WEBVTT - Why Are There So Many Cheese Crimes? 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.519 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:07.720 and iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:15.120 Guess what mango was that? Well, today we're doing a 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.239 show on cheese crimes. I've been excited for this one, 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:20.200 So I've got a question for you to kick things off. 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:22.320 So what's the first thing that comes to mind when 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.239 I say cheese crime? Because there's so many things that 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:27.000 could come to mind. What comes to mind for you? 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.479 I know there's gonna be a pop quiz, Yeah, someone 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.599 committing a crime with cheese, like maybe blusheoning someone with 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:38.280 like a huge wheel of parmesan and then eating that parmesan. 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:40.640 So there's a murder weapon. Oh, that would be like 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:41.520 the perfect crime. 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.320 Yeah, or maybe just using cheese whiz in a sandwich, 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:46.720 which is kind of a cheese crime. 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:48.640 I feel like, out, I look the way you just 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.479 quickly planned to murder around a wheel of cheese and 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.080 then you dissed the giant part of Philadelphia culture. This 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.279 is all in the first minute of the show. But 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:00.200 the thing is, cheese is reportedly the most shoplift did 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.440 food in the world. Plus it's the target of all 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:06.120 sorts of craziness from stealing and grifting to tyst and 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:07.240 even smuggling. 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.319 So this whole episode is kind of just a bad 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:12.280 setup for a nacho cheese jokes. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:14.920 That's the whole reason. That's why I'm excited for this. 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:38.560 All right, let's dive in. Welcome back to Part Time Genius. 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:40.560 I'm Will and as always, I'm here with my good 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.480 friend Mango, and somewhere behind that big booth is our 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.720 pal Dylan, who has a giant can of easy cheese 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.360 and a plate full of crackers that actually Mango, I 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.440 think he's preparing for us. The guy's just so generous. 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.559 I love that he made us a snack. I guess 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.400 he didn't want us to be angry. But speaking of 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:00.559 cheese crimes, I know this is a little off topic, 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.800 but can you retell that story about that time you 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:05.720 stopped at a gas station and was. 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.639 So I didn't think we were going to go there, 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:10.760 but yeah, so I was in a hurry to a 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.799 meeting one day, and for whatever reason, it had been 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.160 an ongoing joke about grabbing a hot dog from a 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.480 gas station with a group of friends. I truly was 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:21.800 in a rush, was filling up with gas and I 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:23.040 was like, you know what, I'm going to do it. 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:25.080 I'm going to get a gas station hot dog because 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.640 I was angry, and so I grabbed one. I go 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:31.200 out to the car, finished, you know, filling up the tank. 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:34.560 I take a bite of This is going to sound 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.760 like terrible. I took a bite of the hot dog 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:42.639 and suddenly I feel something like hot, like squirt the 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.240 back of my throat, which I hate to even say 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.560 those words. And I looked and the hot dog had 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:52.160 been cheese injected. And I had heard of these before, 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.000 and I know that they exist. I have no interest 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:56.960 in them, but I also just I want to heads 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:58.760 up when my hot dog is going to have cheese 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.720 in it, and I didn't know, and so, needless to say, 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:03.799 I did not finish the hot dog. It is the 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:06.800 last time I've had a gas station hot dog. So yeah, 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:07.640 that's the story. 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:09.800 It's a good warning to all our listeners to check 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.720 out the label on the hot you always find out 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.640 whether it's cheese injected. Yeah, so let's get started. I 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:18.600 know the reason we chose this episode is that we 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:21.800 both heard that shoplifting fact about cheese, like that's the 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.360 most shoplifted food. And I'd also heard about this parmesan mafia. 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.480 So I was curious what the real story was there. 