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07/17/2001 Archived Entry: "Formidable Fromage"

Today I revised the menu for my last meal. It still must have ricotta ravioli with fresh, simple tomato sauce made with onion and basil. It still must have a pastrami sandwich from Katz’s delicatessen. It still must have vanilla ice cream – I’m not sure which brand yet. But now it must also have raw milk gorgonzola dolce, the creamiest, sexiest cheese in creation (in my opinion), and two or three or four other artisinal cheeses; that is, cheeses made by hand, preferably from milk that has not been pasteurized -- raw milk. Raw milk cheeses are still alive with enzymes and micro-organisms that give cheese character and do no harm.

As I have said on Food Talk, who cooks and serves me my last meal is as important as what exactly I eat. Now I add, who chooses my cheese is vital to the operation, too.

I pick Rob Kaufelt, the enthusiastic and incredibly knowledgeable cheese monger at Murray’s, 257 Bleecker St., in Greenwich Village, and Terrence Brennan, the chef-restaurateur of Picholine at Lincoln Center and Artisinal at 2 Park Ave.. Terrence introduced great restaurant cheese service to New York and thereby made it a necessity for other fine New York restaurants to follow suit.

In my quest for formidable fromage (that’s French for cheese), and because the future of raw milk cheeses is or should be of deep concern to cheese lovers, I invited both Rob and Terrence on Food Talk today.

In short, the story with raw milk cheeses is this: The U.S. government (the Food and Drug Administration to be exact) already requires them to be aged 60 days, under the assumption that any bad micro-organisms have succumbed in that time. Now they want to change the regulation and require 120 days of aging. That would eliminate the possibility of having some extraordinary cheeses.

As if that wasn’t enough, the European Union wants to regulate raw milk cheese, too, also making it harder to produce them and less economically viable to market them, etc.

I saw a T-shirt last year, at a meeting on this subject. It said “Raw Milk Cheese Doesn’t Kill People. People Kill People.”

At Artisinal last week, I attended another seminar on the subject and that T-shirt slogan was amply justified. There is practically no incidence of food-borne illness from raw milk cheeses. Indeed, cheeses made from pasteurized milk cause far more illness. I should add immediately, however, that it is the post-pasteurization handling of the cheese that is the problem. As the T-shirt says, “People Kill People.”

To demonstrate the difference between a raw milk and pasteurized milk cheese, especially the taste difference, Rob Kaufelt brought two examples of Saint-Nectaire, a soft-ripened cheese from the Auvergne region of France.

The pasteurized milk example has a fairly even-colored beige rind (or crust), whereas the raw milk version had a gray, brown and beige crust. It looked a mess. The pasteurized milk Saint Nectaire had a beautiful, compact butter-yellow “paste” – that’s cheese talk for the interior, main part of the cheese – while the raw milk version was darker and had both big and small holes. The pasteurized Saint Nectaire had a spongy texture in the mouth. The raw milk version bulged from the sides under the crust and had a creamier texture. The first was delicious, but mild. The second was aromatic to the point of funky, but it’s flavor was not as strong as its aroma. I liked the first. I loved the second.

Rob also shared a unique cheese named Figaro, which is a cheese made from mixed Jersey cow and a goat’s milks produced in Santa Rosa, California. This delicately textured cheese is made by a Korean woman who named it and all of her cheeses after musical terms, since she is a classically-trained musician. This rich and buttery cheese is dipped in white wine and wrapped in fig leaves to complete it’s aging process.

Terrence claimed that one of the cheeses he brought was the best cheese produced in America today. You all know that I usually refrain from using the “b-word,” saving it for extraordinary situations. However, I will say that Vermont Shepherd Cheese is very special. It is made in Putney, Vermont, by Cynthia and David Major. To be exact, much of it is actually made by several nearby sheep dairy farmers who have gone through extensive education programs, learning to make the cheese to the Major’s specifications. The Majors have dug caves into a hill on their property and they age the cheese. We learned from Rob and Terrence that aging accounts for a good measure of a cheese’s character.

Indeed, both Murray’s, Rob’s cheese shop, and Terrence’s restaurants have temperature and humidity controlled environments for the further aging and keeping of cheeses. To use the French word, as is done in the cheese business, they, as ripeners of cheese, or I should say improvers of cheese, are affineurs. You are going to hear this French word a lot in the future.

Both Rob and Terrence reminded us that all cheese should be served at room temperature and therefore should be taken out of the refrigerator about an hour or so before serving, depending on the size of the piece. Also, both Rob and Terrence agree that cheese should never be stored in plastic wrap because cheese should be allowed to breath. You can, however, put some pin holes in the plastic and use it that way. Or, use waxed paper or parchment paper.


RESOURCES

Artisanal
2 Park Avenue (entrance on 32nd Street)
New York, NY 10016
(212) 725-8585

fromages.com
Provides a good amount of information on and provides an opportunity to purchase French cheeses.
www.fromages.com

Murray’s Cheese Shop
257 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 243-3289
www.murrayscheese.com

Vermont Shepherd
Putney, Vermont
(802) 387-4473
www.vermontshepherd.com