Speaker 1: Hi, folks, this is Chuck here. Welcome to the Saturday
Speaker 1: Selects edition of Stuff You Should Know. Uh. This week
Speaker 1: I am picking out the cheesiest s Y s K
Speaker 1: episode ever from August. This is not a show about
Speaker 1: um bad music, but this is a show about cheese. Um.
Speaker 1: I love cheese, Josh loves cheese. A lot of people
Speaker 1: love cheese. And this ended up being a very dense
Speaker 1: probably could have been a two parter, but a really
Speaker 1: cool episode about the history of cheese and how it's
Speaker 1: made in just the varieties of cheese. Like you could
Speaker 1: have an entire fourteen part series on cheese, but um,
Speaker 1: as we do, we decided to cram as much as
Speaker 1: we could into one episode. So Corps and Wine cut
Speaker 1: some cheese metaphorically, actually not metaphorically, and enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: Clark with me as always is Charles w So funny, Chuck,
Speaker 1: Brian is that a new nickname? So funny? Chuck? My
Speaker 1: wife would beg to differ. She might say, I'm not
Speaker 1: so funny sometimes? No, okay, so Chuck, Yes, how you
Speaker 1: doing I'm great. Um, I've got an intro this time? Awesome.
Speaker 1: How long has it been? Uh? I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: been a while really since we've had a proper intro. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: if you ask me so, Um, let me paint the
Speaker 1: picture for you, all right. Uh. In May of two
Speaker 1: thou little newspaper called the Telegraph I believe out of
Speaker 1: London published an article about a recent survey of four
Speaker 1: thousand consumers, British consumers, um, of what were the top
Speaker 1: most important inventions ever created by man? Okay, so some
Speaker 1: of them were not surprising. The wheel came in first place.
Speaker 1: Beer is on there and it came in Was it
Speaker 1: on there? I don't know. I can tell you painkillers
Speaker 1: were on there in place place? Um, but no, man,
Speaker 1: I didn't see beer on here, and surely it is.
Speaker 1: Maybe that was just they don't consider that an invention.
Speaker 1: Sliced bread um came in in seventy place. Um. The
Speaker 1: iPhone came in eighth place, ahead of the combustion engine.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. In place came calendars okay, but then right
Speaker 1: after that place came the cheese creater. M. Yeah, the greater,
Speaker 1: the cheese greater. That makes me think. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: this is clearly one of the dumbest assemblages of four
Speaker 1: thousand people ever put together. Calendar and then cheese creator,
Speaker 1: and then ihe, um, yeah, so I think that possibly
Speaker 1: when you give him the benf of the doubt, and
Speaker 1: that they didn't assume that cheese was invented by humans,
Speaker 1: that she's greater. It was clearly invented by humans. You
Speaker 1: don't find them growing on trees. Cheese apparently you find
Speaker 1: growing on trees. It's a gift from God. But I
Speaker 1: think had had the Polsters said, you know, I just
Speaker 1: want to remind you here that cheese is an invention,
Speaker 1: then it would it would have scored higher. At least
Speaker 1: it would have at least replaced the cheese greater. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I would. No. England, I don't know how they are
Speaker 1: in cheese, but the EU is real big on cheese.
Speaker 1: It is as a whole. So it's Wisconsin, so is um,
Speaker 1: well yeah, the EU? Yeah, yeah, New York, I think
Speaker 1: a Germany and uh it's in the France, Grease, Denmark, Belgium,
Speaker 1: they're all like in the top ten. Grease's way ahead,
Speaker 1: and well Greece comes up in some stats that are
Speaker 1: coming fright after this butt chuck Um cheese is an invention,
Speaker 1: and as legend goes, an accidental invention, right yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they have seen it dated back to prehistory, so
Speaker 1: they can't obviously trace it back to six BC and
Speaker 1: say how it happened, Right, well, they can say that
Speaker 1: it was it was around at least as late as
Speaker 1: um BC, because it was found in the tomb of
Speaker 1: one of the Egyptian pharaoh's cheese five thousand year old cheese,
Speaker 1: which wow um, And the idea goes. The legend goes
Speaker 1: that there was some um shepherd, some goat herder, some
Speaker 1: cow herder, which I guess you'd call a rancher um
Speaker 1: went to I guess go tend to his flock, and
Speaker 1: he had his daily milk, and he used a cowskin
Speaker 1: um or a cow stomach a calf st specifically to
Speaker 1: store the milk. And when he went to go drink it,
Speaker 1: it came out all curdled and smacked his face and
Speaker 1: he said, what is going on here? He told some
Speaker 1: people about it and it took root. Now see I
Speaker 1: read that roc effort was invented by accident by a shepherd. Yes,
Speaker 1: I read that too, and he was he stashed his
Speaker 1: lunch in a cave because he saw a young maiden
Speaker 1: that he wanted to go get down with, and he
Speaker 1: forgot about his lunch and came back like a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks later. It was moldy and he ate it anyway,
Speaker 1: And I was like, hey, this is pretty tasty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: He's like I like this a lot. So that makes
Speaker 1: me think these tales might be just intermingling something. Well,
Speaker 1: they are tales. There's nothing you know, specific, nothing documented.
Speaker 1: But Rokee fort Um also supposedly is from the dates
Speaker 1: to about the time of Christ. So if cheese was
Speaker 1: known to the Egyptians and c and it would have
Speaker 1: come before that. But it's possible they were invented independently accidentally. Right,
Speaker 1: that's true. A lot of shepherds run around at that time,
Speaker 1: a lot more than these days. That's true. And rockefort
Speaker 1: is also a p d O, which is a protected
Speaker 1: designation of origin cheese. That's Truman, which means uh, it's
Speaker 1: got to be made in uh rocofort. Right. And the
Speaker 1: specifically this mountain range is small area of mountain top.
Speaker 1: You got to get the sheep from there in France,
Speaker 1: the agent the caves there, yep, or you're not eating rot.
