Lactography

Mudanza

2011-06-22T06:16:00.001-07:00

A quick note to let everyone know that we have moved the blog to http://lactography.com and added a list of our services and the mission of our project.

Thank you to everyone that followed us here for so long, we enjoyed your comments and emails. Please visit our new page regularly as there are many new things coming up.

Sincerely, Carlos Yescas.

P.D. La nueva página tendrá también un blog en Español.

Collaborations

2011-06-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

The talk in the academic world is on the importance to create collectives of people who are in different fields and disciplines and try to learn from each other. This may sound really obvious, but it has taken a very long time for scholars to get here. Academic endeavor is defined by the strict boundaries set up in the study of the physical and social sciences. The humanities are less strict about this, but they also have their fair share of border patrolling. The idea is to create expertise that can then be utilize to produce wealth, if interested you should read Max Weber.

It is with this in mind, that I have tried to expand my horizons and move away from the self-centered view that my work and my craft is most important and significant alone. I have tried to enter, establish and seek collaborations with people doing amazing food projects. Here I present to you four new collaborations. More information will be coming up, but this is a little taste of things to follow.

Educating Young Minds

Along with the HSMSE Gastronomy class run by a good friend of mine, we are taking 18 high school students to Flying Pigs Farm in upstate New York to participate in the Farm CampThis school group learns about food production through readings and films but also experiences like taste workshops, visits to farms, markets shops around NYC. Part gastronomy class – part cultural sensitization, the aim of the program is to introduce students to good food and “to expose the kids to new tastes and cultures encouraging an open-mindedness, which in theory would extend to all aspects of the students' lives.” experience.

We are going to Farm Camp to learn about the realities of food production and to gain an understanding of the importance of knowing the source of what we eat. We will be in the farm on 5/6 June and you will be able to follow us on twitter by tracking the #GastroCamp or the #FarmCamp tags.

Other twitter feeds to follow are: @FarmCampNY @FlyingPigsFarm I will have a small contribution on smell and the ideas of disgusting, nasty, tasty and gourmet. I have been working on this topic for a while now and I have a piece (in Spanish) on Letras Libres.

If you would like to learn more about the HSMSE Gastronomy class or on the teacher leading the initiative you can contact her check out their facebook page at: HSMSE Gastronomy Eats NYC or email her at jboylan @ hsmse.org She has prepared lesson plans and a syllabus, which she will be happy to share with other educators.

Mexican cheeses
I designed five different vegetarian sandwiches using Mexican cheeses for Aula Chocolate in Mexico City. These sandwiches are created around a traditional Mexican cheese and paired with local ingredients. Here are three that are already for sale:

Chiapas: Queso de Cuadro, berros, aceite de oliva, balsámico y miel.
Chihuahua: Queso Menonita, mostaza de grano y cebollas caramelizadas.
Michoacán: Queso Cotija, compota de sandía y menta fresca.

They are all made with bread baked on-site. The cheeses are produced by artisanal farmers and sourced by Lactography, and information on the makers is included with every sandwich. The purpose of this collaboration is to showcase traditional cheeses and ways to pair them with food and integrated them in a lacto-vegetarian diet. All profits from the sale of the cheese go directly to the makers and affineurs that produce them and age them.

For more information visit: Aula Chocolate or follow @aulachocolate

Cheesemonger certification

The American Cheese Society has been working for the past 10 years on creating a Certification Exam for Cheese Professionals and developing a Body of Knowledge document, which includes guidelines on all the cheese knowledge that someone to be certified should have. The purpose of such certification is to create professionals that are able to speak, promote and better cheese for everyone. I have been invited to be a Subject Matter Expert and hope to bring my expertise of Latin American cheese productions as well as experience as a Cheese Judge in North America to the effort. The first exam is scheduled to take place in early 2012 and you will be hearing more during the annual meeting of the ACS in August.

At this moment, I don’t envision traveling to Canada for the annual meeting, mostly because being a Mexican citizen I am requested by the Canadian government to obtain a visa to enter the country (this was not the case two years ago) and the price of application plus my situation as a full-time student makes the expense to apply for a visa, plus travel, plus enrolling in the conference prohibitive. If you would like to sponsor my participation or know someone that would, I will be forever grateful. I have budget the trip to cost US$1,000 dollars only on fees and travel expenses. I have friends in the Montreal to stay with.

