Cheese

In this chapter

• Acid-set cheese — Cheese whose casein gel comes from acidity — added acid or lactic cultures — rather than from a rennet-set elastic curd.
• Affinage — The managed aging of cheese, in which moisture, enzymes, and surface or interior microbes finish texture and flavor under air, humidity, and time.
• Bloomy rind — A surface-ripened style whose white mold coat proteolyzes the paste from the outside in — U.S. identity is “soft ripened cheese,” not a named Brie law.
• Blue cheese — Cheese ripened with interior mold, usually encouraged by piercing so air reaches the paste — a make choice, not “wild cave air” as an explanation.
• Cheddar — A pressed, salted, often aged cow’s-milk cheese whose U.S. identity is a make procedure plus composition floors — not a color and not a calendar guarantee of “sharp.”
• Cheese cultures — Selected lactic bacteria, and sometimes molds or adjuncts, added to milk to acidify it and to set the flavor path of a cheese.
• Cheese rind — The surface of a cheese, which may be a drying skin, a bloomy mold coat, or a washed bacterial smear, and which controls moisture and much of the aroma.
• Coagulation — Destabilizing milk’s casein so the liquid becomes a gel that can be cut into curd and whey.
• Colby — A stirred, washed-curd cow’s-milk cheese that refuses to mat — U.S. identity caps moisture at 40% and fat-in-solids at 50%, one point wetter than cheddar and without cheddaring.
• Cottage cheese — Soft uncured curd mixed with a pasteurized cream dressing — U.S. identity floors milkfat at 4% and caps moisture at 80%, not a aged cheese and not ricotta.
• Cream cheese — A high-moisture, acid-set fresh cheese rich in milkfat — spreadable because it kept whey, not because it was aged into softness.
• Cultured butter — Butter churned from cream that lactic bacteria have already soured, so the fat carries a yogurt-like tang the churn did not invent.
• Curd — The protein-and-fat gel after milk coagulates, managed by cutting, stirring, and heating so whey leaves and moisture is set.
• Feta — A brined, usually sheep-milk cheese with little or no rind — Codex’s cheeses in brine family, not a U.S. named standard of identity.
• Goat cheese — Cheese made from goat milk — the same coagulation, drainage, salt, and ripening skeleton as cow’s-milk cheese, with a different milk as the starting food.
• Gouda — A washed-curd, pressed cow’s-milk cheese whose U.S. identity is edam’s make with a higher fat floor — 46% fat-in-solids, 45% moisture cap — not a wax color.
• Mascarpone — A fresh, spreadable dairy gel made by heating cream and adding acid so whey proteins denature into the mass — not U.S. cream cheese and not ricotta from whey.
• Mozzarella — A pasta-filata cheese whose U.S. identity is pasteurized milk, a stretched curd, milkfat at least 45% of solids, and moisture between 52% and 60%.
• Muenster — A pasteurized, semi-soft cow’s-milk cheese in U.S. identity — 50% fat-in-solids, 46% moisture cap — not French washed-rind Munster and not a smear.
• Parmesan — A hard, granular, long-cured cow’s-milk cheese in U.S. identity — moisture at most 32%, fat-in-solids at least 32%, cured at least 10 months — not an Italian PDO name.
• Pasta filata — Cheeses whose drained curd is heated, kneaded, and stretched into a plastic mass — mozzarella is the teaching example, not every melted cheese.
• Pressing cheese — Mechanical pressure on drained curd in a mould so more whey leaves and the pieces knit into a single paste.
• Provolone — A pasta-filata cow’s-milk cheese with a stringy texture, drier than mozzarella in U.S. identity — 45% fat-in-solids, 45% moisture cap — then brine-salted, dried, and given extra cure.
• Raw-milk cheese — Cheese made from milk that was not pasteurized — in U.S. interstate commerce a legal exception to mandatory pasteurization, not a home aging method.
• Rennet — A clotting enzyme — animal, plant, or microbial — that cuts κ-casein so milk can form an elastic gel, as opposed to the brittle gel of acid alone.
• Ricotta — A fresh dairy gel made by heating whey (or whey plus milk) so whey proteins precipitate — not the casein curd of ordinary cheesemaking.
• Salting cheese — Adding salt to cheese by dry salt or brine so that flavor, moisture, and microbial activity are set together.
• Swiss cheese — A cooked, pressed cow’s-milk cheese with eyes, made with lactic and propionic cultures — U.S. identity floors fat-in-solids at 43%, caps moisture at 41%, and requires at least 60 days of age.
• Tasting cheese — A method for noticing paste, rind, aroma, and texture in cheese without turning tasting into scoring theater.
• Washed rind — A surface-ripened style whose repeated brine (or similar) washes select a bacterial smear — orange to pink, savory, sometimes aggressive — rather than a white mold bloom.
• Whey — The liquid left after milk coagulates and curd is cut — mostly water, lactose, and whey proteins, with the casein staying in the cheese.
• Yogurt — Milk acidified by thermophilic lactic cultures into a soft gel you usually eat without cutting it for whey the way cheese is cut.