Speaker 1: And still to this day speaking of how Rockefer has
Speaker 1: produced these these shepherds that's still kind of dressed like
Speaker 1: they used to um during medieval kind of uh. It's
Speaker 1: but they all have beards. It's really kind of disturbing
Speaker 1: to go to go to this area. Um. They the
Speaker 1: families make the cheese from their own flox milk and
Speaker 1: then take it to um the caves where there where
Speaker 1: it's purchased by often yours, which are expert finishers of
Speaker 1: cheese and France, which means they just sit around and
Speaker 1: look at it. Yeah, they're like, come on, yeah, the
Speaker 1: cheese is done. So that's that's just a brief sketch
Speaker 1: of cheese history, right yeah, and that's the most interesting
Speaker 1: stuff I would think. All right, well that's the podcast.
Speaker 1: All right, well let's talk let's talk cheese man. You know,
Speaker 1: these stats are interesting. Yeah. In two thousand nine, the
Speaker 1: average American consumed or the Americans consumed an average depend
Speaker 1: on which way you want to look at it, of
Speaker 1: thirty two point nine pounds a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: per person per year. To say, let's say that on
Speaker 1: more thirty two point nine pounds. Let's just call it
Speaker 1: thirty three pounds of cheese per person per year. I
Speaker 1: love cheese, but I don't think I eat that much.
Speaker 1: I had no idea I was eating that much cheese.
Speaker 1: I might be. I love cheese. I'm gonna start paying attention.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do a yearly cheese count. Also this, um,
Speaker 1: what was it, like, thirty three pounds per American per
Speaker 1: year of cheese. Take a few ounces. That's part of
Speaker 1: eighty two billion pounds of cheese that America alone produces
Speaker 1: or produced I should say in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: and get this eighty two billion, two billions like eight
Speaker 1: to frinch stats on that. Yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different stats other it's true. I got from nine billion
Speaker 1: down to ten point one million, eighty two billion. We're
Speaker 1: all over the place with that one. I suddenly like, really,
Speaker 1: huh uh, well, okay, this is from like a cheeseboard,
Speaker 1: probably Wisconsin. I probably would have been like the Delaware cheeseboard.
Speaker 1: I'm not listening to this, um, but uh, in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five, we ate fourteen pounds of cheese a person,
Speaker 1: So we've doubled our cheese and take Yeah, since seventy
Speaker 1: that's really something. What you were you born seventy six?
Speaker 1: I might have something to do with it. I knew
Speaker 1: I was destined for something, but they were. The Greeks
Speaker 1: are up close to sixty pounds a year. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: Greeks in the French apparently score between fifty three to
Speaker 1: seventy three pounds on average per person. The Greeks in
Speaker 1: the French are tied as the world's greatest consumers of cheese.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of feta, that is and feed is
Speaker 1: probably the oldest cheese, by the way, speaking of cheese history,
Speaker 1: it's also one of the simplest. Yeah, I love crumbly
Speaker 1: delicious feta. Right feta. If you went to Grease and
Speaker 1: made and grab some feta that some Greek shepherd farmer
Speaker 1: had just made, and you brought it back to the US,
Speaker 1: they would slap the cuffs on you. That d a wood. Oh,
Speaker 1: because it's the aging laws we have here are different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a raw milk cheese, and which means it's made
Speaker 1: from it's a fresh kind of cheese, made from unpasteurized
Speaker 1: milk and um. In the US, if you make that
Speaker 1: kind of cheese. If you make cheese using pasteurized milk, um,
Speaker 1: you have to age it sixty days at least unpasteurized milk,
Speaker 1: unpasteurized milk. So this is just this, like we just
Speaker 1: stepped into this fascinating world if you ask me, Yeah,
Speaker 1: pasteurization just quickly is uh most people know is when
Speaker 1: you take food, usually a liquid though, you heat it
Speaker 1: up really hot for a specific amount of time at
Speaker 1: a specific temperature. Then you cool it down real quickly.
Speaker 1: And the gold there is to slow down microbial growth,
Speaker 1: but not stop it, right, because that would be sterilization. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're not pasteurization right, named after the Great Louis past two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you you don't want to sterilize it because
Speaker 1: that that ruins the flavor. So that would imagine sterilized milk,
Speaker 1: sterilized cheese. Yeah, it's not good stuff. But um, not
Speaker 1: only is pasteurization good for your health. Most would say
Speaker 1: while cheese kind of storys like the hardcore kind that
Speaker 1: have like mohawks with like Elmer's glue, right, sure, they
Speaker 1: will tell you, um that the only good cheese comes
Speaker 1: from cheese made from unpasteurized milk. Raw milk cheese. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but other people will tell you you're not really right.
Speaker 1: We can make really good cheese with pasteurized milk, and
Speaker 1: pasteurized milk makes for a an easier cheese making process.
Speaker 1: It's more reliable, it's more predictable. Yeah, and when you're
Speaker 1: making tons of metric tons of cheese, you want there's
Speaker 1: something consistent like that. Alright, what a wham bang start.
Speaker 1: Why do you talk about milk all the time with cheese, Josh, Well,
Speaker 1: because cheese is really just a portable form of milk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's basically it's like um grain represents
Speaker 1: um virtual water. Sure, you shipped grain from one place
Speaker 1: to another, you're really shipping the water that was used
Speaker 1: to produce the grain in addition to it. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: remember seeing those commercials, like I think it was Kraft,
Speaker 1: like there are two cups of milk and every slice
Speaker 1: of craft American cheese, and I always thought that's impossible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: look at it, that little slice of cheese and look
Speaker 1: at two cups of milk. There's no way. You're probably right, though, No,
Speaker 1: they can't say that. There's like the second biggest food
Speaker 1: company on the planet. I think, yeah, I think yeah.