For more information on the annual meeting and other events about the ACS you can follow them at @CheeseSociety

The other event that is taking place that may impact the certification process and which I have been doing some PR is the 2^nd Annual Cheesemonger Invitational, it will be hosted by Adam Moskowitz of Larkin on Friday, 8 July 2011, from 7 to 10 PM in Long Island City, New York. For more info visit Cheese Monger Invitational or follow him at @CMI_2011

Tea and Cheese

Harney and Sons will be hosting a small tasting in its newish SoHo store in New York City, we will be offering their tea-infused cheeses and other American cheeses paired with teas. I will be around to explain cheese tasting and pairings, while Emeric Harney will be explaining teaching people about tea. Cheese is a great gateway for this and should be a fun experience to have the cheesemaker there to explain us on the making of flavored cheeses.

Our tentative date is Thursday, 21 July 2011, from 5 to 8 PM, details to come. You can also find more information following @HarneySoHo and buy tea here.

Other (older) ongoing food collaborations:

Camel milk and cheese project – I am part of the Advisory Board of the What Took You So Long Foundation film project “Respect the Camel” for more info on the film being produced and many camel cheese related events follow them at @wtysl or at WTYSL Foundation.

Judging guidelines – We are looking to develop guidelines for cheese judges. This project is in conjunction with the Guild of Fine Food organizers of the World Cheese Awards and it will involve all the current Supreme International Judges. Follow them at @guildoffinefood and visit them at Fine Food World and for info on the 2011 Awards.

Denomination of Origin – I am continuously helping the Rancho San Josemaria, producers of one of the finest sheep’s milk cheeses in Queretaro, Mexico, to apply for a certificate of trademark in a first step on the long process to have this cheese awarded a DO. Follow them at @QuesosOvejaSJM or visit their site.

Finally, I call them collaborations because I have not been economically remunerated for any work under this scheme. I write this not to brag about my philanthropic spirit, but to differentiate these collectives from the work that I do commercially which includes classes, tastings, trainings, and consultancies. If you have an idea in mind that could impact the way we think about the food that we eat or how we consume it, email it to me and we can set up a collaborative. If you are interested in any of these projects and have an idea also email me or any of the people involved. All inquiries welcome to cheeseconsulting @ gmail.com

Fromage, Cheese, Queso

2011-05-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

"Aunque la mayoría de los quesos “famosos” son españoles, ingleses, suizos, italianos o franceses, el queso no es oriundo de Europa: el queso original es árabe."

Here is my newest piece on Mexican cheese in Spanish for Letras Libres - Fromage, Cheese, Queso.

2011-03-27T11:53:00.001-07:00

Upcoming class: American Cheese Politics

2011-03-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

Blue States v Red States: American Cheese Politics

It is always about local politics, isn't it? Come and join us for a night of cheese, wine and politics, as Carlos Yescas introduces you to the issues behind the plate. The class will feature five cheeses made in blue and red states to compare the craftsmanship of the parties and then vote for your favorite. Carlos is researching a PhD in Politics and has been twice an International Supreme Judge at the World Cheese Awards.

Where: Lucy's Whey Chelsea Market in NYC, 425 West 15th St., New York, NY 10011

When: Apr 14, 6:30PM

Price: US$ 30.00

Tickets on sale at 212.463.9500

New Irish

2011-03-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

Glebe Brethan is a thermophilic cheese made from unpasteurised Montbeliarde cow’s milk at the Tiernan Family Farm, Dunleer, Co Louth. The Montbeliarde breed originates in the Jura region of eastern France and is used for its rich nutrients in Comté production. David Tiernan has only been making Glebe since 2004. It is an astonishing achievement to have developed a cheese of this calibre in such a short time. This Gruyere / Comté-style cheese is made in 45 kg wheels and aged on spruce timbers for between 6 and 18 months. The natural rind develops over time and as the cheese is turned and salted by hand. The flavour is rich and fruity with herbal, floral notes and occasional hints of cellar where the rind flavours have penetrated the paste. It is often punctuated by pleasantly bitter notes of chicory. With age the paste develops meaty undertones and a distinctively nutty finish.

Glebe is made on a very small scale and is sold exclusively on the Irish market. David produces just two wheels per day and only during the summer months. He does all the work himself from start to finish – including mlking his herd of pedigree cows. David is a brilliant and fascinating character. Ask him a question and the answer with generally begin with: “Well, I’ll tell you, there’s a story behind that....”

