Fromology (CHEESE) Part 1 with Kyra James

Summary

Fromology (CHEESE) Part 1 with Kyra James — Detailed Summary

In this engaging two-part episode of "Ologies with Alie Ward", host Alie Ward delves deep into the savory world of cheese, exploring its rich history, intricate making processes, scientific foundations, and cultural significance. Joined by Kyra James, a professional food educator and certified cheese professional, the episode offers listeners a comprehensive understanding of cheese from various perspectives.

1. Introduction to Cheese and Guest Introduction (01:02 - 05:15)

Alie Ward opens the episode by outlining the focal points: the history, making, and science of cheese. She clarifies that while the dairy industry is touched upon, the primary focus remains on cheese itself, including discussions on vegan and plant-based options in the subsequent part.

Alie Ward:
"We talk about veganism. We do talk about plant-based options, especially in part two... But in general, if you are very opposed to anything that is animal product related, this one might not be your favorite episode." [[01:17]]

Introducing Kyra James, Alie highlights her credentials:

Alie Ward:
"They're also the founder of cheese advocacy group Own Your Funk... I slid into their DMs and when I got a return message the heavens parted." [[02:25]]

2. Kyra James' Journey into Cheese (08:07 - 09:44)

Kyra shares her unexpected path into the cheese industry:

Kyra James:
"I needed a job to finish paying for my master's degree... I applied for a cheesemonger position at one of the oldest cheese shops in America." [[08:08]]

Her pivotal moment came with tasting a unique cheddar:

Kyra James:
"There was a cheese from Iowa called Prairie Breeze... it's made by Mennonite people in Iowa, and they don't use a lot of electricity to create the cheese." [[08:16]]

This experience ignited her passion for the diverse stories and flavors that cheese offers.

3. Understanding Cheese Basics (14:17 - 25:40)

Kyra breaks down the fundamental components of cheese:

Kyra James:
"Cheese is a fermented food. So you start with milk, and you add only three ingredients to the milk to create cheese: cultures, rennet, and salt." [[15:10]]

a. The Role of Rennet

Rennet is crucial for coagulating milk:

Kyra James:
"Rennet is a natural microorganism, mostly enzymes... Traditional rennet is called animal rennet, found in the stomach linings of young ruminants." [[21:20]]

She discusses alternatives like vegetarian and microbial rennets, highlighting their sources.

b. The Importance of Salt

Salt primarily enhances flavor and controls the cheese-making process:

Kyra James:
"Salt is mostly added for flavor. It's added to slow down the make process... It interacts with the curds to bring out more of the flavor." [[24:14]]

c. The Make and Aging Processes

Kyra explains the transition from liquid to solid (make process) and the subsequent aging:

Kyra James:
"There's the make process that sort of gets you from liquid to solid and then you need to put it into its final form... and then it goes into the aging process." [[25:03]]

4. Types and Styles of Cheese (27:35 - 35:46)

Kyra categorizes cheeses based on texture and style, explaining over 2,000 varieties:

Kyra James:
"There are over 2000 types of cheese created around the world... You can categorize it by texture or style." [[28:06]]

a. Texture-Based Categories

• Fresh Cheeses: Mozzarella, Ricotta, Burrata — minimal aging.
• Soft Ripened: Brie, Camembert — develop a white bloomy rind.
• Washed Rind: Epoisse, Taleggio — known for their strong aromas.
• Firm and Hard Cheeses: Cheddar, Gouda, Parmesan — longer aging results in harder textures.

b. Style-Based Categories

Kyra emphasizes that different styles arise from varying cultures, techniques, and aging processes.

Kyra James:
"Each style of cheese has a different make process... so when you're making a Camembert versus a Gouda, you're doing something very different." [[28:06]]

5. Lactose Intolerance and Cheese Consumption (37:10 - 40:14)

Addressing common dietary concerns, Kyra debunks myths about lactose in cheese:

Kyra James:
"Most cheeses have little to no lactose... To avoid lactose, you want to look to harder cheeses." [[38:01]]

Alie Ward:
"Harder cheeses have less lactose because it's been broken down into lactic acid." [[39:22]]

She recommends goat's milk cheeses for those with sensitive lactose issues, noting their lower lactose content and easier digestibility.

6. Cultural and Regional Influences on Cheese (40:14 - 53:04)

Kyra explores how geography and culture shape cheese varieties:

Kyra James:
"Wisconsin makes the most cheese of any state... They have a lot of European history, which influences their cheese production." [[26:21]]

a. European Influences

France and Switzerland are highlighted for their longstanding cheese traditions. Protected designations ensure authenticity:

Alie Ward:
"Gruyere is only made in Switzerland by certain cheese makers... it's not bison." [[62:05]]

b. Diversity and Inclusivity

Kyra discusses the importance of diversity in the cheese industry, fostering inclusivity through her advocacy group:

Kira James:
"As a person of color in a white dominated industry, I know of only two other brown female cheesemongers... my goal is doing more for young people of color and young queer people." [[64:53]]

7. The Science Behind Cheese Aging and Rinds (58:14 - 72:32)

Kyra delves into the scientific aspects of cheese aging and rind formation:

Kira James:
"Soft ripened cheeses like Brie have a bloomy rind created by penicillium molds... This rind is edible and contributes to the cheese's flavor." [[58:14]]

a. Aging Processes

• Hard Cheeses: Lose moisture, becoming firmer over time.
• Soft Cheeses: Proteins break down differently, resulting in creamier textures as they age.

Kira James:
"As you age soft cheeses, the proteins break down, making them softer and creamier." [[57:04]]

b. Rind Types

• Bloomy Rinds: Soft ripened cheeses like Brie.
• Washed Rinds: Often stronger-smelling cheeses like Epoisse.
• Waxed Rinds: Protect certain cheeses like Gouda from drying out.

Kira James:
"Cheeses dipped in wax create a barrier to retain moisture, resulting in a sweeter flavor profile." [[66:45]]

8. Social and Personal Aspects of Cheese (73:02 - 77:38)

The conversation shifts to the personal and communal experiences surrounding cheese:

Kira James:
"Cheese professionals often receive cheese-related gifts... I am definitely the cheese lady in my community." [[54:29]]

a. Cheese and Community

Kyra highlights the tight-knit nature of the cheese community, emphasizing passion and shared knowledge.

Kira James:
"Passion is a big consistency throughout any cheesemonger... being a storyteller is another part of the job." [[12:06]]

b. Inclusivity and Queer Culture

Cheese is portrayed as inherently inclusive and supportive of queer culture:

Kira James:
"Cheese is inherently queer... a subculture that works in the realm of gay culture." [[65:26]]

9. Conclusion and Teasers for Part 2 (77:38 - End)

Alie wraps up the episode by thanking Kyra and teasing the topics for the next part, which will cover:

• Proper cheese storage
• Differences between orange and white cheddar
• Grilled sandwich debates
• Homemade cheese making
• Cheese pricing
• Squeaky curds
• The moon's composition
• How cheese affects brain chemistry
• The ultimate charcuterie board, including holes, crystals, and maggots

Alie Ward:
"Next week, come back for wall to wall Patreon questions to learn how to properly store cheese... the ultimate charcuterie board build plus holes, crystals, and maggots. Oh my." [[77:38]]

Kyra encourages listeners to engage with her advocacy work and to continue exploring the diverse world of cheese.

Kira James:
"You can follow me and learn more about my work at Own Your Funk... crafting intentional educational food experiences." [[65:08]]

---

Notable Quotes:

• Alie Ward:
  "We talk about veganism. We do talk about plant-based options, especially in part two." [[01:17]]

• Kyra James:
  "Cheese is a fermented food... you add only three ingredients to the milk to create cheese." [[15:10]]

• Kira James:
  "Most cheeses have little to no lactose... To avoid lactose, you want to look to harder cheeses." [[38:01]]

• Kira James:
  "Cheese is inherently queer... a subculture that works in the realm of gay culture." [[65:26]]

• Alie Ward:
  "Next week, come back for wall to wall Patreon questions to learn how to properly store cheese." [[77:38]]

Key Takeaways

• Cheese Fundamentals: Understanding the basic ingredients—milk, cultures, rennet, and salt—is essential to appreciating cheese's diversity.
• Cultural Significance: Regional traditions, especially in Europe and states like Wisconsin, play a pivotal role in shaping cheese varieties.
• Dietary Considerations: Hard cheeses are generally lower in lactose, making them suitable for lactose-intolerant individuals.
• Inclusivity in Cheese: The cheese industry embraces diversity, with a notable presence of women and support for the LGBTQ+ community.
• Scientific Insights: The processes of aging and rind formation are both art and science, influencing the texture and flavor of cheeses.
• Future Exploration: The next episode promises to delve into practical aspects of cheese enjoyment, from storage to creating the perfect charcuterie board.