Speaker 1: So You're right, milk cheese is nothing, but milk milk
Speaker 1: is about eight water. If you remove this water, you
Speaker 1: got cheese. Basically, Yeah, it's a little more complicated than that,
Speaker 1: but it's not that much more complicated. Was really surprised,
Speaker 1: like both of us apparently went our own way and
Speaker 1: um learned how to make cheese. And I have to say, like,
Speaker 1: I am strongly considering getting me and you me into cheesemaking.
Speaker 1: You can make mozzarell pretty easily. Yeah, but I'm not big.
Speaker 1: I'm okay, I'm mozzarella. I like a good mozzarella, but
Speaker 1: more I'm into like the slightly stinkier cheeses you can
Speaker 1: pull off. Making like a limburger. Well, I wouldn't make that,
Speaker 1: but I could make like a Gouda um or a chevra. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like that too. Speaking of limburger quickly, I don't
Speaker 1: remember the name of the bacteria, but the bacteria used
Speaker 1: in making limburgers the same one on our body that
Speaker 1: creates body odor, which is why stinks. I read that
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, that's why people say it somes like
Speaker 1: feet Because yes, and scientifically speaking, you're absolutely right. Types
Speaker 1: of cheese. Shall we break that down real quick. Yes
Speaker 1: we should, because there's a big contentious debate about how
Speaker 1: you classify cheese, and uh, this guy, Stephen Jenkins for
Speaker 1: this article, seems to have a pretty good handle on
Speaker 1: how cheese should be classified. Josh. He is a member
Speaker 1: of the Confrairie des Chevalier. Dude test roma. Very nice,
Speaker 1: you very nice. I was just looking at say, like,
Speaker 1: I wonder if I'm gonna have to handle down it's
Speaker 1: cheese connoisseurs. And he's an expert, and he says you
Speaker 1: can break him down into fresh, soft, ripened, wash, rind, natural, rind, blue, veined, uncooked, pressed, cooked, pressed,
Speaker 1: and processed, and chuck um like like we were talking
Speaker 1: about already. Um, the fresh cheeses. Those are the easy,
Speaker 1: is the most basic, the most ancient kind. You've got
Speaker 1: your fed. You have a Caeso fresco masca pone right,
Speaker 1: not marscapone, And the argoes after the sis it's muscari.
Speaker 1: It is always mispronounced. I have no idea because I
Speaker 1: thought it was Marscapone until I read it and I
Speaker 1: was like, Uh, that rolls off the tongue though more
Speaker 1: than the RS rolls off the tongue more than the
Speaker 1: This is your mascara, which isn't even cheese technically, right, No,
Speaker 1: it isn't. It's um. You you skim the cream off
Speaker 1: of the top of the parmesan making process and add
Speaker 1: a culture to it, and you've got mascarponegult also known
Speaker 1: as ricotta, but if you're from New Jersey you might
Speaker 1: say regult. Okay, and cream cheese obviously. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think you mentioned Caso fresco, right, Yes, those are fresh cheeses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are the ones where you just basically go through
Speaker 1: step one through three of cheesemaking and then you just
Speaker 1: start eating it. Yeah. And some of them still contain
Speaker 1: the liquid part the way, right, and they don't keep
Speaker 1: very long. And that is fresh cheeses is what you
Speaker 1: gotta eat them right away, That's right. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a portable way of preserving milk, but it's only preserving
Speaker 1: milk for like an extra day or two. It's very
Speaker 1: mild taste, pretty milky, Okay, Soft driping cheese is josh,
Speaker 1: they are semisoft. A lot of times they have a white,
Speaker 1: bloomy rind. And we're talking brie a little more flavorful
Speaker 1: and buttery but still pretty mild. Yeah. So the rind
Speaker 1: on breeze specifically, or any kind of bloomy rind cheese
Speaker 1: is made from bacteria. Right, There's a lot of bacteria
Speaker 1: going on with cheese, right. Well, they they just rub
Speaker 1: bacteria on the outside of the cheese, um, maybe some salt,
Speaker 1: and the bacteria starts to rot the cheese effectively from
Speaker 1: the outside in. So that's what the that's what the
Speaker 1: rind is. Some people say you should eat the rind
Speaker 1: because it is cheese, but it's bacteria laden cheese. I
Speaker 1: eat the rind, do you. I actually don't really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I dive right into that. That Brie and um Brie,
Speaker 1: as far as smell goes, is one of the milder
Speaker 1: um bloomy rind cheeses. Most bloomy rind cheeses and most
Speaker 1: um soft ripe and cheeses are the stinky ones, like stilton,
Speaker 1: which is the king of English cheeses, Stilton, Limburger, rogue
Speaker 1: fort um. Yeah. All right, so now we are at
Speaker 1: wash rind. Those are the stinkiest of cheese is Limburger.
Speaker 1: And if we mentioned some of these is because they
Speaker 1: overlap into different categories. Wash rind means they usually have
Speaker 1: as a reddish orange rind, and the stink comes from
Speaker 1: washing it most times in liquid like brine or wine
Speaker 1: or beer. Yeah, makes it stinky. You might make a
Speaker 1: wheel of cheese, if it's a soft ripened cheese, and
Speaker 1: just throw it in like a brine bath and leave
Speaker 1: it for maybe six days per side. It's gonna float
Speaker 1: on top, and then you flip it, leave it for
Speaker 1: another six days and you've got it washed, and that's
Speaker 1: it stinks because of the molden bacteria that grows because
Speaker 1: of that wash. Yeah, and the beer and wine bath.
Speaker 1: Um also came from the introductions of cheese to monks.
Speaker 1: He said, Hey, we make beer, we make wine. It's
Speaker 1: kind of what we contribute to the world. Plus you've
Speaker 1: got these caves, so um, you know that you can
Speaker 1: have a cocktailed party without cheese exactly, So there you go.
