate, with T.S. and me, the ups and downs of life. The tribulations that make humans human, and sheeps sheep… In the dead of winter when fresh-mown grass is a wistful memory you can take solace in the nurtured fruit of that happy season with a well aged cheese. But now, that too is a fading memory. A warm day here or there beckons pre-emptive jean shorts wearing only to leave us with exposed knees on a drafty subway platform. And summer’s intense grass-fed offerings are still weeks or months away. Our appetites for spring are sharpened after catching a whiff and chasing a wakeful dream. April – you devil you.

Go Big or Go Home Reading Assignment: The ‘Cheese by Hand’ project website: http://cheesebyhand.com. Check out interviews and farm visits with artisans across the country. See why seasonality affects more than just a cheese-maker’s wardrobe.

Cheese You Must Seek Out and Devour: Meadow Creek Dairy’s Grayson. I know last month was also washed-wonder from the East Coast, but here’s a fun activity: Hurry up and buy a hunk of Grayson right now. Then, grab another hunk of Grayson when it comes back in season this summer. The entire small herd of Jersey cows took a break from milking, as per tradition and inclination, early this year. The cheese is aged around 60 days – so that means we’re getting our last batch from last season this week! The herd of ladies are on the same page so that all of the associated tasks surrounding their breeding are consolidated and happening at the same time. Also – the more southern climate (Galax, VA) means that grass is available for 10 months of the year – so their recommended two month dry spell is timed perfectly with the absence of greens! That way, only the best milk is used for cheese, and it shows. The crew just started making again this week so it won’t be ready until June. Take notes both times and compare. Then do it again in August, and then October and…

IS OUR CHEESE WORTH THE WEIGHT?

by Zoe Brickley

Imagine that your breakfast of champions is a little different today. Instead of hitting your crunchy-o’s with an ice cold splash of milk you decide to go with black gold; oil that is. Maybe grab a petrol latte, double-tall, on your way to the office.

I know that you think I’m about to launch into a rant about carbon footprints and the Alaskan wilderness, but stay with me here.

I just want to make the point that nobody in their right mind would do such things – and not just because gasoline is unpalatable… it’s also super expensive these days. Gas prices are no joke. But get this – we would actually be saving money if we were treating ourselves to gas-cream-cones. Milk has become more expensive per gallon than gasoline; the commodity cost is up nearly 50% from last year.

Granted, you need a lot less milk to power your life – but that isn’t the case if you’re a cheese-maker. See where I’m headed now?

We’ve had a few comment cards lately reflecting the public’s unrest with the climbing price of cheese. Some have even speculated that we are hiking our margins to reflect the premium ambiance in our fancy new store or to *gasp* finance our underground lair.

We promise, folks, that our margins are the same and that as an importer and retailer we are feeling the heat right along with you (I catch my share of flack as the mistress of the money-pit downstairs). So, I did a little digging and found that there are a few more factors at play than the most obvious culprits, which are transportation costs and the strength of the Euro.

The biggest: grain prices. They’ve tripled from what they were two years ago. Since the dollar is down, more people are importing our amber waves of grain – so demand is up. Also there’s been a drought in the Midwest, and a significant amount of production has shifted to corn for ethanol and livestock feed or to other crops like barley and soy, which are fetching more per bushel as well – so supply is down. Both of these factors contribute to climbing prices.

The most interesting factor affecting demand for grain and milk powder, perhaps, is what researchers are calling ‘diet globalization.’ The apparent conceit of the following statement in light of how much ridicule we garner from the international community makes me shudder, but as it appears, people in developing nations - the increasingly affluent and urbanized - ‘want to eat like Americans.’

We are bringing about this phenomenon by campaigning for our classic processed foods abroad. Who could resist those jingles? And wheat marketing headquarters have been established in places like Nigeria, where newer staples like bread are replacing the more traditional, locally available and affordable options. Hey – if you could make donuts out of cassava root, maybe we’d be importing from them.

Due to skyrocketing export and less competition from other countries, like severe-two-year-drought stricken Australia, grain stocks are at their lowest in a quarter-century.

And guess what dairy cows eat? Yep, it costs more to buy milk because it costs more for the grain to feed the cows. And picture the cheese-making process as a way to concentrate or shrink the volume of milk –it takes about 10 square inches of milk to make one square inch of cheese. Geez.

This doesn’t just apply to our commodity type ‘American’ cheese like block yellow cheddars. The same phenomenon with milk prices are happening overseas, too. In Europe, along with their climbing grain and milk prices it’s easier to export finished products to neighboring continents (by proxy), which are becoming wealthier and more interested in dairy products – especially all my peeps in Asia. Europe’s demand is higher than it’s ever been and their cheeses are much more expensive- even before transportation and currency conversion are accounted for.

Our impressive new shop can’t do much about these facts – but there is one thing: every three months or so we get a memo from the consortium that Parmigiano-Reggiano prices are about to jump again. To shield you defenseless consumers a little longer, we buy a mind-boggling amount just before the spike. My morning workout those days consists of shelving 15 or more eighty-pound kegs of that indispensable condiment. You’re welcome.

