Cheese Addict’s 12 Steps to Recovery

Here is an amusing take on the recent blahblah about cheese being the new crack! In the Paris Update, a weekly Paris guide edited by Heidi Ellison, I found this funny column written by one of her contributers: David Jaggard, apparently a cheesehead of the first order.

In his article French Cheese: Confessions of a Casein Addict he kindly provides the rest of us with a 12 step program for cheese addicts.  Read the entire article, it is funny but here are his 12 steps for you to contemplate while endulging in your habit:

  

The C’est Ironique Cheese Addict’s 12 Steps to Recovery (of More Cheese)

1. Admit that you, by yourself, are powerless over cheese. You also need a knife.

2. Believe in a power greater than what you have now — somewhere out there is a cheese that’s even more potently malodorous than anything you’ve ever smeared on bread. If only you could find it.

3. Make a decision to turn your life over to God as you understand Him, by which you understand Casomorphin.

4. Make a searching and fearless inventory of your moral shortcomings. Or, since that’s a drag, of the nearest cheese shop.

5. Admit to yourself, to Casomorphin and to another person, namely the cheese shop clerk, the exact nature of your uncontrolled cravings. Along with how much of each one you want.

6. Be fully ready to have Casomorphin remove any compunctions you might have about asking to sample dozens of different cheeses before buying.

7. Humbly beseech Casomorphin to keep delivering His opiate high without ruining your cholesterol levels or waistline.

8. Make a list of all the persons you have harmed in the past by breathing on them right after a big bite of gorgonzola.

9. Make direct amends to those people by inviting them over for fondue.

10. Continue to take regular personal inventories of your cheese stock and, when it falls low, promptly admit it. And (duh!) go buy more.

11. Seek through prayer (for more grocery money) and meditation (on the locations of various cheese shops) to improve, and indeed maximize, your communion with Casomorphin.

12. Having had a spiritual, or, failing that, gustatory awakening as the result of these steps, carry this message, and a cheese knife, everywhere you go.

A Look at Pairing in the USA

The Wall Street Journal published a great article on cheese in America worth taking a look at called The A to Z Guide to Cheese Plus Pungent Pairings by Tia Keenan. It features an interesting combination of world cheeses with amusing descriptions to go with them, like " a nutty, savory, beef-broth-y stunner with plenty of “crunchies” (amino acid clusters) that add a pleasant Pop Rocks-for-adults texture to many aged cheeses" or Époisses being "Stinky, funky, smooth as a velvet Elvis".

Then it proposes, with photos, some cheeseplate combinations of the selections they feature.  Quite interesting combinations, not your usual ones either, which is the point of the article.  There are some American cheese I would really like to try but can not get here in France, but there are some beautiful Italian and Spanish ones that if you look hard you can find here and in the UK.

This aticle proves that cheese has definately 'arrived' in the US and just like wine Americans are jumping into it with both feet!  And as a side note, Culture Magazine reported that before banning them, the US Food & Drug Administration has decided to  "reconsider the safety criteria" for raw milk cheeses !  Great news for all.

The internet is an amazing thing.  You can find all kinds of useful and useless information, anytime, anywhere.  Following a link from a podcast about the International Cheese Competition, I read a very interesting article, albeit a bit old the other day regarding terroir and cheese.  It was in the Feb 2002 issue of Wine Business Monthly and is called The Terroir of Cheese by Maria Lorraine Binchet.

It is one of the best and most focused discussion of the subject of terroir and cheese I have read.  It describes the main differences between terroir in wine and in cheese and then goes indepth on the subject relative to cheese from the land, to the animals, to the process and the producers, all who add their special piece to the terroir of a fromage. Well worth the read!

Cheese & Sex

Cheese eaters have a more active sex life?  Who knew! Apparently according to an article on the website MinuteBuzz, cheese-addict have more sex than otherpeople.  Yep! You read it right. The results of a survey made by the American dating site Skout, after questioning 4600 members about their sexual habits, the cheese-lovers have it...or at least have it more often!