Speaker 1: It comes from natural rind moving on is uh heavier
Speaker 1: than most of other types of cheeses. It's aged usually
Speaker 1: because not all cheese is aged. A lot of them
Speaker 1: are made from raw milk. And again English stilton and
Speaker 1: chevroy our natural rind cheesus that's when the rind forms naturally. Yes, correct. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: so rind, I guess I should correct myself. The stinky
Speaker 1: ones almost always have some sort of bacterial induced rind,
Speaker 1: whether it's hastened along by washing or it just happens naturally.
Speaker 1: If you got a rind usually going. If you have
Speaker 1: a moldy rind, you're gonna have a stinkier cheese. Okay, okay, yes, um?
Speaker 1: And then where are we chuck? Blue vein? Blue vein,
Speaker 1: that's rope for it. Gorgon zola maytag blue. It's um.
Speaker 1: By the way, do you like these? I love blue cheese.
Speaker 1: Love love blue vein cheese. Yeah, don't eat it all
Speaker 1: day long. It's exactly what it sounds like. Everybody's seen it.
Speaker 1: You know. You get a hunk of this and it's
Speaker 1: just like crumbling and it looks deteriorated. But that that
Speaker 1: blue or the green, the veins in it, it's mold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty pretty healthy active live mold too, very tart like
Speaker 1: that's that's one of the cheeses that makes my jaw
Speaker 1: just go. Do you eat it as a dessert cheese?
Speaker 1: Uh No. I don't do a ton of dessert cheeses.
Speaker 1: Sometimes if I'm at you know, a restaurant that has
Speaker 1: a nice dessert cheese menu. But I just you know,
Speaker 1: I like the cheese and wine thing. We'll get to
Speaker 1: that though, okay. Um. And then lastly, well it's third
Speaker 1: to lastly, we've got um. The pressed cheese is cooked
Speaker 1: and uncooked, right, So uncooked cheese is cheddar cheese, good
Speaker 1: old cheddar, just that orange block of cheese, Um is
Speaker 1: uncooked And cheddar is actually the name of a process
Speaker 1: of making cheese. Cheddaring is taking the curds and just
Speaker 1: pressing them down on top of one another until you
Speaker 1: squeeze all the way out. Yeah, and these all all
Speaker 1: these pressed cheeses are really dry because you're just getting
Speaker 1: you're pressing the way out, like you said, and that's
Speaker 1: the liquid. So it's gonna be much dryer like your
Speaker 1: hard parmesano reggiano cheddar. And and also um, as a
Speaker 1: side note, cheese orange cheese like orange cheddar. You know
Speaker 1: how it's like brilliantly orange. Sometimes you're like that can't
Speaker 1: possibly be a real orange? What's going on there? Apparently
Speaker 1: back in the day, uh, in the spring and summer.
Speaker 1: This is the fact of the show for me, is it?
Speaker 1: I think? So? I would say the thirty three pounds
Speaker 1: per person. That's the gross fact to the show. But
Speaker 1: if you want to it's elebrate cheese at a cocktail party.
Speaker 1: Just say what Josh is about to say, I think
Speaker 1: you should take this now, I think you should okay. Um.
Speaker 1: Back in the day, if you had your flock out
Speaker 1: of sheep or goats or cows, and it was spring
Speaker 1: or summer, they were chewing grass. When they ate grass,
Speaker 1: they were ingesting a lot of beta carotene, right, okay,
Speaker 1: which lent a lot of that stuff to the milk,
Speaker 1: which ultimately lent a lot of it to the cheese,
Speaker 1: which ultimately died at orange. And in the in the
Speaker 1: winter months, they were eating hay, which made kind of
Speaker 1: for paler wand looking cheese. It might have tasted as good,
Speaker 1: but people tended to prefer orange cheese. Uh. It just
Speaker 1: they just thought it was better. So over time people say, well,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna start dyeing all of our cheese orange.
Speaker 1: And that's where it came from. And to this day,
Speaker 1: apparently it's just an open secret that among cheesemakers you
Speaker 1: dye your cheese orange if you're making an orange cheese.
Speaker 1: Fact of the show yes, beta carotene, grass, summer spring history. So,
Speaker 1: like we said, those are the press. Cheese is green
Speaker 1: air regiano. They're all pressed. It can be cooked or uncooked.
Speaker 1: Cheddar is uncooked, right, yes, yeah, But so if you
Speaker 1: take the curds and you you just press them and
Speaker 1: that's uncooked pressed obviously enough. If you cook the curds
Speaker 1: and then press them, that's cooked press and that's like
Speaker 1: grey air, Gouda yeah, Parmesan, yeah, parmegian, provolone, the pasta
Speaker 1: filada alright um. And then processed cheese we have to mention.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're going down the cheese chain. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Processed cheese technically again is not a cheese. It's a
Speaker 1: byproduct of the process that can have cheese scraps, can
Speaker 1: have whey and cream and water, gums, dies, other ingredients.
Speaker 1: You can work your way further down to easy cheese. Yeah,
Speaker 1: cheese whiz velvita. You know when a cheese doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be refrigerated that it's like and it comes out
Speaker 1: of a propellant. Yeah. I was gonna say if if
Speaker 1: you have cheese and a can, that's a big giveaway.