Try Glebe with an oaked French chardonnay or the oxidative Savagnin-based wines of Franche-Comté.

For more information visit www.glebebrehan.com

Lucy Noami Moylan.

Thanks to Lucy for her contributions. We are delighted to have her and hope to bring her back in the future, maybe a post in Irish? For now, those are just six of the most amazing Irish cheeses around. There are more around and you should try them all. Consider a trip to Ireland and support local agriculture.

Best, Lactography.

A sibling cheese

2011-03-18T08:17:00.000-07:00

Crozier Blue is a sheep's milk blue cheese from Co. Tipperary. It is made by the Grubb family in Beechmount Farm. Sarah is now in charge of most of the operation, she is the daughter of Jane and Louis and the person responsible for making Cashel Blue and Crozier Blue available outside of Ireland. Like many second-generation cheese makers in Ireland, Sarah has set the vision of the company to expand beyond farmer's markets and sales in Ireland and England. She has been able to do this by balancing act of meeting a growing demand with a limited supply by automizing some of the procedures in making her cheese. In the case of these two gorgeous blue cheeses, the piercing of the wheels has been turn into a mechanical system and that allows for consistency in the production. This is good news for a small cheese makers, who has been gradually adapting and growing just as much as her milk production would mantain.

I personally love Crozier, because unlike Roquefort it is less salty and easier to pair with food. Roquefort is the standard of comparison for blue sheep's milk cheeses, however, that comparison misses the mark as Roquefort is not only a blue cheese, it is also a cultural production that grows and develops in caves with very specific conditions. The taste of Roquefort is more mineral than Crozier, this minerality can be described as a slight tingling inside of the mouth with an after taste of salt, almost like when licking a piece of rock salt. Crozier is in turn, less mineral, maybe even more fatty and moist than Roquefort, making it a milder cheese.

I love eating Crozier with quince paste or apple preserve. It is great for cooking too and can easily be used as a "gateway" blue cheese for those folks who find more intense blue cheeses intimidating. For more information visit their page here. You can also watch this Irish TV piece on the cheese at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM-IcP2miNc

The other cheese made my the Grubbs is Cashel Blue. You can follow Sarah on twitter at @CashelBlue and make sure you like them on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cashelblue

Clonmore

2011-03-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

Goat farmers Tom and Lena Beggane were taught the art of cheesemaking by a Dutch neighbour. They started making Clonmore at their farm in the heart of Cork hurling country, Newtownshandrum, outside Charleville, in the late 1990s. It is handmade using milk from their tiny, free range herd of goats. The Begganes are at the heart of the new wave of lesser known Irish cheesemakers who have broken away from the classic Irish washed rind tradition to explore other styles.

The Begganes’ goats are fortunate enough to enjoy some of the finest grazing in the heart of the Golden Vale. This pasture, more usually associated with dairy farming, lends wonderful richness to their cheese. Tom and Lena are part of that dying breed of Irish cheesemakers who are still involved in the maintenance of their own herd. The majority of Irish farmhouse cheesemakers nowadays prefer to buy their milk from one or two well-trusted local sources. The combination of farming and cheesemaking is extremely demanding in terms of time and patience. Anyone still willing to commit themselves wholeheartedly to both should be greatly admired. The Begganes also run their herd in coincidence with the animals’ natural lactation cycle, allowing the goats to dry out at the end of November and resuming cheesemaking in March. This is a less profitable, more labour intensive business model but ultimately results happier animals and higher quality cheese.

Clonmore is a small, gouda shaped cheese with a beige waxed exterior and a bone white paste that is intermittently freckled with small holes. At its best the cheese is milky on the palate with a mild tang that gently gives way to the unmistakable rounded, goaty finish that typifies Clonmore. It is neither sharp nor soapy yet presents a distinctive and smooth flavour. Clonmore is one of those cheeses that is better served below room temperature. It has a tendency to become slightly oily if unrefrigerated. It partners well with scaled down wines. Enjoy with a traditional Chablis or a good Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire. This is undoubtedly one of the rarer Irish cheeses. In all of my international food travels with the export department of Neal’s Yard, I’ve never seen it outside Ireland. I therefore highly recommend that you call into Sheridans Cheesemongers for a sample next time you’re visiting!