Listeners are encouraged to explore more about cheese-making, support diverse voices in the industry, and engage with the educational content provided by experts like Kyra James.

Transcript

[Alie Ward]

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[Alie Ward]

Oh hi. Just a quick note up top. So this episode is all about cheese and of course we touch on the history and the making and the science of it. We don't go into a lot about the dairy industry itself because that would.

[Kira J.]

Be a series of episodes.

[Alie Ward]

We do talk about veganism. We do talk about plant based options, especially in part two. We talk about some animal ethics and some more sustainable cheeses. So we do talk about that. But in general, if you are very opposed to anything that is animal product related, this one might not be your favorite episode. Or you might learn some things that you can put in your toolkit if you are talking to people about a plant based diet.

[Kira J.]

But I just wanted to give you that heads up.

[Alie Ward]

I know dairy's not for everyone and I see you. I hear ya. But for those that do like cheese, here we go. Oh hey, it's the monster who returns emails at 4pm on a Friday. Sorry everyone. Alie Ward, this is cheese. This is a topic that you have told me you've been craving for years. It's a hot, stinky delivery that'll melt in your ears. Let's hit it. So I use the Internet to do the equivalent of hiding behind a plant, hoping to catch the eye of this ologist who is at the top of culture's hot list of nine cheese stars to watch and has been featured in.

[Kira J.]

Vogue and Sevier magazines.

[Alie Ward]

They're also the founder of cheese advocacy group Own youn Funk. They've won awards at the International Cheesemonger Invitational single handedly quartering a 50 pound round of Parmesan with a knife and her two hands which is usually a four person job and I slid into their DMs and when I got a return message the heavens parted. So excited. So let's talk cheese. But first thank you to patrons via patreon.com ologies who for $1 a month can submit questions ahead of time for the ologists. And wow. Record number of questions. We had 64 pages of questions for this ologist so this will shock absolutely no one. But this will be a two parter because it was too large a cheese wheel for one serving we had to halve it up. So thank you also to everyone for wearing your Ologies merch out in the wild to find each other. You can get [e-mail] and for no dollars. Thank you for leaving us reviews, all of which I read and then as proof I highlight a fresh one such as this one from Great workout Apo who called Ologies the best podcast for the former curious child. Also, if you're not even a former child but a current one and you need some G rated shorter classroom safe versions of Ologies, we have them. They're called smologies S M O L O G I E S and they're available wherever you get your podcasts. They're in their own feed that's linked in the show notes. Also, thank you to sponsors of the show for making it possible to donate to not one but two causes of the ologist choosing this time. Okay, onto frimology. It comes from the French fromage for cheese and in this two part episode you will hear about soft cheeses, hard ones and vegetarian ones, vegan ones. What exactly goes into cheese? How to set up a cheese board that will impress the most French of dinner guests if it's actually aged in caves the Ethics of Dairy Cheese history Different warm blooded animals whose milk is used for cheese Some might not appetize you American cheese side eye the stinkiest CheeseThe orange versus the creamy white Shoe deodorizers, Crunchy cheese crystals and how to chat up a monger and come back next week to learn how to properly store cheese. The grilled sandwich debate how to make cheese at home Cheese pricing Squeaky curds the moon's composition how cheese changes your brain chemistry the ultimate charcuterie board plus holes, crystals and maggots. Oh my. With this stunning two parter featuring professional food educator, certified cheese professional and from Ologist Kira J. Names.

[Kira James]

Kira James.

[Kira J.]

She, her and okay, pharmologist, cheesemonger, cheese expert. To me, they're all the same. But is there a distinction in the cheese world?

[Kira James]

There isn't so much a distinction in the cheese world. It's such a small, niche little family that we all kind of work together and have interchanging roles. There are different levels in the industry of sort of your expertise over time, after doing anything for a period of time, you get better and better at it. And so there are various scholarly certifications you can take. You can become a certified cheese professional, which is what I did.

[Kira J.]

And now you have a master's in gastronomy. Did you have cheese elements within that, or did you go into it as cheese oriented? Or were you, like, in the world of gastronomy studies, like, the cheese unit really resonated.

[Kira James]

There is a cheese category in the degree now, but at the time, I didn't enter into the master's program with the goal of learning about cheese. There are mentions of it throughout the history class, so I'm sure there was some cheese sprinkled in throughout the degree. But it was more over our food degree with a lot of social sciences, anthropology, things like that.

[Kira J.]

Oh, I didn't realize that there was so much history in anthropology in that kind of degree.

[Alie Ward]

I thought it would all just be.

[Kira J.]

Like this boils at this temperature. But what do they cover in a master's of gastronomy?

[Kira James]

So the core classes are history, food and the senses. You learn about how to use your senses and how other people have used their senses to educate and to learn about food and to grow the world of food through the senses. There's lots of focuses like food marketing. The anthropology of food is another one. So a lot of social sciences, Food and gender was another class that was really spoke to me a great deal. Food and wine is another sort of aspect of the degree. I took classes in the marketing, in the business school. I took classes in the hospitality and tourism department. So you really can make it your own degree, but it's all centered around the social sciences of food.

[Kira J.]

I feel like you could do a whole degree on just when someone comes around and is like, say, when on the Parmesan. I feel like there's so much psychologically that happens in that moment.

[Kira James]

For sure, you're very empowered. It's a very empowering moment to say one.

[Kira J.]

I'm always like, if I keep going, are they gonna judge me?

[Kira James]

Yes.

[Kira J.]

And if I say that's plenty too early, am I gonna think on the whole drive home, I could have gotten more cheese out of this. I don't know.

[Kira James]

You gotta wait it out. No regrets.

[Kira J.]

Extra cheese.

[Alie Ward]

So can you tell me a little.

[Kira J.]

Bit about when your life became cheese oriented? What was it that kind of was your entree, no pun intended.

[Unknown]

Entree.

[Kira J.]

Oh, God.

[Kira James]

Yeah. So I needed a job to finish paying for my master's degree. I had, you know, saved some money, but I needed to. I needed a job. So I applied for job on Craigslist at the time, and it was for a cheesemonger position at one of the oldest cheese shops in America. I didn't know at the time how prestigious it was, but I really very quickly learned of its prestige as I started working there. And then I had an aha moment when I tried certain cheeses. So, you know, learning about cheese, you have to taste it. You learn about the stories and where it comes from and all these really fun facts about cheese. And all these things that I had never even knew were things that you can do with food, let alone a perishable food like cheese. So all the different ways you can create it. And so there was a cheese from Iowa that is a cheddar that when I had it, it was like my aha moment. It's called Prairie Breeze. It's very widely available now, but at the time it was a little bit smaller producer. Just, it's a delicious cheese. It's made by Mennonite people in Iowa, and they don't use a lot of electricity to create the cheese. So it's a lot of old traditions and old school approach to cheese making, and they make these amazing cheddars. And so as I learned more about cheese, I just really became in love with the stories and the flavor and sort of the rest is history from there.

[Alie Ward]

So I looked this up and apparently their twist on an aged cheddar has a pasty fudgy texture with crunchy crystals and a tangy but nutty umami flavor. And they call this cheese affordable enough for back of the house, yet sophisticated enough for front of the house. But also, this particular creamery boasts that they source milk from small, high quality and hygienic local dairy farms within 30 miles of their cheese making creamery. And now I'm making up a whole backstory narrative about this pastoral dairy community and maybe how they all know each other and like hot tub together or give each other dating advice. I don't know.

[Kira J.]

Is that kind of part of the allure of it is learning all these different backstories?

[Kira James]

I think that's part of it. So from the outside you think, you know, cheese is mass produced by a few really big companies and that's it. And yes, they are producing the most cheese out here and serving the most people. But with diversity and all the fun sort of nuances of the industry come into play are with those small producers. And small doesn't have to be, you know, of mom and pop operation. It can be family run or a little bit bigger. But the idea is it being something that you can point to and say, this is where this cheese comes from. This is what the animals are eating, this is what the farmers are doing to take care of them. This is what they're doing to make the cheese. So the smaller producers are really where you can learn about who's making the biggest impact in their small little environments.