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.600 But why don't we start with just a quick list 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:34.119 of how expensive cheese can be. So here's a quick 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.560 top three of expensive cheeses I found on a site 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.320 called Chef's Pencil. So number one is Pool, which is 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.200 a donkey cheese. Talked about this before, but just to 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:45.640 get a sense of how expensive it is. For comparison, 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:49.000 grocery store cheddars can go for about six dollars a pound, 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.280 Mozzarella might go for like eight dollars a pound, but 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.560 pool goes for six hundred dollars. 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:55.160 Oh my god. 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.680 And the reason is it's mostly made of donkey milk. Right, 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.720 It's sixty percent donkey milk forty percent goat milk. So 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.600 donkeys are doing the heavy lifting there. And apparently, unlike goats, 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:09.280 donkeys are stingy milk givers, like you have to milk 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.360 them three times a day. They only give milk six 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.840 months of the year, so production is really tricky. Plus 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.200 there's only one farm that makes pool, and it's in 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.440 the donkey reserve in Serbia, right. 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.640 Right, you know, for whatever reason, I have not seen 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.120 this six hundred dollars pound cheese in the Pickley Wiggly 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:28.880 in Alabama. But my question is is it any good? 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.080 Yeah? I mean I love that you're asking me, like 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.040 I have like caviar and pool breath this morning. But 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.200 so if you do a quick internet search, it's supposedly 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.680 nutty and earthy, and it tastes like manchigo. It doesn't 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.720 sound like that special. But I actually read this review 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:50.159 from this cheese blogger, Missed cheesemonger, who's a cheese connoisseur 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.200 from San Francisco, and it immediately made me want to 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:53.560 try some. 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:54.960 So this is what she says. 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.880 Quote. Once I took a bite, I understood what made 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.679 this cheese special. There were so many layers a flavor, 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.239 from demi cell butter at the foundation to the middle 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:07.279 flavors of sweet grasses to the extremely heady floral notes 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:10.720 that lingered in a ridiculously long finish. This was no 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.680 ordinary fresh cheese. It was aromatic to the extreme. I 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.119 might as well have been inhaling the scent of milk 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:21.600 on a Serbian hillside. Texture Wise, it is not so unusual. Oh, 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:25.200 but that lingering, longing aftertaste, it was like nothing I 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:26.000 had ever tasted. 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.240 I actually just ordered some on Amazon while you were 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:29.839 talking about it. It sounded so appealing. 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:32.359 So she points out there are only about one hundred 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:34.919 jennies or female donkeys that can produce the milk for 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.839 the special cheese, and the fresh cheese is often best 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.520 eaten the day it's made, which I'm sure also drives 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:41.159 up that price. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.000 And actually that's the cheese that Djokovic was supposedly trying 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:45.320 to corner the market on, right. 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:47.800 Yeah, And you know, I heard so much about that. 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.520 It was basically this drummed up story that the producers 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.680 at the farm and a poorly sourced Daily Mail article 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.240 made up. But Djokovic apparently has no interest in a 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:58.599 monopoly on donkey cheese. 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:01.320 Okay, mainly tennis y okay, got it's all right? So 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.000 that's number one. What's number two on your list? Moose cheese, okay. 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:07.000 Which feels like it could use better branding than just 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:09.840 moose cheese. But it goes for five hundred dollars a pound, 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:11.000 and again it's. 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:12.960 The steel compared with some donkey. 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.960 Cheese, pretty laborious because you're trying to milk a twelve 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.280 hundred pound moose here It's made from a place called 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:23.080 the Elkhouse in Sweden, and according to Chef's pencil, all 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:27.479 the moose cheese comes from three moose named Goulan, Juna, 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.760 and Helga. Okay, Helga's cheese is my favorite, obviously. 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.520 Yeah, of course, of course, wow that is that's fascinating. 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:36.400 I do want to try both of those. And I 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:38.680 feel like all these cheeses are expensive because they're not 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:42.120 goat or cow cheeses. So I'm I'm predicting number three 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:43.400 is going to be elephant cheese. 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.200 Am I right? Well, no elephant cheese on my list. 