According to researchers, it is the tryptophan in cheese that make the difference. This amino acid helps boosts serotonin or "the pleasure hormone", so people who eat lots of cheese have higher levels of the stuff coursing through their libido! The best part is that the stronger the cheese strong, the stronger the link.  Yeehah!  Now all you gotta do if eat more cheese especially the smelly, strong ones!

Milk Facts - Cow, Goat, Sheep

Source:WorkSmartLiveSmart.com

Not all milk is the same, we all know that, but besides the obvious like the animal and which breed, what is the real difference?  

All milk is made up of water, fat, protein, lactose and minerals but it is the composition of these constituents that makes the difference between them.  The fat and protein vary greatly.  The higher the solids content, the stronger the affect on the acidification and coagulation properties for cheese but also how the human body deals with it in milk form.  The fat and protein content in cow's and goat's milk are fairly similar compared to sheep' milk; however the structure of the fat and protein is what's important.


Fat Content

98% of the fat in milk consists of triglycerides and are made up of fatty acid chains that vary in length. This issue is the size of the fat globules and the type of protein chain.  Sheep and goat’s milk have short to medium chains producing smaller globules, cow’s milk has longer structures. The longer the chain length, the more easily it separates from the water but the more difficult for the human body to breakdown.

While sheep are notoriously difficult to milk, mostly because they have very small teats, the milk is naturally homogenized. This means the cream does not separate out of it but it also makes the milk easier to digest. Sheep produce less milk than their confrere.  The upside is it has a very high fat content with the finest fat globules of the lot.  Goat’s milk come second to sheep’s milk; with cow’s milk a distant third, having the largest fat globules and the longer fatty acid chains. Goat's milk is the closest to human milk and the least fatty of the three. It is the easiest on the human digestive system. It generally requires more milk to make cheese but because of the milks’ fat structure, the cheeses are less suited to aging.

Cow’s milk is the highest in water content of the three, which of course helps produce more quantity-wise.  The typical breeds used for ‘industrial’ milk produce milk that is less well rounded in terms of character.  For drinking, this is not an issue and the fact that due to its' structure, the cream rises and allows for making different percentages of fat content milk.  For cheese production, the regional breeds in most countries produce milk with more complexity and a higher fat content which makes for better cheeses.


Milk Protein

Milk protein differs between milk types.  There are two major types: caseins and whey proteins.  Casein being the major of the two is what transforms when making cheese.  In sheep’s milk 82% of the proteins are casein while it is 80% cow’s milk and 75% in goat’s milk, the rest being whey based. Casein protein has four different types and the proportions differ between the milk types – goat contains more of the beta caseins while cows’ has more alpha caseins with a particular one being the protein responsible for cows’ milk allergies. 

What is important for cheese is that casein coagulates to form the structural backbone of cheese curd. Sheep’s milk coagulates more rapidly and forms much firmer curd thus sheep’s milk produces twice the amount of cheese per unit compared to cow’s or goat’s milk. The richness and cheese yield of sheep's milk makes up for the lower quantity of milk per animal.  Goat’s milk with its lower amount of alpha casein and its beta casein has a lower yield (10 to 15 percent less) and is less adaptable to different cheese type.

It’s the sugar stupid!

Somebody who cannot digest lactose is said to be lactose intolerant. But it is the major sugar – not protein – found in animal milk that causes the problem here.  The intolerance comes when the body’s ability to synthesizing the lactase is compromised.  Lactase is the enzyme responsible for lactose metabolism and in the cheese making process, it is the energy source for our friendly bacteria.

All three of the milk types contain similar levels of lactose; therefore, one is not better than another for those with lactose intolerance when it comes to drinking or using milk.  The good news is that during the process of making and aging cheese, most lactose is lost when the whey drains off and the little that is left begins to convert to lactase.  The older the cheese, the less lactose!  So long aged cheeses like Comté, Beaufort or the Pyrenees sheep’s milk cheeses all have practically no lactose left in them.

Just a fun note:  Milks vary in colour. Cow’s milk tends to be yellow and varies by season because of the level of beta-carotene found in green forages.  Some breeds process this pigment differently or more efficiently and produce very yellow milk – Jersey cows being a good example.  Sheep and goat milks lack beta-carotene because they convert it into vitamin A which is not pigmented so these milks are whiter than cow’s milk.