[Alie Ward]

Just a side note up top here, I know so many listeners are plant based for environmental and ethical and animal cruelty reasons. I definitely encourage you to look deeper into that. And I'm more than happy to do a future episode on veganism. Actually, we're cooking one up as we speak on that, so stay tuned. But if you're one of the many thousand listeners who really wanted to hear about the science and the history of cheese from an expert, because you love cheese, this is a good incentive to consider the types of cheese that you consume and the practices of smaller creameries and just the origin of your food in general. And that good cheese may be pricier. And we'll talk more about why in part two as well as cover some vegan cheese options. But strike up a convo with your creamery people at the neighborhood farmer's market. Chat up a local monger.

[Kira J.]

That's one thing I love about cheesemongers, especially the ones who are really passionate.

[Alie Ward]

I live near a place called Milk.

[Kira J.]

Farm, which is a great cheese shop. And my favorite cheesemonger there, Roo, is. Whenever I go in to get cheeses, they always tell me the backstory of different ones and why I might like something. And I always feel like I leave there with like a history lesson, which is so cool. Like when I eat the cheese. Well, they told me about it. I feel like a lot of that passion really comes through when people are cheese people, you know.

[Kira James]

Yes, passion is definitely a big consistency throughout any cheesemonger or cheese professional. Having passion for the industry is really important and being a storyteller is another part of the job. So we're so excited about the stories that it's hard not to share them with everybody that comes into our world, learning about cheese. It's hard to stop once you start talking about those things. And I love that Rood keeps it going for you. Every visit, you. You get another experience that they can explain to you.

[Kira J.]

Yeah. What do you feel like is the most common question people ask you about cheese?

[Kira James]

The most common question I'd say is, can you eat the rind? Oh, that's a very big question. People get very hesitant about the rind and if they can eat it. People ask about pasteurization and raw milk pretty consistently, but overall, they just want to know where products are coming from. So the type of cheese that it is, who made it, how old is the cheese? And then another very common question is how to pair it. What do you eat with this cheese? Because everyone likes to know what a cheese professional's preferences are for pairing cheese. So what beverage would you pair with this? Or what accoutrement would you pair with this?

[Kira J.]

It's not just me that has charcuterie anxiety of, like, do I have enough? Do I have a good balance on this charcuterie board? You know, you want, like, a soft one and a hard one, maybe a smoky one, which is why. Why a cheese monger is the best. If you're like, I got people coming over, they're French, help me out. What do I put on this thing? But, okay, let's start at the basics. What is cheese? Cheese comes from milk, but I don't know. Curds, whey. What is it?

[Kira James]

Yeah, so cheese is a fermented food. So you start with milk, and you add only three ingredients to the milk to create cheese. Each of those ingredients has a very specific role that they play. Cultures run it in salt. They're added at different points in the process to the milk. And then through the power of science, the milk is turned into solids and liquid curds are the solids, the proteins and the fats. And whey is the liquid, the sugar, and the water. And so you separate the two, and then you drain out the liquid. The whey is not. Is never wasted on a quality farm. There's lots of nutrients in the liquid, so that's gonna be used for some purpose. And then the curds are used for cheese making. And from there, the options are pretty much endless. At the beginning of the process, you know what type of cheese you wanna make at the end. And so you're gonna take the steps to make that type of cheese.

[Alie Ward]

So to recap, milk cultures, rennet, salt.

[Kira James]

So cheese is just those four ingredients. You separate the curds from the Whey, and then you take those curds and you create your final cheese. You might serve it fresh. It might be a fresh cheese like mozzarella or ricotta, or it might be something that has to be put into a form, put on a shelf for a year, and then consume, like Parmesan, Reggiano.

[Kira J.]

I always wondered with like, curds and curdl, if you add an acid to.

[Alie Ward]

Your latte, like, let's say you try.

[Kira J.]

To make a lemon latte with the whole milk, it's gonna get chunky. Is that kind of what' with cheese, but on, like, a larger curd level?

[Kira James]

Sort of, yeah. There's some interactions between the acid and the lemon and the dairy products. So you can create cheese using acids like lemon juice or vinegar. At home, they're gonna act as a natural, what we call coagulant, so they're gonna naturally separate the curds from the whey. So when you add the lemon to the dairy and you see that happening, you're kind of coagulating your milk. So you're kind of creating those first few steps of the cheese making process without really trying to. It won't taste much like cheese, but the textures will begin to change just because of that acid and how it interacts with the proteins and the fats in the milk.

[Alie Ward]

But in the case of most cheeses, it's the enzymes in rennet, specifically one called chymosin, which cleaves a certain bond of casein proteins in the milk. And we'll talk more about rennet in a minute. But if you want to get specific, Kymarsin breaks kappa casein to hydrophobic paracappy casein, meaning broadly that the liquids and the solids in milk separate because of that enzymatic action. Hence curds and whey, which, if you remember from Ms. Muffet, her separated milkshake brings all the spiders to the yard. I always wondered what happens to the.

[Kira J.]

Whey when you say that they don't waste it. Does it get fed back to goats or does it become protein powder? Like, what happens with it?

[Kira James]

Great question. Yeah, all of the above. So for a smaller farm, they may feed the whey to other animals. On the farm, they may make other cheeses from the whey. So you can make ricotta from whey, and there's still some proteins and fats in that liquid that you can coagulate and, you know, extract from the whey to create ricotta for larger producers. That's definitely where the whey is going, is to whey powder. So when people are protein powders for athletes or gym rats or people who want to get muscle mass. They might consume whey protein in that form, but it's definitely something that is not wasted. They can use it on the grounds, like to help grow grass as a natural fertilizer. So there's lots of ways to use it. There's so much nutrients in there that something's going to be done with it for sure.

[Kira J.]

Take me back in history. How long has planet Earth had cheese? Is there a consensus among the tight knit cheese community on this?

[Kira James]

The first traces of cheese go back to 8000 BC. So about 10,000 years ago. And it really starts with the Neolithic people when humans went from hunter and gatherers to agricultural communities where they actually planted foods, domesticated animals, and they were milking dairy animals, mostly sheep and goat at the time. There weren't cows. And they would leave the milk out over a period of time in the sun because they were in the Fertile Crescent. So in that part of the world, it's very hot and warm. And so just by sitting the milk out in the field in the sun, they would naturally ferment the milk and create cheese. So there's traces of sort of that fresh cheese dating back to 8000 BC.

[Alie Ward]

That's bonkers.

[Kira J.]

I would have thought it was like, I don't know, 1700s maybe the notion that the pastries really didn't pop off until like the 17. Like I would think that cheese is.

[Alie Ward]

A relatively new invention. Super wrong here. Super wrong. As pastries have been around since at least ancient Egyptian times. And I should have known that because we have a stellar episode called Gastroegyptology about resurrecting millennia yeast from this ancient pottery to bake bread. But while people have been making pastries for thousands of years, I was semi correct that baked desserts did indeed pop off in the 1700s when this French guy named Antoine Caramet absolutely began nailing pastry innovations. Why then? Because colonization and the enslavement of humans on sugarcane plantations in places like the Caribbean and what would become the United States, which just exploded sugar consumption and demand in Europe. Now for more on the horrors of plantations and how that history continues to affect ecology now. And for more on the brilliant folks who coined the field of critical ecology, I'll link that episode with Dr. Suzanne Pierre in the show Notes. If you have ever eaten sugar, you should hear it now to further kill your boner. The majority of cane sugar refinement still relies on cattle bone char, making it questionably vegan at best. But if That's a concern. You can look for raw sugar, vegan sugar, or labels saying it's organic. That means it's made without cow char. Now, as for cattle, I was like, when were cows invented? Human beings began domesticating cows about 10,000 years ago from this now extinct species of bovine. Speaking of cow parts, I'm so glad.

[Kira J.]

You mentioned rennet, because that is a mystery ingredient that I don't quite understand. So cheese is milk, salt, rennet and cultures or bacteria.

[Kira James]

Yeah.

[Kira J.]

So what's the rennet component?

[Kira James]

So that's the real coagulant. So that's the most powerful thing that you really need to get things moving. Rennet is a natural microorganism, mostly enzymes. There are different types of rennet, but the most traditional rennet is called animal rennet. And that has to be found in certain animals in their linings of their stomachs. When these mammals are born and they're consuming only milk, they need to be able to digest that. So the rennet enzymes in their stomach actually break down the milk when they're consuming it. And so we use those same enzymes to break down milk for cheesemaking in the natural form. So it can be animal rennet. You also can do vegetarian rennet. So for any vegetarians out there who don't eat any animal byproducts at all, there are rennets that are not made from animals. Those are from thistle, like artichoke, fig SAP are a few of the more common ones. And then there's microbial rennet, where you can actually create it in labs now today, using natural enzymes that are coming from the plants and coming from molds and yeasts. But the coagulant, the thing that separates the curds from the whey is what rennet is.