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.040 But I do feel like the next few cheeses that 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.040 are listed across the internet as the most expensive cheeses 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.480 are kind of frauds. Like there's Stilt and Gold, which 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.440 is flecked with this edible gold leaf, which I don't 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.600 feel like it should count because it's almost like like saying, like, 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.760 I mean you the world's most expensive burger, and I 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.039 put truffles under a big matt something right, Like, it's 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.320 not really expensive on its own. But I'm going to 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:14.280 say Number three is Wyke Farm Cheddar. It's supposedly this 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:17.520 incredibly tasty cheddar. It sells for two hundred dollars a pound, 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:19.760 and the family that makes it has kept the recipe 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:21.560 of secret since eighteen sixty one. 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.120 Okay, all right, So at two hundred dollars a pound, 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:26.480 if you're stealing one of these giant wheels of cheddar, 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:28.840 you could make a lot of money off of that. 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:31.360 But doesn't it feel like stealing one of these super 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.640 expensive cheeses is almost like stealing a Picasso off the 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.240 wall of a museum, like it's worth a lot more. 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.680 But also someone is going to be looking for you. 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:42.920 Yeah, and there's some cheese detectives out there who specialize 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:44.840 in cheese thefts, which is pretty amazing. 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:46.800 I love that as a job. All right, I do 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:48.880 want to hear about that, But before we do, let's 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.520 talk about cheese's origins. So just a quick primer on this. 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.080 While we don't know the first instance of humans making cheese, 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.120 we do know that cheesemaking is related to the domestication 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:02.320 of milk producer animals, no surprise there, now that goes 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.680 back about eight to ten thousand years ago. You can 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.880 also find cheesemaking in Greek mythology, which is pretty interesting 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.120 to see. And there's evidence of cheese and cheesemaking that's 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.640 been found on Egyptian two murals. These date back probably 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.640 four thousands incredible. Yeah, it's a long time ago. But 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:22.160 the truth is cheese was probably discovered accidentally. 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.480 So I actually remember that bit because we did a 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.040 show about craft singles and we talked about how cheese, penicillin, 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:32.440 and the slinky were like the greatest accidental distoperies. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.160 Easy, easy, top three, all equally important. But there are 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.960 a few different theories of how we got cheese. It 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.440 could have been the practice of storing milk and containers 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.040 made from stomachs of animals. We've talked about that a 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:49.040 little bit which naturally contained this enzyme called rennet, and 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.080 that would cause the milk to coagulate it separates into 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.480 curds and whey. Now, another possibility is the practice of 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:59.200 salting curdled milk for preservation, or the addition of fruit 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.000 juices to milk, which would result in the curdling of 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:02.480 the milk. 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.840 It's kind of like how my kids accidentally make cheese 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:07.200 when they leave a carton of milk in the back 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.439 of the fridge. Cheae long, but I can't imagine eating that. 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:12.480 Now, It's not the type of thing Dylan I think 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:14.599 would serve on a ritz cracker. I don't seed on 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.280 the plate back there, but if you dump some salt 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.400 on that glop, you basically have early cheese. The Roman 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:25.200 Empire produced and traded hundreds of varieties of cheese, so 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:28.080 it was certainly an industry back then, and trade with 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:31.040 Europe could explain how the cheese got to Asia. But 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:33.560 there could have been parallel thinking at work here too, 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:37.560 the Tibetans, the Mongolians, They've also got this long history 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.600 of producing cheeses. And of course cheese has been produced 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:43.920 in America since the early seventeenth century, when the English 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.559 Puritans brought their knowledge of dairy farming and cheesemaking from 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:49.400 the Old World over to the colonies. 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.760 Right and now Americans are so obsessed with cheese that 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:56.120 we feel comfortable wearing like giant cheese hats on our 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:57.280 heads to sports games. 