Is Your Cheese GMO?
People online are talking about GMO rennet. But what’s really going on? We asked the cheese experts to breakdown GMOs and cheese.
This Is How Cheesemaking Influenced Folklore & Daily Life
Few foods inspire as much ceremony as cheese. In recent years, couples have even eschewed traditional wedding cakes in favor of multi-tiered towers of beribboned, stacked wheels adorned with roses and greenery like their sweeter counterparts. Or take the modern cheese board. A glass or two of wine with a friend is just a well-spent Friday night, but add a cheese board, and it’s a spread worthy of a toast to welcome news like a promotion or an engagement.
Comté Scholarships Invest in the Next Generation of Cheese Professionals
Two scholarships support American cheese professionals at different points in their careers. For cheesemongers, education rarely happens in a classroom alone. It happens behind the counter, tasting alongside colleagues, visiting producers, attending conferences, and asking a seemingly endless series of questions: How was this cheese made? Why does it taste this way? What does its […]
Inside the Academy of Cheese’s Affineur of the Year Competition
Plus, learn what sets this British competition apart from other international cheese contests. As this issue lands on US shelves, London is hosting the fifth edition of the Academy of Cheese’s Affineur of the Year competition: an event that’s quietly reshaping the craft of affinage worldwide. Competitors are given young wheels from award-winning British cheesemakers: […]
What’s the Difference Between Raw, Pasteurized, and Thermized Milk?
Murray’s Cheese’s Josh Windsor breaks down the distinctions. Microbes play a crucial role in creating the flavors, aromas, and textures of the cheeses we eat. It is the specific diversity of the microbiota inhabiting the milk that gives cheese its identity and determines its safety. Milking and cheesemaking create conditions that shape the microbial populations, […]
How to Taste Cheese With Clarity & Confidence
Since the renaissance of artisan cheese in the late twentieth century, the American dairy scene has undergone a remarkable transformation. Over the past few decades, artisan cheesemakers from Oregon to Vermont have embraced traditional methods and local terroir to create cheeses that rival Europe’s best. Award-winning varieties such as Rogue Creamery Rogue River Blue, Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk, and Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog have earned their place in the Academy of Cheese library—a testament to the growing reputation and craftsmanship of American cheesemaking.
What Happens When You Soak Cheese in Alcohol?
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned, follows the steady decline of Anthony and his wife Gloria as they dance, carouse, and drink their lives away, hoping for an inheritance that never materializes. As Fitzgerald writes, “Wine gave a sort of gallantry to their own failure.” Although he was referring to the inability of their passion to sustain them through their financial futility, Fitzgerald could have just as easily been remarking upon a specific style of cheese maturation that’s suitable for the Jazz Age: soaking cheese in wine.
How Does Winter Feeding (Hay Versus Pasture) Influence the Flavor Development of Cheese?
For many herds of sheep, goats, and cows, shorter days and colder winter temperatures hinder the ability to graze on foliage. When fresh vegetation is no longer available, our milk-giving ruminant friends are fed dry hay or silage (a type of compacted and fermented fodder). It is a general conceit of the cheese lover that […]
How to Host the Best Fondue Party
November is the unofficial start of the holiday entertaining season and the official start of National Fun with Fondue Month—the ultimate celebration of melting cheese. While February is National Fondue Month, we’ll take any excuse to revive this retro ritual.
Honoring fondue is one thing; having fun with fondue is another. Luckily, the dish is best served with a group of your closest friends and plenty of dippers. This may conjure mental images of conversation pits, shag carpets, and turtlenecks, but don’t fear—there are lots of ways to partake in this time-honored tradition sans donning polyester.
Not sure where to start? Read on to discover tips and tricks for hosting your own fondue party, plus authentic recipes.
What You Need to Know About Aged Cheeses and Tyrosine Crystals
Plus, why hard cheeses don’t always have tyrosine crystals In the ancient Mediterranean, stone was fearsome. When Battus snitched on Hermes for stealing Apollo’s cows, he was turned to stone. From Medusa to Poseidon, Greek mythology is rife with stories of revenge by petrification. Lacking clothbound cheddars and aged Alpine rounds, it is understandable how […]