[Kira J.]

How is rennet harvested from animals? It seems like it would be cheaper to get it from microorganisms or artichoke or thistle.

[Kira James]

What do I know?

[Kira J.]

But is it easier to obtain from animals? I have no idea. I am absolutely in the dark about this. So I don't know anything so well today.

[Kira James]

You know, in the modern times, you can buy rennet online in capsules. That's what I have in my freezer. They stay fresh longer in the freezer. But you can buy rennet online. But you also can purchase stomach linings, like dried stomach lining, to add to your cheese making process. So, you know, thinking about the make process, you have to kind of focus on the positive in the make process. But they do come from the stomachs of Anthony animals.

[Alie Ward]

Okay, so some purists like to say that rennet comes only from the enzymes in the desiccated fourth stomach chamber of young ruminants, which can contain up to 95% chymosin. But most cheesemakers use rennet. The term is just a catch all for any enzymes that curd the milk and a lot of cheeses, including kosher and vegetarian cheese, not vegan, but vegetarian with no animal parts. Use enzymes including chymosin derived from either natural or in 70% of cheeses made worldwide using genetically modified microorganisms that spit chymosin out According to the 2022 textbook value addition in Food Products and Processing through Enzyme Technology, which you can read if you become deeply, deeply curious about cheese making.

[Kira J.]

What about the salt? Is that just for like yum yum factor or does that help with like osmotic reactions?

[Kira James]

Salt is mostly added for flavor. It's added to slow down the make process. It interacts with the curds to bring out more of the flavor to extract more of the liquid when you're adding it to the curds. But it's mostly added for flavor. So you'd add it to most cheeses towards the end of the make process, either rubbing on the outside of the cheese wheel or adding it straight to the curds. For mozzarella, you're adding it to the liquid when you're stretching the curds. So it depends on what type of cheese you're making, but it's usually added towards the end of the make process and it is added mostly for flavor or to help enhance flavor.

[Kira J.]

Is the make process, Is that the right word? Make? M A K E. Is that the forming of the curds? And then there's the aging process. Like, are there different concrete steps that cheese makers know about?

[Kira James]

I think that's about right, yeah. There's the make process that sort of gets you from liquid to solid and then you need to put it into its final form. So you might have a plastic form that you're gonna add these curds in. Curds can be large. Curds can be the size of grains of rice. They're different sizes depending on what you're making. And then it goes into the final form and then, yes, it goes into the aging process. So there's the make process and then the aging process. Because the aging process has its own intricate steps that you have to follow and basically babysit and nurture and care for the cheese until it's at its full ripeness.

[Kira J.]

I've seen places with just like Home Depot, but all cheese Just stacked like huge wheels of parmesan stacked to the ceiling. And I'm curious, where has cheese taken you? Like, do you go on business trips to Wisconsin? Like, do you. Are there like weird caves in Italy that you've got to go to?

[Kira James]

So I've been to all of the ends of the country to visit producers to learn about their products. Just for fun, just to help educate myself on where these products come from.

[Kira J.]

Okay, Wisconsin, does it have good cheese or does it have good pr?

[Kira James]

Great question. I would say both. Okay, Wisconsin makes the most cheese of any state. Wisconsin's been making cheese since Wisconsin was established as a state. So I mean, they have come a long way. There's a lot of history there, a lot of European history in Wisconsin. So the European traditions came over with the settlers, and those traditions have been passed down for generations to generations. So there's a reason why they make the most cheese and why it's the most consumed. Because it's good cheese now at that. When you think about how much they're making, they're also creating a lot of the mass produced cheeses, things that you can get at restaurants or in fast casual situations. But they also have artists and producers, but they also have really good pr. And I think it's roughly a dollar a pound of cheese that they will give for marketing. They have festivals, they do great marketing on social media, they do great marketing in stores. So, yes, marketing is definitely a big part of Wisconsin's success, I think. Hey, Sam, the cheesehead's here.

[Kira J.]

And run me through the types of cheeses. We talked about the softest cheeses, and it just boggles me that there are goopy Camemberts and then there are cheeses, hard cheeses that like, you need a sharp knife or a peeler for. I have no idea how they get that way. Is it the cultures? Is it the amount of time they're.

[Alie Ward]

Sitting in a rind on a shelf?

[Kira J.]

Can you break down how many we should know about so that when we go to our cheesemonger, we're not like, lost?

[Kira James]

Yes. I mean, There are over 2000 types of cheese created around the world, if not more than that. So to categorize it, you can do it in a few different ways. You can do it by texture. So fresh, soft, semi, firm, hard process. Or you can go into it more from a style perspective. Now, when you think about it from a style perspective, then you're getting into the make process. Because each style of cheese has a different make process. They use different cultures, they use different techniques. For cutting the curds, they use different techniques for aging. So when you're making a Camembert versus a Gouda, you're doing something very, very different in the beginning steps of your make process to get to that end result. So yes, they all start as the same four ingredients, but as they age, they become their different style of cheese. So there are seven to eight styles of cheese, depending on who you ask. So fresh is definitely one. So a fresh cheese is just as it describes, no rind, only a few days or minutes or hours old. Mozzarella, ricotta, burrata, those cheeses, I'm a little baby. Then you have soft ripened, which are things like Brie, Camembert. Goat cheeses from France are often soft ripened. These are ones that have a white rind or rind that looks sort of like a brain. Those wrinkly rinds, those are soft ripened cheeses. Then you have washed rind cheeses, which are the ones that smell like feet. The super stinky guys, the ones that they're washing to create those aesthetics, what.

[Kira J.]

Are they washing them with?

[Kira James]

They can wash them with all sorts of things. The most common thing that you wash cheese with is a saltwater solution. So like a brine solution, it helps certain bacterias thrive and those bacterias are what create the smell and the color of these cheeses. So wash rind cheeses also are typically have an orange or peach hue to the rind and you can smell them from a mile away. Those are all characteristics of the bacterias that are added or created when you wash the cheese.

[Kira J.]

Oh, okay.

[Kira James]

And then you can get into the cheddars, you have gouda, you have blue cheese. And then you can still talk about firm cheeses. I still have a category called firm, because some cheeses don't fit into a category. They're just a firm cheese. A lot of the American originals that we create here don't have a specific name for the type of cheese that it is. It's just what the cheesemaker made. So you can also just have a firm cheese, like we say tome style cheese. Oftentimes where it's a certain shape, some.

[Alie Ward]

Makers will just do their own thing and it doesn't necessarily fit the proverbial cheese mold.

[Kira James]

So those are the basic styles of cheese. I mean, those are the ones that I would use to talk to my cheesemonger. If you like a hard cheese, then go with or soft cheese or a semi soft cheese. Those are perfectly good ways to describe cheese to a monger as well. You don't have to know the styles of cheese to know to categorize them.

[Kira J.]

Is processed cheese a cheese?

[Kira James]

In my opinion, processed cheese is not a cheese, okay? It's a processed food product because of how I define cheese in terms of those four ingredients in the fermentation process. A cheese product like American cheese, Kraft Singles have even more ingredients. They have emulsifiers. They're made of a cheese blend. So you're actually blending cheeses together to make American Kraft cheese. So that in itself makes it not a real cheese. It's a cheese product.

[Alie Ward]

So American cheese, it can be a chimera of at least two cheeses, usually a cheddar and a Colby cheese. Colby being named after Colby, Wisconsin, population 2,000, which on July 18 hosts its annual three day Colby Cheese Days Festival, which involves a bench press contest, bingo, tractor poles, food stalls and a quote real cheese parade, which is as American as it gets. But yes, American cheese is a combo of a few varieties plus one of three salts derived from citric acid, affectionately known as E number E331. Fun fact, sodium citrate is also added to blood donations as an anticoagulant because it tends to befriend and bind with calcium ions, which prevents the calcium from staying too cozy with the proteins that love to clump, especially in the case of cheesesthe more aged cheeses. And we'll get to more on cheese and digesting it in a moment. But first let's take a quick break to talk about sponsors of ologies who make it possible to donate to a cause of the ologist's cheese. And this week Kira shows two one for each part of this cheese duo episode. And they are the Cheese Culture Coalition, which works to create a more equitable and inclusive cheese industry for black, indigenous and people of color through education and grant programs and via cheeseculturecoalition.org you can find out more about their programs. You can donate or you can fill out a form to volunteer on their committees and fundraisers. And the second donation is going to Team Ups Building Schools in Kenya, which Kira says is a great organization run by a dear friend of hers and they work to ensure that Kenyan children receive the education they need and provide communities with easily accessible, clean and sustainable water sources. You can find out more or [e-mail] we'll link those in the show notes and thank you to sponsors for making those donations possible. Hi. This is a reminder that you are a human animal person who needs things like rest and good food and also modern life doesn't always allow for that. Nature's Bounty is a life hack that we've all been needing. So I take Nature's Bounty. I always have it in my little supplement cabinet. They're high absorption magnesium glycinate.