0:09:57.520 --> 0:09:59.920 I love those cheeseheats. I've always though about getting one. 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:04.120 I never have. But interestingly, Wisconsin didn't start out in 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.480 the cheese business really. This date was actually a leading 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.920 wheat supplier before the Civil War, but as crop eels 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.280 started to fail, Wisconsin farmers knew they needed to pivot 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.920 to something, and they pivoted to dairy. Now. At the 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.960 same time, settlers from New England and Ohio and New 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.920 York and other places in that region they started moving west, 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.199 as did the Europeans. So all of these folks start 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:29.600 bringing this interest in cheese and knowledge of cheese production 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.280 to the area. So the result is today that Wisconsin 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.800 produces more than a quarter of all domestic cheese in 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:37.280 the US. 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:38.520 I had no idea about that. 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.000 Yeah, cheese is of course a huge business, part of 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.800 why we're talking about it here. But the US cheese 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.800 retail market is growing and it's slated to reach twenty 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.480 seven point eight billion dollars by twenty twenty eight. 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:50.880 Wow. 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.480 The retail cheese sales in the UK are expected to 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.920 reach five point two billion euros by twenty twenty eight. 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:59.800 So obviously a huge amounts of money and it makes 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:01.880 on That's why cheese crime is a thing. 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.200 Yeah, and as far as commodities that are worth stealing, 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.720 cheese is ripe. But yeah, you like what I did there, 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.720 But think about it compared to the other dairy products. 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.640 It's durable and it's easy to transport. It doesn't melt 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.040 like ice cream or spill or leak or spoil as 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.240 fast as milk, and it's ubiquitous like it's in cuisines 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:24.520 around the world. People everywhere love cheese, which makes it 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.400 easier to sell. Plus, unlike guns or drugs, cheese is 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:33.000 mostly legal, which is a good segue into some cheese jackings. 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.120 This was a big thing in Italy back in two 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.439 thousand and six. Apparently gangs would lie in wait at 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.959 service stations on the Milan Bologna Motorway and as soon 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.000 as a truck driver would stop for coffee, they'd ambush them. 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:46.839 Yeah. 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:49.400 It kind of makes driving a cheese truck seem pretty dangerous. 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.400 Yeah. And in one instance, a driver was threatened by 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.040 four armed men and then tied up while his van 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:59.040 carrying three hundred wheels of cheese was driven away. The 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.560 cheese wheels were then taken to this industrial estate. They 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:03.760 were cut up and sold in stores. And this happened 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.520 for quite a while with different bands of criminals. In 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.240 twenty fifteen, a group of criminals were arrested in Moderna 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:15.480 for stealing roughly nine hundred thousand dollars worth of parmesan cheese. Yeah, 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.680 and according to the Italian news site Al Sol twenty four, 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.319 the criminals were so savvy that they stole over twenty 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.080 thirty nine wheels of parmesan reggiano cheese over the course 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:27.280 of roughly two years. 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.520 It feels so weird that there's basically this like Ocean's 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.560 eleven of cheese. I don't know, there's something fascinating about it, 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:35.679 but in general, it must be so hard to catch 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.400 a cheese thief because it's not like you can track 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:40.760 these like using GPS or anything like that. 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.200 Yeah, So producers and the Italian farmers union, which is 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:47.960 called Colderetti, are experimenting with microchips and they're hidden in 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.560 the crusts of the cheese, which means they are actually 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.000 more identifiable. They also have marketings burnt on the crust 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.080 so that you can help police track the stolen cheese. 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:01.199 But it's still a huge problem. A survey by Coldoretti 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.120 found that parmesan is the most shoplifted item in Italy. 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.000 Oh wow, it's a little different than here where it's 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:08.680 mostly like I would guess, batteries and deodorant or something 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:09.040 like that. 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.199 Yeah, but you know, we might need that deodorant because 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:16.400 we're also hard at work stealing cheese. It's not just Italy. 