The history and secrets of mold cheese

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Not every Russian will be able to pronounce the names of other cheeses: Camembert, Gorgonzola … But if he tastes it, he will never forget. But there are others: Brie, Roquefort, Dorblu, Danablus, Stilton, Fourme d'Ambert, each with their own history.

The refined and noble taste of these cheeses is not due to the skill of the cheesemaker or the quality of the milk (although one should not forget about them either). The main reason is molds!

Yeast-like mushrooms

Moreover, the mold is different. Roquefort, Gorgonzola and other cheeses of this type are inhabited by Penicillium-blue mold (hence their name - "blue cheeses"). And brie and others like it are infected, in the good sense of the word, with the yeast-like fungi Geotrichum candidum. But it is still not just a mold, but a noble one - one might say, Mold with a capital letter. She, a noble mold, protects cheese from unwanted infection, since it seems to occupy the place where harmful microorganisms would like to settle.

Emperor Charlemagne, who discovered brie cheese in 774, called it "one of the finest dishes." Bree (which, by the way, is one of the oldest cheeses in the world) was reputed to be the best gift among counts and kings. Thus, Blanche of Navarre, Countess of Champagne, had the custom of sending brie as a gift to King Philip Augustus. It is called so - "cheese of kings".

Roquefort cheese, according to legend, was "invented" by a young shepherd. He grazed a flock of sheep not far from the village of Roquefort, and in a moment of rest (they say in a cave) he was going to dine on a piece of black bread with sheep's cheese. And by that cave a beautiful young maiden was going about her business. The young shepherd left his breakfast and (who would doubt it!) Ran after her. How long he was absent and why, history is silent, but when he returned to that cave, he found that the cheese was covered with blue mold. However, his hunger did not disappear anywhere, and even during his absence intensified, and he ate this cheese. And I was amazed at the great taste! This is how the world culinary enrichment with Roquefort cheese.

Of the youngest cheeses, one can recall "Dorblu"; it was invented at the beginning of the 20th century in Germany. The recipe is kept secret. Danish blue cheese Danabl has a history of about 80 years; it was created as an analogue of Roquefort.

Hidden recipe

Everybody knows that penicillin living in Roquefort is good. Even before the discovery of this fact, doctors gave moldy cheese to patients, hardly understanding why patients recover. But not only blue cheeses are healthy. So, at the beginning of the 20th century, a French doctor treated seriously ill patients with Norman cheese covered with white mold. In honor of this doctor, grateful patients erected a monument near the village of Camembert.

The history of the appearance of this cheese to the world is no less romantic than the story of the shepherd and Roquefort cheese. From time immemorial, the monks knew the recipe for making Camembert, but they hid it from the hungry peoples, and then it was as if one of them revealed it to the girl Marie Harel because she saved him from death during the French Revolution. So it was or not, but in 1928, on the square of the city of Vimoutier, grateful amateurs of Camembert solemnly unveiled a monument to Marie Arel and their favorite cheese.

And by the way, moldy cheese can enhance creative inclinations in a person. One day Salvador Dali, having eaten Camembert for dinner, looked at his unfinished painting and saw the "flowing clock". This is how "The Persistence of Memory" was written. This fact is stated in the master's memoirs.

The noble mold adds a spice to the cheese, and the longer the cheese is stored, the sharper it will be. Some cheeses have a light hazelnut flavor, like Roquefort, Camambert has a mushroom flavor, and Brie has a slight ammonia flavor. It's all about enzymes: growing on the surface or inside the cheese, the mold releases enzymes that, when combined with the cheese, form a fusion of flavors. The yeast-like Geotrichum mushroom doesn't taste on its own, but what a delicious taste when combined with regular cow's cheese! Have you ever tried penicillin? If so, then you hardly liked it, but eat Roquefort for a sweet soul.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to find real blue cheese these days. If, for example, Roquefort is produced according to the classic recipe (stored in a limestone cave for three months, so that the necessary mold appears on it by itself), then this cheese will be in constant shortage. Therefore, such cheeses are made industrially, contaminating the cheese with a pure culture of the desired mushroom, and Roquefort can be bought at any store.

English note

Of the English mold cheeses, the best known is Stilton, which, unlike other cheeses of this kind, is both blue and white. He gained fame through the efforts of the innkeeper Cooper Thornhill. One Thornhill in 1730 was passing through Leicestershire, and there on a small farm he was treated to blue cheese (which was not yet called "Stilton"). Delighted with the taste of the product, Thornhill immediately bought the exclusive right to sell the cheese, and he sold it at his Bell Inn in the village of Stilton. Hence the name. And the stagecoach route between London and Edinburgh passed by this inn. Of course, the passengers grabbed the cheese in flight. Soon all of England knew about the blue Steel-tone. Why England - all of Europe!

Cheese began to be falsified everywhere, the technology was violated, measures were required to protect the name. Defended: now the name "Stilton" is protected by law, that is, it is forbidden to use this word for any cheese produced outside the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. The irony is that the village of Stilton, which gave the cheese its name, is located in Cambridgeshire, and Stilton cheese cannot be produced there.

In Italy, Gorgonzola blue cheese is produced, named after a small village near Milan. Locals claim that they have known the recipe for over a thousand years. As if they used to produce stracchino cheese (translated from Italian - "tired") from the milk of cows tired from the long journey from the mountains. And now a certain cheese-maker, whose name has not remained in history, once violated the technology, and his cheese ripened interspersed with mold. Residents were delighted and began to violate the technology, and at the same time the copyright of an unknown cheese maker.

So don't be afraid of mold cheeses! History shows that no one has died of them yet, but as a medicine they were used …

Cook in Russian

In Great Russia, not only blue cheese, but even ordinary hard cheeses were not made. Here the soils are poor, winters are long, the period of stall keeping of livestock is longer than in Europe, there is less fodder and no milk yield. The Russian peasant often kept a cow, not for the sake of milk, but for the sake of manure, as fertilizer.

They drank milk, of course, and tormented it, and made cottage cheese from it. And Russian cheeses were ripened from cottage cheese in a "raw" way, without heating. They were pressed and seasoned, held their shape tightly. Until now, what is baked from cottage cheese is called syrniki; until now, the stores sell cottage cheese called "homemade cheese".

Peter I "infected" Russia with European cheeses. After him, the people ate their usual Russian cheese, and the nobles - hard imported or made here by the Dutch. Then he came up with the paradoxical word "cheese dairy": cheese - from the word "raw", and if it was cooked, then what kind of "raw" is it?

The first domestic cheese factory, which filled up the whole country with its cheap cheese, appeared here at the end of the 19th century. Nikolai Vereshchagin, who was in charge of it (by the way, the brother of a famous battle painter), formulated the task as follows: "To teach the Russian peasantry to cook cheese and churn butter in a European manner."Well, they learned to imitate Europe, but the traditional Russian cheese has disappeared.