[Kira J.]

The way to go.

[Alie Ward]

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[Unknown]

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[Kira James]

My team to some fancy work platform that somehow knows exactly how we work.

[Unknown]

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[Alie Ward]

Okay, so next week we're going to tackle your heap of questions, patrons.

[Kira J.]

But since this is a mega episode.

[Alie Ward]

Let'S keep this cheese wheel rolling through the basics. Perhaps the thought of cheese is making your stomach rumble and it's not good.

[Kira J.]

Let's say lactose is an issue. Which cheeses are more friendly to your guts?

[Kira James]

Another very popular question, so I'm glad you asked. So, to start, most cheeses have little to no lactose, so that is a misconception that we as mongers will forever be fighting against. Because so many people think that they're lactose intolerant because they have stomach issues when they eat cheese. But it's not always the type of cheese, but the amount of it, it's still a fermented product, it's still dairy, where our bodies are not fully able to digest. No matter how much intolerant or tolerant you are, there's still a threshold of how much you can eat before it begins to upset your stomach. When you melt cheese also, that changes the dynamic of it. So you could be more sensitive to melted cheese than you are to hard cheese. So that's something else to think about. But most cheeses have no lactose. And so to avoid lactose, you want to look to harder cheeses. So the cheeses that have lactose will be softer, because I mentioned that the lactose are the sugars in the cheese, and the sugars are found in the moisture in the liquid. So the less liquid or less moisture you have in your cheese, the less lactose you'll have in your cheese. So a fresh cheese will have the most.

[Alie Ward]

So maybe avoid a young spongy cheddar or Havarti or a pizza with mozzarella or ricotta in lasagna. Those younger ones will have less of their lactose broken down into lactic acid. So harder cheeses have less lactose because it's been broken down. And according to the Cheese and Death website article, how to eat cheese when you're lactose intolerant, yes, you can eat cheese without destroying your insides. Even if ice cream destroys you, cheese can be your friend.

[Kira J.]

And any cheese aged two months or.

[Alie Ward]

More is virtually lactose free. So go sharp or go home to the toilet.

[Kira James]

And then also goat's milk. Goat's milk has the least amount of lactose in terms of the main milk types that are used to make cheese. Goat's milk cheeses are the ones that I would suggest for people with very sensitive lactose issues.

[Kira J.]

Are there any animal cheeses that have.

[Alie Ward]

Surprised you that you've had, like, have.

[Kira J.]

You ever had, like, horse milk? What animals do we make cheese from their milk?

[Kira James]

So the most common and the ones that are legal in America are cow, sheep and goat. But then there are also cheeses made from camels. Donkeys are the other two most popular. There's also water buffalo.

[Alie Ward]

What.

[Kira James]

That we have here in America. So buffalo mozzarella. When you hear that, that's made from water buffalo.

[Kira J.]

Oh, it's not bison. Yes, I know. I always pictured a bison, like in Yellowstone pulling over and like someone with a pail just being like, thanks, go on your way.

[Kira James]

I mean, they look sort of similar.

[Kira J.]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kira James]

So, yeah.

[Alie Ward]

So we Have a whole bisonology episode with several guests, including some bovine scholars and a few indigenous bison ranchers on northern Montana's Blackfoot Reservation, who also are my cousins. Hello to the Evanses. So to learn all about bison, you can check that one, which is linked in the show notes. But yes, a water buffalo. They're native to parts of Asia and Africa. And you will recognize a water buffalo. It has these long curved horns. They look like robust curtain bangs on either side of its face. Why water buffalo milk? They seem hard to milk. Well, to those of Hindu faith, a cow is sacred. So hands off cow udders. But kind of like how the Vatican says that capybaras are fish. We have an episode on that. The water buffalo is like, it's okay to milk now. Water buffalo milk also lower in cholesterol but higher in fat. So it is creamy as hell. Now on some menus, should you be lucky enough to see them, is human milk cheese like that made by New York based artist Marion Simon, who accepts or accepted in the past milk donations from, in one case, a woman who made too much, but she didn't want to donate it because there are a lot of dietary restrictions she would have to adhere to in order to give it to others infants. So she's like, sure, I'll give you some boob milk. And on Miriam's website she has video art titled making human cheese 2011 HD video with audio 410. It shows the process in this beautifully shot but stark and clinical studio setting.

[Unknown]

But I think of it more as like a, like a labor rather than a commodity. And having been in a labor industry like cooking, I feel like it's not all that different.

[Alie Ward]

I feel like it's kind of the.

[Unknown]

Same as me sort of spending an.

[Alie Ward]

Hour making someone a pasta or something like that. And I understand the texture is creamy. It's not unlike a provolone. I often work in cafes, and today I am grateful to have watched this high definition video of a woman with dripping nipples full out while a cheesemaker stands by wearing gloves, not in public. Happened to be home when I watched that. Now, some detractors say that this is just a breath away from cannibalism eating human milk cheese. But animal rights activists have gone so far as to urge Ben and Jerry's to just swap out all ruminant milk with people milk to make a point, maybe getting it from a woman named Sheila or Heather. And if all of this grosses you out, just take a seat in a rocking chair, stare into the horizon and ponder why the teats of a cow or a sheep you've never even met gives less of a nick? I have no answers. I only have questions.

[Kira James]

I've had camel milk in caramel form, but I haven't had any cheeses outside of those four. So I've had water buffalo, cow, sheep and goat. Some of the weirder, you know, unusual types of cheeses that I have are often mixed milk. So you can mix the milks together to create another style of cheese, another flavor profile. By mixing cow's milk with goat's milk, you get one flavor. By mixing sheep's milk with cow's milk, you get another flavor. So those are some of the more unusual types of cheeses that I've had.

[Alie Ward]

Hybrid, you might say.

[Kira J.]

When I think of goat's milk cheese, I always think of it as a soft cheese. But are there like Parmesan goat cheeses?

[Kira James]

Definitely, yeah. So you can make any type of cheese with any style of milk. There are classifications and what we call rules to some of the cheese making process. Especially when you go to Europe, there are certain cheeses that are only made with cow's milk, only made with sheep's milk, only made with goat's milk.

[Alie Ward]

So in France, chevre is goat's milk cheese. It has an R in there. I'm not sure how to say it. Now, Grecian feta is sheep, or a mix of sheep and goat milk. Although in America you can just get cow's milk feta and apparently Greece just has to live with Americans decision to take the name. Now, pecorino just means sheep's milk and it comes from the Italian word for sheep. Now, both goat and sheep milk have more fat than cow milk. And those with a dairy allergy can sometimes more easily digest goat milk because its proteins are similar to that made by the animal your mom. According to a chapter titled the Nutritional Value and Health Health benefits of Goat Milk Components from the textbook Nutrients in Dairy and their Implications on Health and Disease. Also, goat milk is more commonly consumed globally than cow milk. What? Yes, goats are easier to keep and people tend to prefer the taste. How many people? About 75% of the world consumes goat milk, or I should say Chevreux.

[Kira J.]

Why does France have such a good.

[Kira James]

Cheese reputation similar to other parts of Europe? They've been making cheese for a long period of time. For centuries they've been making cheese and they've perfected the craft of it. They also invest in the quality of the milk and the animals. They know that they make high quality cheeses. So they invest. So the government and the people invest a lot of money into those manufacturers. So there are rules that you need to follow in parts of France to make certain cheeses. They've been crafting these cheeses for so long that they've just gotten better and better over time.

[Alie Ward]

They have a good cheese culture?

[Kira James]

Yes, they have a great cheese culture.

[Kira J.]

Speaking of cultures, I read once that stinky cheeses have the same bacteria that stinky feet do. And I'm curious, like, the cultures now are probably handed down and handed down, but how much of the culture is just like, wild caught bacteria or yeasts or, like, where is it coming from? How do people know, like, this is gonna make a really good Gorgonzola, and this is gonna make a really good Gouda. Are they in secret jars where someone protects them? Like, where are they coming from?