With everything getting more expensive, we start thinking about ways to tighten the purse-strings: postponing that trip to Dubai, putting the jet-skis up for sale, moving back to Bushwick… But pause here and take solace in the fact that for less than a ten spot you can take home a wedge of that luxurious triple-crème and feel like a queen for the night.

And here’s something to keep in mind when you’re spending half as much on the cheese for your dinner party as you are on the wine: Quite a few experts out there will contest that milk, grain and most of the food we buy has been grossly under-priced; compared to other countries of the world- at all points in history- we spend a much smaller percent of our income on food than most anyone else.

In fact, milk prices have been so low in the last decade that many smaller farms have been foreclosed or consolidated into bigger operations. Others have managed to get by through a shift of production and the addition of value on-site. In other words, they are making their own dairy products on the farm instead of wholesaling the milk to a consolidated production plant somewhere.

Here lies an alternative to the ever more expensive imported cheeses, and the not so cheap American commodity-types. As a nation we are experiencing a renaissance of sorts within the world of artisan cheese. If you look through Jeff Roberts’ new Atlas of American Artisan Cheese – you will notice that more than 70% of the farms listed started making cheese no earlier than the year 2000.

I’m not going argue that the growing selection of these boutique products will be much less expensive as an alternative. Fuel, labor and facility costs still make profits a challenge for the little guys. But I will say that they are a much better value.

The cows from which our favorite ones are made don’t stand around their whole lives eating Wheaties™. Nope. They eat grass and hay – the diet they were designed for. The good people on these farms craft the cheese by hand, instead of pouring milk in one end of a factory only to plop out yellow cubes from the other. And U.S. cheese quality is better than ever – gaining a real competitive edge on their European inspirations.

Above all, you know your buck is backing the good fight at home, instead of feeding inflation, fueling combines and ocean liners, or bolstering that incorrigible Euro.

Be sure to check out Liz's blog "From the Front Lines" (below) for her thoughts on the subject after a recent visit to several family farms.

FROM THE FRONT LINES

by Liz Thorpe

On the heels of Zoe's entertaining, but sobering look at the increasing costs of food production in our current world, I wanted to add

my two cents. I've been in Wisconsin all week, visiting cheesemakers while Rob eats gross amounts of cheese as a judge at the World Championship Cheese Contest. I spent Tuesday morning with George and Debbie Crave of Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese, and the topic of milk increases came up. George summarized the macro-level for me this way:

The cost of milk, and cheese, is based on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Board's valuation of block cheddar. That's where "value" begins in the U.S. Now, if the demand for powdered milk increases (as is the case in our current market, since the greatest demand is occurring in 3rd world countries that can't generate their own milk, but can buy powdered from anywhere), the demand for block cheddar decreases. If the demand for block cheddar decreases, then the
valuation decreases. So, larger cheesemakers have 2 options: 1. They can make powdered milk, a sure sell, in the current market or 2. They can gamble on block cheddar, not knowing how the market will value that cheese in the future, after it ages.

For the dairymen who own and milk cows, but may not (are often not) making cheese, a decrease in the demand for block cheddar means more animals are sent to slaughter. Why pay to feed animals whose milk is devalued as cheddar is devalued? So, cows go to slaughter, and then,
guess what happens? Less cows a'milking, so less supply, so milk shortage, so milk becomes a premium commodity and increases in value.

The demand goes up as the supply goes down. Regardless of larger market forces. So there's a vicious cycle that gets spun each time block cheddar is devalued.

As George said, the cure for high prices...is high prices.

To deflate the price of milk doesn't mean it's any less expensive to produce. Instead there's an artificial goose to the market as milk is more or less available. I know this is basic economics, but we simply don't think about our food this way. Add to this cyclical rhythm certain unknowns like weather: if it's bad, farmers grow less food; if there's a severe drought, Australia cows produce less milk; plus other unknowns like what people in India and Nigeria want to eat.

At Murray's, we (and you too, most likely) we don't really think about block cheddar. It's not part of our world, right? Only, of course, it is part of our world. And being here in Wisconsin I am aware of it at every moment. From the tiny, off-the-grid sheep cheese maker I met on Wednesday, to the cheddar producer who makes 5,000,000 pounds of cheese a year (which, folks, is small by national standards), this cycle of supply and demand, fuel for transport, grain for feed, corn for ethanol, and national consumption here and abroad. They're intrinsically connected in a frighteningly abstracted web that doesn't acknowledge how expensive and laborious it is to make good food, real food, food without a lot of shit in it. Food from cows' fluid milk, not reconstituted powdered milk; food from cows that sniff air and see sky, not to mention cows that might actually eat hay or grass and not just grain; food from cows that don't milk 4 times a day thanks to extended lactation courtesy of rBST and other growth hormones; food
that gets made by hands, touched by people, turned on racks, or shelves, brushed, washed, aged, tended, packed and then shipped, at best, in trucks or planes running on gasoline that costs more than it ever did.