Side by sidecomparison

Component	Unit	Cow Whole (3.25% fat)	Goat	Sheep
		--- Amount per 100 g ---
Overall Composition
Water	g	88.32	87.03	80.7
Energy	kcal	60	69	108
Carbohydrate2	g	4.52	4.45	5.36
Fat	g	3.25	4.14	7
Protein	g	3.22	3.56	5.98
Minerals (Ash)	g	0.69	0.82	0.96
Vitamins
Vitamin A	µg	28	57	44
Riboflavin (Vitamin B2)	mg	0.183	0.138	0.355
Niacin (Vitamin B3)	mg	0.107	0.277	0.417
Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5)	mg	0.362	0.31	0.407
Vitamin C	mg	0	1.3	4.2
Vitamin D	IU	40	12	ND3
Minerals (Ash)
Calcium	mg	113	134	193
Magnesium	mg	10	14	18
Potassium	mg	143	204	137
Sodium	mg	40	50	44
Zinc	mg	0.4	0.3	0.54
Carbohydrate Detail
Lactose4	g	5.26	ND	ND
Fat Detail
Cholesterol	mg	10	11	27
Fatty acids, total saturated	g	1.865	2.677	4.603
Fatty acids, total monounsaturated	g	0.812	1.109	1.724
Fatty acids, total polyunsaturated	g	0.195	0.149	0.308
Source:
http://www.milkfacts.info/Nutrition%20Facts/Nutrient%20Content.htm#Tab2

Why the EU is crippling French artisanal cheesemakers

When the doyen of all things cheese in America Max McCalman posts an article on his FaceBook page from Newsweek regarding the very sad state of affairs in the  French artisanal cheese world, you need to take notice.  The article entitled French Cheesemakers Crippled by EU Health Measures by Ana Pouvreau and Mark Porter outline the ongoing David and Golith battle between the milk industry and the artisanal cheese makers of not just France but one would imagine elsewhere in the EU.  Unfortunately, this situation has been longstanding and truly has wide reaching effects on the cheesemakers, the small diary farmers and ultimately the consumer.  

Plain and simple, the big guys who want to dominate markets have no tolerance for the little guys. Their industrial processes, cheap, inferior milk and unforgiving bottom lines force them to use their immense power to shape the products available and the political landscape. There is an axiom about too many taxes kill tax, and the same idea can be applied here. Too many mediocre industrial, pasterized cheeses will ultimately obliterate "cheese". 

It has always puzzled me why these industrial conglomerates drive the milk prices down thus destroying the small milk producers, in order to pump out crap, i.e., pasturized, tasteless, long-life "cheese" to control the market with their size, and also feel the need to squeeze out what is perceived as competion by the artisanal cheesmaker creating lait cru (unpasterised) cheese. These giants with deep pockets use thier influence to bury the little producers in regulations that will ultimately, and effectively, outlaw their products.

If people want to buy industrialized products in supermarkets or grocery stores and let them sit in their refigerators for weeks, let them, it is their choice, sad as it may be.  But some of us who want to spend our hard earned cash on more expensive, and what we perceive as better products, then why should we not have that choice and right?  Democracy and freedom of choice at work; market segmentation and profit margin intact...n'est pas?  But no, this is not the mentality of the big agrobusinesses!  Theirs is to dominate and kill off ALL competition. In France, this "competition" represents a meer 10% of the market. What company would not, and should not, be satisfied with that? 

The president of an organization, Fromages de Terroirs, that supports unpasterized cheese producers in France, Veronique RICHEZ-LEROUGE, has waged this battle here in France for quite some time now. So she is now joined by Max McCalman on the American front to say - save our cheese! If it can happen in the EU it also happening in the US! 

We, as supporters of artisanal producer, the diversity of our regional countryside and our terroir must not let this situation deteriorate further. A way of life is at stake as well as our own health. This is an example of capitalism when it is at it's worst and this course needs to be changed! Please do your part. Stand up and fight! 

Aux armes chers citoyens et citoyennes! Viva la revolution!