[Kira James]

In some cases, yeah. The idea of cultures to some cheese makers are their bread and butter. It's the secret sauce to make their cheese special and different because they're natural microbes that are found in the environment naturally. So you can harvest them. Now, today we harvest cultures, and so now you can basically pick out, just like buying rennet, you can pick up the cultures that you want to add to your cheese just like a recipe, and you can buy them online. But in some cases, like raw milk cheesemakers, they're actually cultivating their own cultures. And so they're in house and they're creating them through fermenting the milk. They create a clabber or some kind of substance that they then add to the next batch of milk to help start the fermentation process, which is what the cheese cultures are doing. They're really helping transform the milk and also adding flavor.

[Alie Ward]

Did I know what a clabber was? Of course not. I thought it was some sort of wooden paddle, but evidently it's a type of fermented sour milk that's curd like, but the whey hasn't yet separ. So if you have ever dusted off a canister of clabber girl baking powder in your pantry, that's because clabber milk was a leavening agent before you could just buy powder in a can which is not made of dairy. Also, what is with raw milk cheese? Well, some folks say that the curd structure is far superior in milk that hasn't been pasteurized or heated to kill pathogens. And the absolutely bogglingly appointed U.S. health and Human Services Secretary, RFK Jr. Prefers raw milk. Alth, although his favorite brand was recalled for containing bird Flu. Which is perhaps why his strategy for the bird flu epidemic is to just let er rip. But from my curled lips to your scrunched nose, what's the stinkiest cheese?

[Kira James]

The stinkiest cheeses are probably from France.

[Kira J.]

Okay.

[Kira James]

They have a few popular cheeses. Epoisse is one that's very stinky. It's a smaller format cheese.

[Alie Ward]

These are just little cheeses.

[Kira James]

It's actually banned on the train rails in France.

[Kira J.]

Oh my God.

[Kira James]

I don't know if it's the whole country, but I know in parts you can't have epoix on the train because of the smell of it and the stink of it.

[Alie Ward]

And while some Parisians say they have never been cited for this offense, epoix is said to have a soft, pungent, and unapologetically meaty, according to the New York City purveyor Murray's Cheese. Hence, there you go. The origin of the euphemism to cut the cheese.

[Kira James]

There's also from Italy. There's washed on cheeses like Taleggio. It's not super pungent in flavor like a poiss. A poiss has a pretty robust flavor, but Taleggio actually has a more milky and subtle flavor overall. But the stink is still there. So you're right. You definitely read that correctly. The. The bacteria called brevity bacteria, linens or bee linens for short, are the bacteria that are close relatives to the bacteria that grow between your toes. So that's where the stinky feet reference comes from. So we try to embrace this in the cheese world and not look at it as a negative. We try to embrace it as a positive. These are just natural organisms around us and we know to clean ourselves if we smell our feet. And so that's fine. But when it comes to cheese, the stinkier the better for some people.

[Kira J.]

So heads up.

[Alie Ward]

Feet stink is technically called bromidosis. And if you are a victim of it from the foot or the nose perspective, it's coming from. Yep, an overgrowth of bacteria or maybe a bonus fungus thrown in there. And it could be because you are blessed with feet sweat glands that are working overtime, or you could have a hormonal issue. Either way, podiatrists recommend washing the feet and letting them dry totally before socking them up. And you can alternate between a few pairs of shoes so that they can fully dry out between wears. Also, you can pull an at home bowling alley move and Lysol your shoes down between wears. There are UV light shoe sterilizers. You can tuck in there overnight. You can Also, add some vinegar to your sock laundry. And just for you, I would went deep into forums on foot stink, and I read one story about someone who developed absolutely rancid foot width. And it turned out their shower drain was sluggish from buildup and like, rather than snake it because they just sloshed around in the water during their showers, not realizing that all the stuff they washed off their dirty body mingled with whatever demon was clogging the bathtub drain. And can I tell you that if you live in a house, any house that has a shower or a bathtub, get yourself something called a drain weasel. It's a sort of barbed implement you shove down your drain and it brings up ungodly horrors. They look like a greased dead rat and they smell even worse. And if you like poor extraction videos, you will love using a drain weasel. I'm one of you if you're asking me why, why, why? You can see our discussed ology episode about what grosses out whom and why. Also, so some people swear by antiperspirant deodorants on their feet or even a salt crystal, the hippie kind that works to kill germies. I hope I have saved some friendships or healed some marriages. Let love bloom.

[Kira J.]

Are there any conversations between cheese people about why we might not want, like, our roommate's feet to smell that way, but why we want our charcuterie board, like, that unctuousness that, like, animal quality, like. Like, do we know why the brain says no in some cases and yes in others?

[Kira James]

That's a great question. I mean, I know it's a lot of personal preference. For me, I didn't love a lot of the cheeses that I love now when I first started tasting cheese, I think working in the industry, you gain respect for all categories of cheese and you try them all with no judgment. And then over time, you begin to. To advance your palate and make decisions on preference. So I don't think that there are scientific reasonings behind it, but I know that it takes a lot of time to sort of work your way there. Some people just like stinky cheese because they like robust flavors or they like to be surprised. Other people like more mellow flavors. They don't want to be surprised. So I think it really just comes down to preference.

[Alie Ward]

Sharp cheddar all the way. Why? Sharper cheese is just aged longer. Lactose breaks down further into lactic acid, giving that kind of, like, vinegary punch that is no contest. Better than mild cheese.

[Kira J.]

Do you get so many cheese gifts? Like, do People constantly give you cheese fridge magnets and cheese boards.

[Kira James]

I definitely, yes, I'm definitely the cheese lady in my community. So everything cheese related out get mugs, I'll get bags. All the cheese gifts. Yes, definitely something that I am familiar with. Yeah.

[Kira J.]

If you have a cheese board at home, how many knives do you really need? Because sometimes a cheese board set, I'll.

[Alie Ward]

Be like, I don't know what this.

[Kira J.]

Teardrop shaped knife does and how come.

[Alie Ward]

Some have a fork and some don't.

[Kira J.]

Like, how many cheese knives do you need?

[Kira James]

I mean each one has a purpose. Each shape of cheese knife is designed for a certain style of cheese or to be used in a certain way. I think 4 to 6 is the right amount. I mean most sets come with one of each type of knife, which doesn't always work because you might need the soft knife because you have two soft cheeses and so you have to finagle it and find a different knife or just use this knife for this cheese. So I'll look for sets that also give me some instructions too. If I was looking for some knives.

[Alie Ward]

I never know, I just set em.

[Kira J.]

Out and I hope whoever's eating the.

[Kira James]

Cheese board is close.

[Alie Ward]

Okay, let's break this down for you. So in real basic terms, if the knife has holes in it, that's for soft cheeses. So there's less surface area for the cheese to stick to. The knife with the fork at the tip is for any kind of cheese that you can slice off, but you don't wanna use your dirty little fingers to pick it up off the board in front of people. And the square or wedged shape cheese knife is for harder cheeses so you can kind of chisel a slice off. And then the teardrop shaped cheese knife is the one for the drier hard cheeses like parm, so you can cut a little divot and then poke at the cut with the tip and then break a chunk off. Now another handy rule of thumb when it comes to what cheese knife you should use is so fucking what. We're all gonna die. Nothing matters.

[Kira J.]

Do you have a kind of cheese where when you see it you're like, oh, hell yeah.

[Kira James]

I like things from the mountains, so we call them Alpine cheeses. So the Alps are a mountain range that run in Switzerland and France. And so cheeses are made high up in these mountains and they're made in a very specific way. Gruyere is one of them. So if you've had Gruyere, that's what we call an alpine style cheese. And so I look for those types of cheese in the stores, especially more rare, hard to find cheeses from that part of the world or domestically. There are a lot of small producers that I don't get to try because they're more regional based. So when I travel, there are cheeses that I'm gonna look for that are local to that area that I can't find anywhere else.

[Kira J.]

Let's talk about aging a little bit, because the longer you age, the harder the cheese. Is that right or no?

[Kira James]

It depends on the style. So, yes, for the majority of styles of cheese, so anything like a cheddar, a gouda, the alpine style that I talked about, those styles and anything firm will definitely get harder as they age. As they age, they're losing more moisture. And so when you lose more moisture, it's getting more dry, and therefore the texture is going to be firmer. But there are styles like the soft ripened cheese that I mentioned and washed rinds. Those two styles of cheese could age backwards. So like a Brie or Camembert style cheese. Brie are the soft cheese with the white rind. As those cheeses age, the proteins actually break down in a different way than the hard cheeses do. And so they actually will get softer over time. Oh, so when we say a cheese is ripe, oftentimes you hear someone say, oh, this is ripe. This is a ripe cheese. They're usually talking about these softer cheeses that are more runny and spreadable. Brie can be firm when you slice it, but over time, it'll actually get softer and more creamy.