Speaker 1: Using sodium citrate, sodium phosphate, calcium phosphate, sorbic acid, sodium alginate, apple,
Speaker 1: I don't even know how to pronounce us apple, carrotinal,
Speaker 1: and auto. These are all things in easy Cheese. Cheese
Speaker 1: isn't easy though, so I think that should be your
Speaker 1: other giveaway. Cheese takes time. Yes, it's not easy, although
Speaker 1: you think it's easy. Although there is such a product
Speaker 1: is easy cheese, I believe. No, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That's the stuff in they can that you scored out
Speaker 1: onto a cracker. So that's easy Cheese. That's I mean,
Speaker 1: that is the brand name. Well, what's the one where
Speaker 1: the cheese is. It's like a little plastic train. The
Speaker 1: cheese is on one, other crackers around the other, and
Speaker 1: there's like that little red plastic spreader spreader. Yeah, that's uh,
Speaker 1: I mean that's some sort of process cheese, which is
Speaker 1: technically not cheese. Um, So there you go. And also,
Speaker 1: so you can make cheese from pretty much any kind
Speaker 1: of milk, like traditionally you've got cow, goat, sheep, buffalo, buffalo,
Speaker 1: but you can also make camel cheese and horse cheese
Speaker 1: and moose cheese. And I haven't had any of those
Speaker 1: anything with nipples. That's lactating. You can go ahead and
Speaker 1: milk and make cheese come even just the little cat
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, camel cheese. I'm interested to try that,
Speaker 1: so maybe some day. So I don't know if anybody
Speaker 1: should try to mail that to us though, camel cheese
Speaker 1: and the mail I don't think so. Um So, speaking
Speaker 1: of lactating, right, yeah, let's talk about how cheese is made, Chuck, well, Josh,
Speaker 1: it's there's a lot of different ways to make cheese,
Speaker 1: depending on what kind of cheese like. It gets very specific.
Speaker 1: Obviously we can't say that you do this for two
Speaker 1: hours in Agia for this long. But there are four
Speaker 1: main stages, uh, just curdling or coagulating of the milk,
Speaker 1: shaping of the kurds, draining of the kurds, salting, washing
Speaker 1: and seeding and then maturing and then we can get
Speaker 1: more detailed right now, and somewhere in there is the
Speaker 1: running of the bulls. So cheese, I'm sorry. The milk
Speaker 1: comes in, it's got to be heated to a specific temperature, yes,
Speaker 1: because again milk is nothing but curds and whey, right,
Speaker 1: you want to separate these. That's the first step. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the way to separate them is to create lactic acid.
Speaker 1: Milk is chuck full of lactose. Yes, but for it
Speaker 1: to lose it stability. It's a type of sugar, it's
Speaker 1: a milk sugar. But for that for milk to lose
Speaker 1: its its stability and break into curds, which are globby,
Speaker 1: semi solid masses and way, which is like basically like
Speaker 1: milky water, you need to convert the lactose to lactic acid.
Speaker 1: So apparently lactose of milk sugar holds everything together and
Speaker 1: it converted to lactic acid. You introduce bacteria. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a few different ways you can do it. Uh, it
Speaker 1: could be lemon juice or vinegar, or it can be
Speaker 1: an actual bacterial culture and it doesn't take much of this.
Speaker 1: I saw the dirty Jobs micro I mean they had
Speaker 1: I think it was a five thousand pound batch of
Speaker 1: cheese that they were making this huge vat of milk
Speaker 1: and he added what looked like about the size of
Speaker 1: this mug of bacteria culture to it. Yeah, so it
Speaker 1: goes a long way. Well, there's a lot to them.
Speaker 1: There's a whole lot going on there. Yeah. So um,
Speaker 1: if you do use bacteria You're probably going to use
Speaker 1: either a thermophilic, which is a heat loving bacteria, or
Speaker 1: a mesophilic, which is like a kind of a warm
Speaker 1: tepid um temperature bacteria. Right, But either way, they're going
Speaker 1: to go in there and they're going to go to
Speaker 1: town on the lactose and convert as a byproduct lactic acid. Right.
Speaker 1: So then all of a sudden you have curdled milk.
Speaker 1: That's step one done. Step two is where that legend
Speaker 1: about that shepherd comes in. Yeah, with rennet, Yes, yes, rennitation.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's what is rent rennet is.
Speaker 1: Enzymes are enzymes from the stomach lining of the cow
Speaker 1: or a sheep, or a goat, well, a young one,
Speaker 1: a kid, if you will, or a calf. Well, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to some old cow's stomach lining any well,
Speaker 1: it's not, it's not, it's not necessarily there anyway. The
Speaker 1: whole reason that this enzyme is in there is so
Speaker 1: a young cow can break down mother's milk and um
Speaker 1: digest it. Exactly so when you add it to milk, Josh,
Speaker 1: it makes the caseine into kurds. And caseine is one
Speaker 1: of the proteins of milk and way is the other one. Gotcha, gotcha? Okay,
Speaker 1: and it is casing, so look that up. Well, there's
Speaker 1: other types of rennet to. Actually there's vegetable rennet everything
Speaker 1: from like sunflowers and ivy too, papaya and mallow. But
Speaker 1: I don't know if the taste is the same. I
Speaker 1: guess it is. I'm sure it's not the same. And
Speaker 1: I've also seen that papaia and pineapple doesn't work as well. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: And then if you use one like stinging nettle, stinging
Speaker 1: nettle works really well, but you have to basically create
Speaker 1: like a brine that you introduce into the cheese, so
Speaker 1: it affects the flavor. So you can only use it
Speaker 1: for certain kinds of cheese. But yes, if you are
Speaker 1: a vegetarian, there is such thing as vegetarian cheese out there.
Speaker 1: And if you're not a vegetarian, there is calf's stomach
Speaker 1: in your cheese. Yeah, but just a tiny bit. Apparently
Speaker 1: a thumbnail full is like the rule of thumb. Excuse
Speaker 1: the pine. So they kept coagulation period. It depends on
Speaker 1: what kind of cheese you're making, but sometimes it's as
Speaker 1: little as thirty minutes. Sometimes it's as much as thirty
Speaker 1: six hours. But it's sets. It's like chocolate mouse, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it looks set, but it's sort of separate underneath,
Speaker 1: like the top is solid, and then you've got the
Speaker 1: way underneath. But if you apparently, well, there's plenty of
Speaker 1: way still left in the stuff that's set to. But
Speaker 1: I guess if you stick your finger in there, this
Speaker 1: is what I've read. If you stick your finger in
Speaker 1: there and it comes out clean, then it's set. It's
Speaker 1: like a pumpkin pie exactly, except you don't eat your finger. Um.
