A Cheesy Day!

The Cheeses ready to be tasted!

A Closer look at some of the cheeses.

My Cheese Map

My complete cheese map: I was a little nervous at this point!

A Cheesy Day!

       Today was cheese day! We had two guest speakers. One of the speakers was Amy Ruis from Art of the Table; the other was Barbara Jenness from the Dancing Goat Creamery. Amy introduced her specialty store which prides itself on selling specialty cheeses and wines not sold in the grocery store. Her friend, Barbara is the supplier of a lot of their cheeses and is also the supplier for various restaurants around town. Barbara gave us a lot of information on cheese making and the entire process of how cheese comes to our table.
       The first thing that Amy and Barbara introduced was about lactose intolerance. Amy wanted to assure us that even if some of us were lactose intolerant, we could still try the cheese. A lot of time lactose intolerant people can still have aged cheese because all the lactose is gone. Then Barbara went on to share her power point. The first point she made is that true cheese is made of milk, culture, rennet and salt. Cheese should not be named “genuine processed cheese food”. She was adamant about the fact that many of the cheeses we eat from the grocery are not genuine and natural.
        The most important part of the cheese, Barbara stated, is where the milk comes from. She says that the best cheese comes from milk that has not been sloshed around, and thus breaking the vital chemical bonds needed for cheese making. She also talked about rennet. This is a used in harder cheeses as a coagulant. Acid coagulated cheese also exists and usually makes up the softer cheeses. Culture is another element of cheese. She stressed that bacteria acidify the milk and create lactic acid. These bacteria are what give the cheese flavor and are not genetically modified. Other things can be used to acidify milk, including buttermilk, vinegar, and lemon juice. She said the most important things to keep in mind in terms of cheese making are temperature, time, and pH.
        Barbara also introduced us to a type of cheese I had never heard of before, raw milk cheeses. These cheeses have to be aged for 60 days by U.S. FDA health standards, because that is when the supposed “bad” bacteria is all dead. These cheeses taste the best because they contain the raw cultures and have been aged naturally. The flavors have had a chance to develop. She also introduced us to the idea of terrior. This literally means “of the earth”. Thus, what the animals eat comes through the milk.
        She also gave us some tips for making our own cheese at home. She said we will not be able to make cheese from simply going to buy milk at Meijer. This is because Meijer’s milk goes through a homogenization process which breaks up all the bonds that are vital for cheese making. So, we need to go find cream-line milk that is more old-fashioned. This is cheese that has not been homogenized so those chemical bonds are undisturbed. It was also interesting to learn that she names her cheeses after historical women. She is constantly inventing and creating new cheeses and she has the right to name them anything she wants! She also treats her goats very humanly. She has 35 goats and she keeps them on their natural cycle. Thus, these goats only produce milk 8 months out of the year. So, in the remaining months she relaxes and also makes cheese from cow’s milk, which she buys from a local farmer. Her take home message is to know your farmer. She tells people to know where they are getting their food from. The best way to change the economy and business practices for the better is not to start with the big corporations. It starts from the small farmer first and grows upward!


We also got the opportunity to taste test a variety of Barbara’s cheeses and some others sold at Art of the Table. We also got a “cheese map” to remind us of what each kind was like and so we could note our reactions. My reactions are as follows.

Dancing Goat Creamery’s Cream Cheese: Cow
When I smelled this cream cheese it smelled just like any other Philadelphia cream cheese. It smelled very fresh and appetizing. The texture was light and fluffy. However, the taste was much different than I expected. It was tangy, sour, and a bit lemony. It tasted like cream cheese at first, but had a tart after taste. In this case, I liked the store-bought cream cheese I have had much better.

Vermont Butter & Cheese Co’s Crème Fraiche: Cow
This cheese smelled like whipped cream. It was thicker looking than the previous cheese. It has a very short shelf life also. It tasted more like sour cream to me, but had the consistency of whipped cream. However, I liked it better than the previous cream cheese.

Cypress Grove Humbolt Fog: Goat
This cheese did not have a pleasant aroma. It smelled like rubber or cellophane. I learned that this is a mold ripened cheese that has thick skin and a mold added to it. It tasted like blue cheese to me. However, it had more of a chemical taste to me than normal blue cheese.

Capriole Mont St. Francis: Goat
This cheese smelled like rubber slightly. It also had the aroma of a sharp, Swiss cheese. It was more rich and pungent than the other cheese. It has a wrinkled rind and had almost a smoky taste. It was very sour, tart, and pungent.

Dancing Goat’s Effie Mills: Cow
This cheese smelled like a strong blue cheese. The feel of it was wet and spongy. It had a creamy consistency that I really liked. It was also more salty tasting and tasted more like blue cheese. It almost had a bit of a sweet quality to it. This was one of my favorite cheeses that I tried during this day.

Dancing Goat’s Merze Tate: Cow
This cheese had more of a chemical smell to it. The smell almost reminded me of a pool. Barbara stated that this cheese was a very young cheese and that the longer we let it age, the softer it will become. This was a more milk tasting cheese and really just tasted like mozzarella with a slight kick. I liked this one because it was a more tame cheese!

Berthaut Epoisses: Cow- France
This was a cheese with an orange rind. It had an absolutely awful smell to it! It almost smelled like ammonia. I did not like the taste of this cheese at all. I could barely even stand having a morsel of it on my tongue. It almost tasted burnt. It reminded me of eating food that had gone bad. I do not need to try this one again!

Alpine cheese
This cheese was not on our map, but was simply a cheese Barbara had created. It smelled like Swiss cheese and had been aged for 6 months. It was strong tasting and tasted identical to Swiss cheese. However, it was sharper and saltier; almost having a metallic taste to it.

Castellano: Sheep-Spain
This cheese had more of a parmesan smell to it. It is made of sheep’s milk and was a lot less sour. It had a softer taste and almost tasted like parmesan. It did not have as much of an after taste as the others! I really liked this one.

Isle of Mull: Cow-Britain
This cheese smelled more like a sharp parmesan. Amy explained it as a basic, English cheddar. It was more sharp and pungent, with a large salty taste. Although it seemed to have more of a deep, cheddar cheese taste.

Roth Kase Buttermilk Blue: Cow
This cheese smelled like blue cheese crumbles I would put on a salad. This was one of my favorite cheeses f the day. It was very creamy and sharp. It was extremely potent and had a deep blue cheese taste. However, I could see myself putting crumbles of this on a salad with some walnuts and cranberries!

Cashel Blue: Cow-Ireland
This cheese smelled like a wet cow! The smell was very un-appetizing. The taste was also not very appetizing. It tasted kind of like a band-aid. At first it was not bad, but the after taste was very sour. It almost tasted as if I was eating an old shoe!

Overall, a very interesting day with a lot of insight into the world of cheese making! However, I did not really take a liking to many of the cheeses. Many of them were a bit to sharp, sour, and potent for my liking! So, I don’t believe I will be taking Barbara up on her offer to learn to art of cheese making, but I have to give credit to those who have taken it on! It sounds like hard work and takes a lot of dedication! However, maybe with some more exposure to these rare cheeses, I will grow to like them just a little bit more!