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.320 In twenty sixteen, seventy thousand pounds of cheese were stolen 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:24.160 from a cheese store in Germantown, Wisconsin and later recovered 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:28.480 in Milwaukee. Apparently the thieves i'mdoing was trying to sell 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.040 the cheese on the cheap, like they tried to hawk 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:33.480 their contraband cheese for just a dollar a pound. And 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.880 as you well know, no self respecting Wisconsin retailer would 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:41.839 expect to pay so total, and nor would they buy 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.280 the cheese without knowing its prominence. But you know, these 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:48.760 thefts they make the Wisconsin cheese community really really upset. 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:53.320 There's this guy, Tyson Wormheister, the co owner of Mars 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:56.720 Cheese Castle, and he said, a cheese like that not 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.160 available for use. It saddens me. 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:01.840 I feel like I need to know what Mars Cheese 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:02.560 Castle is. 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.440 It's a castle shaped restaurant specializing in cheese. 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.480 Okay, that sounds a bite right. Well, I know we 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:11.880 want to talk more about cheese crimes and of course 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.880 those cheese detectives that you teased earlier, but let's take 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:32.520 a quick break first. Welcome back to part time genius 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.840 where we're talking cheese crimes. So there are obviously lots 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.640 of these cheese stuff stories. There's this one from twenty 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.920 thirteen where a guy showed up to a manufacturer in Wisconsin, 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.280 forged a bunch of paperwork, then drove away with two 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:49.080 hundred thousand dollars worth of monster. There's a story from 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.360 France in twenty fifteen where thieves broke into a dairy 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:56.520 and stole one hundred wheels of specialty Conte cheese. They 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:01.600 boosted four tons four tons of cheese. And there's another 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.240 of these high stories from a seller in France where 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:09.240 seven hundred blocks of delicious Saint Nectar cheese were stolen. 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.560 It's amazing, I mean, just how much cheese these bandits 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:14.960 are taking off with. It's not a little bit of cheese. Yeah, 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:18.160 it's insane, which brings us to cheese detectives. This is 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.560 great piece on the Today Show site about this officer. 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:25.760 His name is Inspector Georgia Cappovanni, which sounds right for 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:26.720 a cheese detective. 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:29.480 And this is from two thousand and eight, so it's 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.080 a little dated, but the agency actually still exists. But 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.520 this is what the article says about him. Quote in 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:38.000 the Wild West of gastronomical ripoffs, men like Cappovanni are 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.280 a kind of sheriff. They're sworn judicial officers who can 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:46.720 demand admission to premises, examine documentation, and confiscate products at wholesalers, 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.040 warehouses or supermarket aisles. And according to the article, they 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.480 can even tote weapons if they want. It talks about 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.600 how Cappavanni and his men race around Europe protecting Italy's 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:59.240 very special products like matrella from Buffala is one, hams 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.480 from Parma or whatever. They'll go into what the article 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.720 describes as cathedrals of ham, the shops where the meat 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:08.120 is just air drying, and warehouses, and they'll poke the 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.280 hem with this special needle made from the shin bone 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:15.680 of a horse and that apparently releases these extraordinary aromas. 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.600 Then the inspector, who I guess is also a gormand 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:20.400 will sniff the needle to make sure it has that 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.360 special Parma proscudo scent. A friendly they see something like 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.920 a thousand Parma ham knockoffs in one of these raids. 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:29.920 And then how do they catch these folks? 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:34.040 Apparently one of these ham counterfeiters had like twenty aliases 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.080 and the Spanish police have been chasing them around for decades. 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.200 But Capavani and his team have this whole network of 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.960 salespeople who double as informants, and so they tip off 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:46.200 the investigators whenever they scent something fishy. 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:48.920 There are people out there doing much more interesting stuff 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.880 then we are legal and illegal. But are they now 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:53.400 doing this for cheese as well? 