Speaker 1: So when you've got this thing set, you cut it
Speaker 1: with a thing called the harp, which is with a
Speaker 1: curb cutting knife. Yeah, it looks sort of like, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess there's different ones, but it's I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of them may mayde had a fishing line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you're just, yeah, like a harper guitar strings,
Speaker 1: you're just kind of gently passing it through, breaking it up,
Speaker 1: and you're cutting it usually into like little cubes, half
Speaker 1: inch cubes, that kind of thing, and that alone releases
Speaker 1: the way, right, so you drain the way off until
Speaker 1: you have just the curds and then you cut you
Speaker 1: either use large curds, smaller curds. You may cut the
Speaker 1: curds up some more, you may use them as they are.
Speaker 1: Right then I think form mazzarella. That's about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to keep the curds separate, though, like kurds
Speaker 1: want to join back together. And so it's a I
Speaker 1: mean maybe the machines, but it's smaller dairies. You have
Speaker 1: like six or eight people in there just turning the
Speaker 1: stuff up with their hands between their fingers. Yeah, constantly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's the hardest part. I think. Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: you got that, you got the curds, separated them the
Speaker 1: way um, you're getting more and more way out. And
Speaker 1: then you might cook the curds. If it's a cooked
Speaker 1: um type of cheese, like cooked pressed like gouda, um,
Speaker 1: you might just start mashing them together. If it's cheddar um,
Speaker 1: and then that stuff the bacteria for cheese is like
Speaker 1: stilton or rope ford or whatever. The bacteria that you
Speaker 1: used as a starter starts to come into play because
Speaker 1: now it's done being cooked, it's some being heated or warmed,
Speaker 1: and the bacteria is going to start to thrive because
Speaker 1: you're you're giving it a temperature um. You're putting in
Speaker 1: a climate I should say where bacteria loves like cheese
Speaker 1: is like when you first make cheese, it's not very tasty,
Speaker 1: it's kind of rubbery. You need to if it is
Speaker 1: a rip and cheese, you need to let it ripen.
Speaker 1: And ripening is basically the further conversion of um lactosetalactic
Speaker 1: acid by this bacteria over a period of like weeks
Speaker 1: or months or years um, and that gives the cheese
Speaker 1: its flavor. It's stink too, but that's what that's what
Speaker 1: gives cheese its flavor, is that the activation of this bacteria.
Speaker 1: That's right. Another thing that helps with the flavor, and
Speaker 1: all cheese will have a salt, and salt does a
Speaker 1: few things. It speeds up the drying process, It enhances
Speaker 1: the flavor, It helps the rind to form if if
Speaker 1: you need a rind, and it slows down the microbial growth,
Speaker 1: which is good. But all all cheese has salt, and
Speaker 1: it's at a different times too from what I've seen,
Speaker 1: depending on what kind of cheese you're making. And sometimes
Speaker 1: it's straight up salt. Sometimes it's a brine brinye wash.
Speaker 1: So it all depends on what you're doing. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: they make a rope for it again. Um, they just
Speaker 1: take the wheel of cheese and rub salt on it
Speaker 1: on the outside of it until all the pores are closed,
Speaker 1: and then that creates the rhynd in the beginning of it. Um.
Speaker 1: So you've got your cheese ripe, and you've got it
Speaker 1: sitting in a cave like cave like environment, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: temperature and humidity are very important down to the degree
Speaker 1: in percentage, very controlled. Yes, So before you stick it
Speaker 1: in the cave, chuck, you might want to needle it,
Speaker 1: depending on what kind of cheese you're making. Right. Is
Speaker 1: it in the mold yet? Yeah? Okay, yes, it's in
Speaker 1: the mold. It's pressed. Uh. If you're needling it, you
Speaker 1: probably I don't know if you started to create the
Speaker 1: rind or not yet, maybe you probably would with needling
Speaker 1: in particular. Um, blue vein cheese is your favorite. They
Speaker 1: really get their kickstart from this mold. This bacteria that
Speaker 1: um loves oxygen. So you have to poke holes in
Speaker 1: the cheese, little tiny holes. This is needling, and the
Speaker 1: bring the oxygen to the to the bacteria so they
Speaker 1: can create the mold. Needling is not a nice thing
Speaker 1: to do, unless you're making cheese, that's true, or sewing.
Speaker 1: So what you're doing is actually bringing the oxygen to
Speaker 1: the mold so it can turn into that great um
Speaker 1: blue pin cheese, which is really you realize it's rotted dairy.
Speaker 1: Is what a blue vein cheese is? I know exactly
Speaker 1: what it is. You don't like it, No, I do, Okay.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to make sure you knew you were
Speaker 1: getting into. So that's uh, some of them, I mean
Speaker 1: some of the cheese. You can get our hairy moldy.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of casu marzo? Okay, prepare for this man.
Speaker 1: Casu marzoo is made and illegal in Sardinia, Italy. Okay.
Speaker 1: And it's this type of cheese. It's a sheep's milk cheese,
Speaker 1: which makes it a pecorina because it's in Italy. It's
Speaker 1: what they call sheep's milk cheeses um. And during the
Speaker 1: cheesemaking process, the cheesemakers, the underground cheesemakers, allow this type
Speaker 1: of fly called the cheese skipper, to lay eggs which
Speaker 1: become maggots in the cheese. The maggots crawled through the cheese,
Speaker 1: eating the milk fat and um, creating an enzyme that
Speaker 1: putrefies the cheese, not just not just stinking it up molding,
Speaker 1: but putrefying it. Now, if you and apparently it's absolutely delicious,
Speaker 1: you can't necessarily compare it to a taste of I've
Speaker 1: read a couple of things on it, and everybody says
Speaker 1: it's a sensation. It can burn the tongue, right, it's
Speaker 1: so acidic. Um. But if you are really to eat
Speaker 1: Kasu marzoo the right way, you eat it with the
Speaker 1: live maggots on it. And these maggots can jump six
Speaker 1: inches off of the cheese. So if you can't stomach
Speaker 1: the idea of eating live mag gets or don't want
Speaker 1: like digestive problems for the rest of your life, um,
Speaker 1: you will put a little bit of the cheese that
Speaker 1: you're gonna eat in a paper bag, hold it up tight,
Speaker 1: and wait for the popping sound of the maggots jumping
Speaker 1: off the cheese to stop, which means they're all dead. Awesome,
Speaker 1: then you can eat the cheese. Would you eat that totally?