[Alie Ward]

You smell particularly ripe this evening.

[Kira J.]

What is the rind on those soft cheeses?

[Alie Ward]

Cause it looks papery.

[Kira J.]

And then I'm like, is this just mold and can I eat it?

[Kira James]

Yes. So those cheeses specifically, you definitely can eat it. The rind is mold. We call them soft ripened. But specifically for Brie and Camembert, we'll say bloomy rind. So a bloomy rind cheese is one where the molds that were added and the cultures that were added to the cheese actually begin to form on the exterior. Mold needs oxygen to thrive. So the molds and the microorganisms are gonna seek out the oxygen, and that's gonna be on the exterior of the cheese. So just like anything, you'll see mold growth on the outside, just like your bread when you leave it too long. But in this case, these are good molds that bring a lot of flavor. And so what the cheese maker will do is they're actually watch the Molds bloom, and then pat them down over time, and then watch it bloom some more and pat that down over time. And then as you pat it down, it creates a dense sort of crust, if you will, that's perfectly edible and actually is part of the reason why the cheeses break down in the opposite way that hard cheeses do is partly because of the rind itself. The rind breaks down the pace of the cheese and makes everything softer.

[Kira J.]

I've always wondered that on a cheese board, when people are scooping around the rind, I'm always like, I feel like.

[Alie Ward]

You can eat that. But I don't know.

[Kira J.]

Like, I've heard people who have been on dates and, like, their date ate the entire edamame, including the shell, and they're like, oh, no. Like, what is happening here? And I was like, is that the.

[Alie Ward]

Same for a rind?

[Kira J.]

Is it, like, sitting down to eat.

[Alie Ward]

Crab and then just, like, eating the shell also?

[Kira J.]

But no, you don't have to scoop around it. You can eat that thing, right?

[Kira James]

I mean.

[Alie Ward]

Right.

[Kira James]

Yeah. I mean, it's totally edible, and you can totally eat it. And what I say is that if it doesn't add to your experience, then leave it behind.

[Kira J.]

Okay.

[Kira James]

If it doesn't make things taste better, then it's okay to leave it behind. For me, the bloomin cheeses, I leave those rinds behind. So I would be one of those people that you're talking about that would scoop out the cheese. So that's my confession. That would be the one. But, you know, then I would just try to find a friend to eat the rind. Okay. I would definitely. Yes. Not leave it behind. Totally.

[Alie Ward]

You could pass it on to me.

[Kira J.]

Okay. I'd put it on a cracker. I'm also like a everyone's pizza crust. I'm always eyeing them. Like, the crust is my favorite part. Like, are you gonna eat that? So, okay, that's good. I'll take care of it for you.

[Kira James]

Yes. And I would say that when you eat any rind, don't save it to the end like a. Like a. Like a treat. Eat the rind with the paste. Eat the rind with the cheese itself, because that's where you're gonna really understand the full flavor of it. But oftentimes people will eat the cheese and then, like, pop the rind in their mouth at the end. And I'm just like, that's not gonna be a good experience for you because it's gonna be a very specific flavor profile that isn't gonna be the Same as the cheese itself. So that's my tip for that.

[Alie Ward]

So, yes, that bloomy rind, which is usually mostly a species of penicillin, actually breaks down fat into a much creamier and kind of goopy, spreadable texture. And yes, you can eat the rind and you may want to if you like umami or mushroomy tastes. Also, if you've ever had a bloomed soft cheese that tasted like ammonia, which I have, that means it over aged. So don't save that brie in your cheese drawer for a rainy day. Just eat the thing. Try the rind. Well, you mentioned Alpine cheeses and Gruyere, and we're talking about Camembert and soft cheeses right now.

[Kira J.]

Is it the same as champagne? Like, can you call something a Gruyere.

[Alie Ward]

If it's made in New Jersey, or.

[Kira J.]

Is it only like in the Gruyere region of the Alps?

[Alie Ward]

Are there proprietary names?

[Kira James]

Yes, there are. So there are certain countries that make certain cheeses that they're the only ones that will make those cheeses, Gruyere being one of them. Gruyere is only made in Switzerland by certain cheese makers. In certain regions, only certain people are even allowed to make it. The government would stop you if you tried to make Gruyere outside of the parameters that they've set. Camembert isn't as strict. It is made in certain parts of France and it's mostly raw milk. But we can't get that cheese in America. So there are some sort of workarounds in that respect. Now, when talking about Gruyere specifically in America, the government has ruled that anyone can use the name Gruyere. So you will see cheeses that are made in Wisconsin that say Gruyere on the label. But technically those are not going to be Gruyere. But any country can make their own rules. We've allowed this to happen. But if you talk to a cheese professional, Gruyere is only made in Switzerland.

[Alie Ward]

Just a footnote here. So Gruyere is in fact a place in the Alps. And I need you to know that sci fi artist and legend H.R. giger of Alien fame, purchased a medieval castle fortress there and has turned it into a museum of his goopy, creepy alien sculptures and artwork. And you can visit it in between plates of earthy, nutty, semi soft cow's milk cheese.

[Kira J.]

Do cheese professionals get in cheese fights or is it pretty tight knit? I also understand that cheese is pretty matriarchal historically. Like there's more women that work in cheese. Is that true of the cheese culture?

[Kira James]

Definitely. So throughout history, cheese was often looked at as a woman's work. So the men would be outside with the animals, taking care of the farmland and doing all of the manual labor, as they say, even though cheese making his manual label too. But it would be considered women's work. So there'd be. The woman would be taken care of. Today, it's the same in some respects, but there are more women in the industry. I think there's a lot to do with the passion behind it and the work that is done to make cheese. It's very nurturing, it's very passionate, like I said specifically to work with animals, to work with mother animals specifically. All these things are very matriarchal. So in the industry, there's definitely more women than men. Today, there aren't as many female cheesemakers as men. It's probably more balanced. But in the industry as a whole, like in distribution and sales and education, like myself, there's a lot more women.

[Kira J.]

That was a surprise to me, you know, reading about that and also reading about that. Cheese tends to be like a queer friendly industry too. And all of hospitality really is kind of toward that bent.

[Kira James]

Definitely.

[Alie Ward]

Which is great to hear.

[Kira James]

Definitely.

[Alie Ward]

And those in the cheese industry likely already know this. But to those on the other side of the cheese case, there is a strong queer culture folded into the cheese world. In a 2019 Vice piece titled Meet.

[Kira J.]

The lesbian cheesemongers of the LGBTQ community.

[Alie Ward]

A cheese vendor named Kara Warren explained the appeal. That it's the storytelling and the fact that cheese is kind of like this outsider food already. She said it's a subculture that somehow works in the realm of gay culture. They intersect at the point where it.

[Kira J.]

Can be artsy and fantastic and over.

[Alie Ward]

The top and you can be loud and proud. So cheese is inherently queer, as outlined in the 2024 Eater article why cheese is inherently queer. And Kira is quoted in that piece explaining that a passion of hers is trying to. To make cheese approachable and relatable to people in America who may see it as unobtainable, and to allow people to enjoy cheese on a more casual level. And Kira also told Eater that as a person of color in a white dominated industry, she knows of only two other brown female cheesemongers and that one of her many, many goals is doing more for young people of color and young queer people. And that's also what she's fostering at her cheese consulting business, own your friends Funk. And that's a company that's inspired and motivated by this urgent need for more diversity and who's buying, selling and producing artisan food, specifically value added dairy, as it's called. And she does that by crafting these intentional educational food experiences. And you can learn more, of course, @ownyourfunk.com. oh, wait, I had another rind question. I'm sorry.

[Kira J.]

Oh, wax rinds.

[Alie Ward]

Don't eat the wax rinds. Right?

[Kira James]

Don't eat the wax rinds.

[Kira J.]

Yes. Okay. Why do some cheeses, why are they dipped in wax and other cheeses are just like, cool having a moldy rind?

[Kira James]

Great question. Again, it goes back to style. So traditionally, cheeses dipped in wax are going to create certain nuances and flavor profiles within the cheese. So the most well known wax dipped cheeses would be goudas or Goudas from the Netherlands and Holland. So when you dip the cheese in wax, you're sort of creating a barrier around it to allow for the microbes and the cheese itself to age while not losing its moisture. So you've created this protective barrier where nothing can get out or in. And so what that means is it can't get dried out. It's gonna stay protected by the wax and that moisture helps with sweetness. So that's why a lot of goudas are gonna be more sweet in flavor profile, partly because of the wax dipping. So you'll see it in a few other cheeses. Like there are some blue cheeses that are dipped in wax. There are cheddars dipped in wax, all for the same sort of purpose, to protect it from losing its moisture.