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.480 Yeah? And more than stopping the heist, this team is 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:00.240 basically set up to chase ripoffs, right, Like the producers 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.040 know that if people start thinking parmeham is a less 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.399 quality ham and it's less sweet, then they'll start thinking like, 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:08.600 what's the difference between that and some of those sort 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:11.760 of like grocery knockoffs or whatever. Right, And it's the 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.840 same for cheese. So there's this scene of Cappavanni running 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.359 his hand across the rind and pointing out why this 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.359 branding on a food is clearly counterfeit. Apparently there's a 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:24.360 whole system of branding machines that the authenticated manufacturers use 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.359 that makes slightly imperfect marks to thwart counterfeiters, and the 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:32.280 machines are really closely monitored. They're switched out every three months, 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.359 which you know feels insane, but Cappavanni takes pride and 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:38.040 sniffing out the fakes, and in fact, he claims to 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:41.920 have a museum of hundreds of fraudulent parmesans. 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:44.880 Yeah, I know, there's this whole world of fakes out there. 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:46.520 This is one of the things that kept coming up 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.320 as we were preparing for this episode. And you know, 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.479 the old saying I think is something like if your 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.240 cheese is fishy, it might be sawdust. I don't think, 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.480 I don't think. I know that's not familiar with that one. 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.440 I think mamma had it cross stitched on a pillow point. 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:04.400 But back in twenty sixteen, Time revealed a jaw dropping 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:08.440 report on manufacturers like Castle Cheese, not to be confused 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.119 with the Mars cheese Castle that you talked about before, 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:16.080 which produced quote parmesan that contains significant amounts of woodpulp 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:17.120 as a filler. 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:18.880 It's like a cheese made for termites. 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.600 Yes, it's gross. And some experts believe about a fifth 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:26.520 of the parmesan cheese bought at grocery stores is actually mislabeled. 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:30.320 And representatives for the Emman Taylor Cheesemakers, which we usually 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.160 referred to as Swiss cheese. Say that around ten percent 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.280 of the Swiss cheese of the market is fake. It's 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:40.840 true for all kinds of cheese and chego Camembert, but 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:46.119 parmesan is hit particularly hard. Sales of parmegano regiano cheese 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:49.240 are about two point four to four billion, according to 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:53.000 Food and Wine, but fake parmesan takes an almost equal 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:55.600 wedge of the wheel, with about two point oh eight 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:57.720 billion dollars every single year. 0:18:57.880 --> 0:18:59.200 I didn't realize the size of the market. 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:02.280 Yeah. Well, weirdly, cheese has been stuffed with more sinister 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:06.480 substances than just sawdust. And twenty twenty three customs officials 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.440 encountered a pickup truck transporting four large wheels of cheese 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.880 from Mexico into Texas, and they had hunch that something 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:15.720 was off. 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.880 Here, which doesn't sound strange at all. I always load 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:20.800 up my truck with the giant cheese wheels. 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.560 Yeah yeah, yeah, Well, actually an X ray scan of 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:27.640 these cheese revealed quote anomalies there, which upon further inspection, 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.320 turned out to be seventeen point eight pounds of cocaine. 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:37.480 So that steals like that's an anomaly, you know, yes, yeah, 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:39.440 now this is fair. I have never I don't think 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.680 I've eaten cheese with a bunch of cocaine. But it's 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:45.280 a good idea hiding stuff in cheese. Like if you 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:47.520 wanted to propose, and you put a diamond ring and 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.080 you know, deep in a wheel of cheese, there your 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:52.960 you know your potential fiance would never go digging around 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:54.680 in there. It's a great place to hide stuff. 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.439 Speaking of soft cheeses, do you know that Switzerland used 0:19:57.440 --> 0:19:59.960 to have a cartel that was responsible for the popular 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:00.760 already a fun. 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.280 Due Wait did you say a cartel? I mean it 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:05.680 was more of a union, all right, So why did 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:07.679 you say cartel? Though? I'm curious. 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:11.399 I'm a Brooklyn dad. I need some excitement, and I 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:13.600 guess more than a few articles online referred to it 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.359 as a cartel because of the way they fixed prices 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:19.360