I was pleasantly surprised to hear one of my favorite radio shows, NPR's Science Friday, tackle the science of cheesemaking on its most recent show. The program featured Liz Thorpe, vice president of Murray's and author of The Cheese Chronicles, a new book about making and selling cheese in America.
Rogue River Blue, the beautiful grape-leaf wrapped blue cheese from Oregon's Rogue River Creamery, took top honors at this year's American Cheese Society competition, held last week in Austin, Texas. Rogue is actually one of the older creameries in the country, in operation since 1935. It also took home awards for its flavored cheddars, Chocolate Stout, and Lavender, as well as its Smokey Blue.
The marketing geniuses behind CheddarVision.tv, the webcam that broadcasts a 24/7 feed of an aging wheel of English Farmhouse Cheddar, have outdone themselves with a publicity stunt that rivals some of the greatest achievements of mankind. Last week, the West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers launched a weather balloon in space, to which was hitched a slice of 18-month old West Country Cheddar. Their plan? To "mark the 40th anniversary of the first man on the moon and the first space flight undertaken by a piece of cheese."
The device had an onboard GPS which was supposed to help them track the flight path of the cheese, as well as a camera to take pictures while in flight, but both devices failed shortly after launch. The cheese was declared "lost in space," with the organizers claiming the cheese could land "anywhere between Pewsey in Wiltshire [where it was launched] and Hertfordshire."
Vermont's hills are alive with the sound of "Oma!" Brothers Sebastian and Dan Von Trapp (yes, they are related to those Von Trapps) have just released Oma, an amazing new cheese from the Mad River Valley in Vermont.
A washed-rind raw cow's milk cheese, Oma's silky texture (soft and supple, but not runny) is perhaps its most unique feature. But its taste delivers too. The cheese is earthy, barnyardy, and buttery, and the raw milk makes for a complexity of flavor absent in most American cheeses of its ilk.
"Oma" is German for "grandmother," and the cheese is named after Sebastian and Dan's Oma, Erica Von Trapp, who started the family farm 50 years ago. The farm has a herd of grass-fed, mixed-breed cows (the majority are Jersey), and is located in a small town called Waitsfield (population 1,659) about 40 miles southeast of Burlington. Despite its small size, however, Waitsfield has become somewhat of a birthing ground for artisan foods—Green Mountain Coffee Roasters was started there almost 30 years ago.
Photograph from WordRidden on Flickr
Your first reaction to this headline might have been, "What do you mean, is blue cheese gluten-free? Isn't all cheese gluten-free?" Well, the short answer is yes. But blue cheese is a potential corner-case that needs some investigation. The reason is that there are steps in the production process of blue cheese where the potential for cross-contamination of gluten is definitely a possibility.
Most people know that the blue in blue cheese is actually mold—penicillium mold to be exact, which during aging breaks down the fats and the proteins in the cheese to change its texture to a silky smooth, and to add depth and piquancy to its flavor. Originally the mold would have jumped off the walls of the cave in which the cheeses were aging and into the cheeses themselves, but for many hundreds of years cheesemakers have intentionally inoculated the mold into the cheese during manufacture, before aging.
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