Speaker 1: I would eat it with the dead maggots. I don't.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't try it. Um. I mean, it's got to
Speaker 1: taste good. It's not like they're eating something disgusting. I mean,
Speaker 1: it sounds disgusting, but the tastes disgusting. No, I would.
Speaker 1: I would definitely eat it without the maggots if I
Speaker 1: had to. If the only way to try it was
Speaker 1: with the live magots, I would. I would not be
Speaker 1: happy about it. I would strongly prefer eating it without
Speaker 1: the maggots. Okay, yeah, I just want to know. So
Speaker 1: it's Kazu marsy Man, in my opinion, the coolest cheese
Speaker 1: ever created. And now that's just like cool cheese stuff.
Speaker 1: How to make it what it is? Types? But if
Speaker 1: you're asking practicality, guys, where's my practicality in my daily
Speaker 1: cheese life, my cheesy live life, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: the etymology of that, I look that up. They think
Speaker 1: that it's ironic reversal from nineteenth century British slang when
Speaker 1: cheesey meant fine and showy, So they think that's an
Speaker 1: ironic rehearsal. I don't know about that. I think some
Speaker 1: sorority girls just said it and it caught wildfire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like one of those kind of yeah words
Speaker 1: like cheesy. It was just it was sitting there waiting
Speaker 1: for it to be picked up and used. Although it
Speaker 1: did in in the UH apparently in the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: that meant cheap and inferior as slang in the United States,
Speaker 1: something was cheesy and then it died for a little while.
Speaker 1: Who knows, anyway, I was curious about that. So cutting
Speaker 1: the cheese, josh, there are ways you should cut the cheese,
Speaker 1: and you would laugh at that depends on the shape
Speaker 1: and size. And this is all from cheese dot com.
Speaker 1: By the way, your cheese resource on the web. Um,
Speaker 1: you divide the cheese, uh, so that you get an
Speaker 1: equal share of the inside and the outside, if you
Speaker 1: want to do it properly. Makes sense. Round cheeses are
Speaker 1: cutting wedges like a cake cheese bought, and slices should
Speaker 1: be cut lengthwise, not across, and tall truckles are easier
Speaker 1: if sliced horizontally. Truckles, Yeah, it's like like a tall
Speaker 1: barrel cheese. It's like taller than it is wide, not
Speaker 1: like a big wheel. So it's a cylindrical cheese. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's a truckle. Matching cheese and wine. There are no
Speaker 1: hard and fast rules, but generally wider and fresher cheeses
Speaker 1: go with crisper and fruitier wines. You're not a big
Speaker 1: wine guy, no I am. I I enjoy wine with cheese. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm into h ross that's right right now. Uh, smooth,
Speaker 1: fatty cheese goes well with smooth, oily wine wine with
Speaker 1: like gloves of fat floating on the wine. Though it's
Speaker 1: an oily wine. Well, I can't think I went off
Speaker 1: the top of my head. But an oily wine, yeah, huh,
Speaker 1: I've never heard of it. Sweet wine Josh James laughing.
Speaker 1: Contrast with highly acidic cheese, white wines usually go better
Speaker 1: than red wines, even though I love my red wine
Speaker 1: with the cheese. Um, dry fresh wines are ideally suited
Speaker 1: to soft cheese. Goat cheese, dry white, dry fresh red okay,
Speaker 1: ideally suited to soft cheeses. You can also match cheese
Speaker 1: with beer insider obviously, and they say to try regional
Speaker 1: uh combinations, Like, if the wine is from a region
Speaker 1: and cheese is from a region, chances are they probably
Speaker 1: go well together. That's a good idea. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: good rule to follow. So I have a piece of
Speaker 1: advice based on my own experience. There is nothing better
Speaker 1: you can do for like an hour or a half hour,
Speaker 1: whatever you can get away with on like a Saturday
Speaker 1: afternoon when you have the time, than to go to
Speaker 1: a place that has like a real live cheese monger
Speaker 1: who knows what they're talking about and going up to
Speaker 1: them and saying, Hey, I really like this, um, this
Speaker 1: kind of block cheese. I've been eating for a while,
Speaker 1: but I'm ready to expand my horizon. So can you
Speaker 1: introduce me to some and watch their eyes light up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll be uh, they'll be very happy. They usually,
Speaker 1: you know, they'll cut you some samples, they'll kind of
Speaker 1: walk you through, and um, it's not ridiculously expensive. I
Speaker 1: mean when when you look at the per pound price,
Speaker 1: you're like thirty five bucks, but you're not buying a pound,
Speaker 1: and you just buy like a quarter of a pound.
Speaker 1: Usually it's about the least you can get, but you're
Speaker 1: you still lasts quite a while. Um. So I strongly
Speaker 1: recommend if you're sitting there eating a block of orange
Speaker 1: cheese right now, go out and like introduce yourself to
Speaker 1: the world of cheese, because there are some really awesome
Speaker 1: cheeses out there. There are many good ones, and when
Speaker 1: you buy these cheeses. You might bring them home and
Speaker 1: the next day you found that they're all hard or
Speaker 1: they're not uh like they were when you bought it,
Speaker 1: And that's because you didn't store it properly. And uh.
Speaker 1: There are some tips here Josh for storage from cheese
Speaker 1: dot com. Unpasteurized cheese should be not sliced until it's purchased.