I'm no expert in this stuff, but being here this week makes me worry more than I already did about how we produce food, what we pay for it, and what's happening to family farms in America. They're getting crushed. Even as they make more money off their crops and their milk
than they have in 25 years. The whole thing bodes ominously.

Check This Out! World Cheese Championships

Cheesemakers and buttermakers from around the world have submitted a record 1,935 entries in the world's premiere cheese and butter competition, the World Championship Cheese Contest, all with the hopes of being named the next Big Cheese.

This year, our very own Rob Kaufelt is one of the judges.

You can watch a live broadcast of the Championship Round via the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association website. How intense will it get? Which flavored cheddar will sway the judges' opinions? Can Rob really eat almost 2,000 samples? See it all live!

It starts at 8:30AM CST (that's one hour behind Murray's time) on Thursday, March 13.

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

by Zoe Brickley, Murray's Affineur

“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!

Parmesan in Cans No More!

On February 26, the European Court of Justice mandated that "Parmesan" can no longer be tossed around by any old cheese producer. We've grappled with the "Parmesan"/"Parmigiano-Reggiano" distinction at Murray's for some time. It drives us nuts that any junky old reconstituted milk powder can be tossed in a shelf-stable can with some salt and called "Parmesan." That stuff bears no resemblance to the glorious nuance and complexity of the real deal. Parmigiano-Reggiano has so much variety that we carry three at any given time: Parmigiano-Reggiano made by cooperatives, Parmigiano-Reggiano Bonati made by a single family producer, and Parmigiano-Reggiano Vacche Rosse, made with the milk of the nearly extinct red cow. But, let's be frank, Parmigiano-Reggiano is a mouthful, not just of good cheese. It's long and hard to say, and most Americans fall back on the shorter, more familiar "Parmesan." Personally, I shorten it to "Parm" most of the time.

Until now, "Parmesan" could mean anything, but this ruling states that only cheeses bearing the protected denomination of origin (PDO) "Parmigiano-Reggiano" can be sold under the denomination "Parmesan." This is good news for us, because we don't have to redo all our signage. For example, we carry Sartori Stravecchio, which we love for its compulsively caramel, sweet, approachable flavor. Sartori calls it Stravecchio Parmesan, but we stuck to our guns. It's NOT Parmesan, it's pasteurized, the texture is completely different (chewier and younger) and the flavor, while butterscotchy and wonderful, has none of the almondine austerity of the Italian King.

So: score one for helping consumers understand the distinctions in their food, and why hard, aged, cooked, grana-style, cows' milk cheese is not equivalent to Parmigiano-Reggiano. Now, what can we hope for on free-range versus natural versus vegetarian versus cage-free eggs? Whew.

I've pasted the full announcement from the European Court below.

Enjoy,

Liz

***************************************

Rome, 26 February 2008.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) published today a very clear ruling: only cheeses bearing the protected denomination of origin (PDO) 'Parmigiano-Reggiano' can be sold under the denomination 'Parmesan'.
"This judgment is a clear victory for the producers of 'Parmigiano-Reggiano' and the entire sector which includes 20 000 operators and represents a turnover of €1.5 billion. This ruling will put an end to the activities of counterfeiters whose use of the name 'Parmesan' during the last years has had a very negative impact on both the economy of the sector and the image of our unique cheese. This is also a victory for consumers to which we offer strong guarantees of traceability and who will not be facing anymore misleading denominations on the market", stressed Giuseppe Alai, the President of the Consorzio of the Parmigiano-Reggiano.
The publication of the judgement of the Court of Justice comes nearly 3 years after the launch of the infringement proceeding by the European Commission against Germany (21st March 2005). "We are very grateful to all the people who gave their support to us on this case, in particularly to the European Commission which strongly defended the protection of the Parmigiano-Reggiano during all these years. It is an important precedent, not only for the producers of Parmigiano-Reggiano, but also for all the producers of products with geographical indication (DPO and PGI) protected in the European Union who often face abuses on the worldwide markets", declared Leo Bertozzi, the Director of the Consorzio.
The judgment draws on the main arguments of the opinion given in June 2007 by the Advocate General of the Court of Justice. The ECJ dismisses the action for noncompliance against Germany because the Commission did not establish that the German law does not protect sufficiently the PGO 'Parmigiano Reggiano'. By doing so, the Court questions one of the milestones of the European protection system of Geographical Indications (GIs), the fact that Member states must intervene to stop the abusive use of protected GIs (the so-called ex officio protection).
"We take note of the Court's interpretation on the effects of the protection granted at the EU level. The Consorzio challenged German producers before German courts which were waiting for this interpretation of the European Court of Justice to rule on the dispute. Now that things are clear, the Consorzio will obtain the protection of "parmesan" in Germany. However, the ex officio protection is a fundamental element of the GI system, in particular for small producers that do not usually have the means to defend their rights. This aspect must be part of the current reflection on the future of European system on Geographical indications."