[Alie Ward]

One of my fears about the future.

[Kira J.]

And I have many, but one of them is, you know those Babybel cheeses?

[Kira James]

Yes.

[Kira J.]

When you got one of those in your lunch, you're like, oh, today's gonna be a good day. I have a Babybel cheese in my lunch. And not to mention, you could weird wax fingernails and you could sculpt it. It was like, today's the best. But I'm so afraid of the day when Babybel has to announce their poor social media expert has to announce it. Like they're going to be wrapped in plastic or they stopped making the wax. It's such a treat. But I imagine it must be so expensive.

[Kira James]

Yeah, I don't think it's that expensive in today's modern world. It's food grade wax. It's not very thick. It doesn't take a lot to create. I think it's more, in my opinion, more of an environmental aspect to things. So to transition out of wax could be for an environmental purpose, to create Less waste in that respect. But it is food grade, so it does decompose over time. But yeah, that would be a terrible day. I don't know if it would have. It wouldn't be the same cheese anymore. It would taste completely different.

[Alie Ward]

Okay. I had to look this up. And apparently the red wax is a micro crystalline wax wax. It's food safe. And the cellophane around the cheese is compostable. Also, if you're subsisting entirely on Babybel cheeses, good for you. But you're feeling guilty about the wax consumption, you can, according to their website, collect all the wax, the cellophane, the netting, and the metal clip, and you can ship it back to them with a prepaid packing label, and they'll recycle it all for you. They purify the wax and make candles, but. But the wax, I'm told, also makes an excellent campfire starter or you can sculpt things. Babybel has even run competitions for the finest sculptures made from its cheese wax discards. So dream big. Get in there.

[Kira J.]

I know. It's just such an experience. When you unwrap it, you're just like, oh, so exciting. I wanted to ask about blue cheeses too. Sometimes you'll see, like, cave aged, and I picture a weird, remote, tiny cave that no one knows a location to. But when they say cave aged, is that like, is a basement a cave? What does that mean?

[Kira James]

So cave age is used pretty loosely today, but traditionally, cave age means just that. In a naturally formed cave, cheeses are put into the cave to age caves. Again, traditionally, true caves are sort of a naturally controlled environment. So they have cool temperatures about like 55 degrees. So it's not super cold. Kind of keeps things at a nice temperature, but then very high humidity. And so with those two attributes, it makes for a great environment again for certain cheeses. Certain cheeses want high humidity and cool temperatures to thrive in the aging process. So that's when you're gonna put things in caves. And you'll see blue cheeses were where it started with Roquefort, they started in caves. And so people follow suit. And so today you can define a cave as any controlled temperature environment, Any controlled temperature environment. So a basement, if you have the temperature controlled, if there's a door and the humidity and the temperature are controlled, then you can definitely call it a cave or cheese aging room. Even a refrigerator can be called a cave if you're aging cheese in it. But traditionally and today, there are still many, many cheeses that are aged in real caves. Even Right here in America.

[Alie Ward]

So we have an episode on caves speleology. I'll link it for you. Also, the blue veins in cheeses like Roquefort and Gorgonzola, those appear because there are tunnels of air in the aging cheese and those pockets of oxygen allow the mold to flourish and then they appear like threads of gold before a miner's eyes. Priceless to some.

[Kira James]

So to be considered to be a blue cheese, the only really rule to being a blue cheese is that you have some blue molding in there.

[Kira J.]

So, yeah, I feel like blue cheese.

[Alie Ward]

Has to be the most polarizing.

[Kira James]

It's definitely the most polarizing. Yes.

[Kira J.]

Yeah.

[Kira James]

I mean, you have some fans of it and then you have people who will never try it.

[Kira J.]

Yeah. My friend Todd, who has French citizenship, an amazing chef, and I was shocked to be like, that's one cheese he just won't touch because he's like, he'll try anything, he'll cook anything. And it's so personal what cheeses you like, which is one of the things.

[Alie Ward]

That'S amazing about cheese.

[Kira J.]

Can I do a lightning round of listener questions?

[Kira James]

Yeah, let's do it.

[Alie Ward]

So ask salt of the earth people cheesy questions because like a snack, knowledge is best shared. Thank you so much, Kara for being here not only this week, but next week as well. You can follow her and learn more about her work linked in the show notes or at our website alieward.com ologies from ology [e-mail] donations went to the cheese culture coalition and team ups building schools in Kenya. We've got those linked in the show notes as well. Next week, come back for wall to wall patreon questions to learn how to properly store cheese. The difference between orange and white cheddar. The grilled sandwich debate how to make cheese at home. Cheese pricing Squeaky curds the moon's composition. How cheese changes your brain chemistry. The ultimate charcuterie board build plus holes and crystals and maggots. Oh my. And again, if you need kid friendly episodes, check out smologies S M O L O G I E and Ologies merch is available at ologiesmerch.com thank you patrons of the show for making it possible via patreon.com Ologies we are Ologies on Instagram at bluesky. I'm Allie Ward on both. Erin Talbert admins our Ologies podcast Facebook group Avileen Malik makes our professional transcripts. Noelle Dilworth arranges time as a scheduling producer. Susan Hale is our managing Monger and Director of All Things Ologies. Editors are the extra sharp Jake Chaffee and lead editor and big cheese Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio with some additional sprinklings of Jarrett Sleeper of mindjam Media, with whom I have my fourth wedding anniversary this week and I just looked it up and the traditional gift is fruit or flowers. Folks, we have purchased two small lemon trees together. We have killed them both. However, he did give me a fig tree for my birthday and I'm proud to report that it still has leaves on it. It's only been six months. That's fine. Also, Ologies is about to celebrate its eighth anniversary in September and I just looked it up. The traditional gifts for that are bronze or pottery Ceramics episode I would like that as well. Tell me your favorite ceramic scholars slash makers via bluesky or Instagram or our Patreon discussion thread post for this episode because I'm thinking we can maybe make it happen. Nick Thorburn made the theme music and if you stick around to the very end of the episode, I tell you a secret. I feel like I already told you three in this outro and I'm sorry, but this one is that I am a black tights all winter long kind of person. My legs? Not my best feature. Pasty, ashy. No matter how much moisturizer, it's not a good scene, but summer is hard for lingering aging goths and so I've taken to wearing like old school fishnets under my shorts. And specifically the ones made for professional dancers like Capezio Brand indestructible. I don't know what in the name of kevlar these things are made of, but you could run thigh first into a barbed wire fence and these things wouldn't feel it while you bled out underneath. I thought this was the most genius summer decision I've ever made. I wear them all the time. I have several pairs and also it's.

[Kira J.]

A great way to avoid needing self.

[Alie Ward]

Tanner or explaining bruises. You don't know how they got there, but I ran into my neighbor yesterday. He's a rocket scientist at NASA so I tend to trust his judgment. And he pointed to my ensemble of fishnet tights under black shorts and he just paused. He's taking out the garbage and he just was like why? This is a burn. Yeah, but was it a deterrent? No, sorry Ben, I'm still wearing them. Okay, next week more cheese provide pachydermatology, Homeology, Cryptozoology, Litology, Nanotechnology, Meteorology, Mold factology, nephology Serology, Selenology. And you ate a whole wheel of cheese.

[Kira J.]

How'd you do that?

[Alie Ward]

It's actually, I'm not even mad.

[Kira J.]

That's amazing.

[Alie Ward]

Okay, one more secret for you. My garbage isn't stinky. If you're, like, impossible and why are you bragging? It's not me. It's because I have a mill food recycler. You can take your food scraps and your leftover food, your vegetable peelings, whatever, you walk over to the mill, you drop it in. It always reminds me of that scene at the end of Back to the Future where Doc is just putting stuff in the car. It's like that, but for food scraps. You put it in there while you sleep. It dehydrates and churns them up. You can fill it for weeks and it doesn't smell. And it also keeps leftovers out of my garbage so that my garbage doesn't smell or get juicy, which is what you don't want your garbage to be. So it transforms your scraps into these neutral, nutrient rich grounds. They look like coffee grounds. You can put them in the garden.

[Kira J.]

You can put them in your compost.

[Alie Ward]

Milk can even get them to a farm for you. There's no mess, there's no stress. And it keeps food waste out of the landfills so it can't create a ton of methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas. So mill makes it easy to do something good. And you can get $75 [e-mail] ologies that's mill.com.

[Unknown]

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