Speaker 1: So if you see it in a place and it's
Speaker 1: like sliced up, don't get it because that's wrong. Keep
Speaker 1: the cheese in the condition in which it matures so hard,
Speaker 1: semi hard and semi soft cheeses should be stored in
Speaker 1: temperatures from about eight to thirteen degrees celsius. What is
Speaker 1: that Fairrenheigh, I don't know. There's conversion tables on the web.
Speaker 1: Keep the cheese in wax paper and put it in
Speaker 1: a loose fitting food bag because you don't want it
Speaker 1: to loose humidity, but you still want to have air.
Speaker 1: You don't want to dry out, so you gotta keep
Speaker 1: that balance. Blue cheeses, you should wrap really all over
Speaker 1: because it'll jump onto other foods in your refrigerator, which
Speaker 1: you don't want the mold well, and it will also
Speaker 1: uh in fact, the other foods with flavors that you
Speaker 1: might not want. You don't want blue cheese eggs and
Speaker 1: you don't want your eggs to smell like your blue cheese,
Speaker 1: which makes sense. You should take the chilled cheeses out
Speaker 1: of the fridge about an hour to two hours before
Speaker 1: serving it. And uh wrap soft cheese is loosely. You
Speaker 1: don't want to wrap it in like plastic wrap really tight. Again,
Speaker 1: they recommend wax paper and like a loose zip block
Speaker 1: type thing. Did you anything else? Um, you know, I've
Speaker 1: got random facts. Monterey Jack comes from David Jack who
Speaker 1: lived in Monterey, California. Pretty easy, and it's one of
Speaker 1: only four American Native American cheeses. I think it's Colby
Speaker 1: Jack Brick and the native American cheese well native like
Speaker 1: from Oklahoma, it's not from Europe or wherever. Colby Jack,
Speaker 1: Jack Brick and Cheddar. Yeah. I think of the four
Speaker 1: American cheese and the US US. The number one cheese
Speaker 1: that we produced in the US American cheese Toto cheese.
Speaker 1: That's number two mozzarella. Probably because of all the pizza.
Speaker 1: That would definitely explain all the cheese consumption too. In
Speaker 1: Wisconsin besides, they're awesome dairy land. They had a bunch
Speaker 1: of immigrants from uh, Switzerland and Germany and Belgium and
Speaker 1: France that settled there, So that's kind of why it's.
Speaker 1: The Swiss in particular created the heart of the cheese
Speaker 1: trade in Wisconsin. They were doing it for themselves starting
Speaker 1: in like the eighteen thirties and or the eighteen forties,
Speaker 1: and by the eighteen seventies they had they were selling
Speaker 1: outside of the state, So it happened pretty quick. The
Speaker 1: industrious Swiss. They are industrious with their knives and cheese.
Speaker 1: They go well together, I know. Uh. And finally, Josh,
Speaker 1: I would invest some money if you have any left
Speaker 1: over into craft, if you've got some despair chains laying around.
Speaker 1: Because Asia is loving their cheese all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, a continent typically not very cheesy, not
Speaker 1: much Asian food has cheese. It's probably due to the
Speaker 1: rise of the moneyed class in China. Well, it's due
Speaker 1: to a rise in pizza and cheeseburgers specifically. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: loving pizza now and apparently South Korea is the biggest
Speaker 1: buyer and they're like they've literally doubled and tripled their
Speaker 1: cheese imports in the past couple of years, so big
Speaker 1: cheese eating going on over there now. So that's it
Speaker 1: for cheese. I guess if you want to know more
Speaker 1: about cheese, there's a really good article on the site.
Speaker 1: Um really, honestly, it's a good initial primer to get
Speaker 1: you ready to go to you know, really learn how
Speaker 1: to make it yourself. You can just type plain old
Speaker 1: cheese ch E s E in the search bar at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, which means now it's time
Speaker 1: for listener mail. Spammy listener mail. That's what I'm calling
Speaker 1: this just heard your space podcast. I worked at the
Speaker 1: Hormel Institute for six months after my PhD. You made
Speaker 1: a brief aside about the smell. Let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: There's like nothing on earth. On days that I followed
Speaker 1: the pigs to work, I would anticipate smelling a very
Speaker 1: pungent version of newly dead flesh. Then the next day
Speaker 1: I would be overwhelmed by the smell at half cooked meat.
Speaker 1: It's most powerful smell, and two years on I can
Speaker 1: still smell it. You could not escape it anywhere in
Speaker 1: the building, even in the back room of the lab.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the recession boosting sales. I can attest that
Speaker 1: was the case. Thankfully. I was living upstream from the
Speaker 1: factory though, so my house didn't smell of spam, but
Speaker 1: large portions of the town do actually smell of spam,
Speaker 1: particularly on certain production days. All joking aside, I was
Speaker 1: in love with Minnesota. I loved living in Austin and
Speaker 1: it's people, and would love to live there again in
Speaker 1: the future. I never made it to the museum they
Speaker 1: give away spamples, but local restaurants had uh, spam burgers,
Speaker 1: even though she didn't eat any. So it does think
Speaker 1: as bad as you think, Josh, I can't imagine it.
Speaker 1: What did you see? Um? The other person who's who's
Speaker 1: moved to Hawaiian has been documenting. Yeah, spam displays. One
Speaker 1: of the things was macadamia nuts, but spam flavored macadamia nuts.
Speaker 1: Like to try that. I want to as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: whoever that is or anyone in Hawaii, if you could
Speaker 1: send us some spam and macadamia nuts, that would be good.
Speaker 1: So that's from Elizabeth, and she has a post doctorial
Speaker 1: research associate in the bio department at New Mass Amherst,
Speaker 1: New mass Smart lady. That's a Pixies song, right it is? Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: If you want to send Chuck and I a sample
Speaker 1: of your cheese, especially camel cheese, we want it. Email
Speaker 1: us and ask us where to send it to. Right,
Speaker 1: Or if you have a cheese story, we want to
Speaker 1: hear it. This is so wide open, there's got to
Speaker 1: be something good in there. Send us an email to
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Mhm