Lucy Noami Moylan.

Thanks to Lucy for this collaboration. You can follow her on twitter at @lucymoylan. She is also the mastermind behind Sheridan’s Cheesemongers online presence @SheridansCheese. When not mongering cheese knowledge, Lucy works as a translator (Irish-English) and soon she will be a great ambassador for her country!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone.
Carlos, Lactographer.

Second generation Irish

2011-03-16T06:50:00.000-07:00

Coolea is a gouda-style made in Co. Cork in the south-west of Ireland. Originally one of the “big four,” this cheese has been made since 1979 by the Willems. Since, 1991 Dicky the son of the original cheesemakers, Helene and Dick, took over the family business. The cheese is now easy to find in the United States as it travels well and the sweetness, classic of this style, is really appealing.

Unlike other gouda-style cheeses, Coolea has enough flavor from excellent milk, that it can be aged up to two years. At that time it turns into a complex and nutty taste that is excellent to pair with a stout. The Willems also make an herb and garlic flavored type that is delicious with salads or just in a sandwich. The texture of the young rounds is creamy, while the aged ones are firmer but still elastic. I remember selling it to people looking for a good table cheese that can be eaten while cooking.

Gouda is the quintessential Dutch cheese, and while Boerenkaas (the raw milk version) is second to none, many artisanal gouda-style cheeses made outside of The Netherlands are better than commercial stuff produce at home. This is the case of Coolea, which takes its flavor from amazing milk coming from cows pastured in the lush hills of Ireland.

The reason Gouda and gouda-style cheeses are so popular among cheesemakers, perhaps has to do with the easiness to age and transport them. This means that they are a safe bet for steady income sources. Originally, according to Harbutt, this ability to travel without rotting was what made Dutch Goudas famous in France and with travelers sailing around the world. Nowadays, probably the reason is that the sweetness of the cheese and the potential to be flavored gives it a wide market among consumers in places where stinky or blue cheeses have a hard time selling.

For more info on Coolea visit: www.cooleacheese.com

First Irish

2011-03-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

Milleens is recognized as the first farmhouse artisan cheese of the dairy revolution. Veronica Steele, who is a very active lady, developed this cheese in 1976. It is a washed rind that was a favored style at the beginning of the movement in Ireland along with Durrus and Ardrahan.

When ripe, Milleens is runny with a pungent earthy smell, soft in texture and piquant in the tongue. It is always a gorgeous orange color and perfect to pair with nuts, cornichons, and some English mustard for a very strong-flavor lunch.

For more on the farm and cheese visit their site: www.milleenscheese.com or like their facebook site or Culture’s profile: Milleens.
You can follow Veronica on twitter at @veronicasteele

The cheeses selected to be feature this week are: Milleens, Coolea, Crozier, Clonmore and Glebe Brehan. Lucy N. Moylan, formerly of Neal’s Yard Dairy in England and now working for Sheridan’s Cheesemongers in Ireland, recommended them as uniquely Irish.

We will have her write up the entries for Clonmore and Glebe Brehan and hopefully tell us a little bit about her experience as a monger in Dublin and London.

Juliet Harbutt in her “World Cheese Book” list twenty-one Irish cheeses. Càis lists thirty-two dairy farms and Sheridan’s sells twenty including Cratloe Hills, Gabriel, Killeen Cow and Goat, Knockanore Smoked and Wicklow Blue Brie not included by Dianne Curtin contributor of the Irish section of Harbutt’s book.

I point out this to highlight the wide variety of cheeses that do not make it outside of local markets and can only be enjoyed near the places where they are produced and therefore it is hard to find information on them. This is the case too with many cheeses from Latin America, new cheeses from the US and very local examples of French, Spanish and Italian cheeses produced seasonally or ad-hoc depending on milk ability.

Cheese like many other artisanal foods is best consumed close to the source. This is specially true for washed-rind cheeses that don't travel well in dry containers. Therefore, if you want to try them you ought to visit Ireland.

Irish Càis (cheese)

2011-03-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

In honor of the country that first trained me in cheese and to their cheesemakers who are hurting from an economic downturn, I will feature one Irish cheese every day during this week to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

Let me start with a little bit of Irish cheese history. Cheese in Ireland, like in many other colonial lands was brought by missionaries and was deeply linked to religious life. Monks made most cheeses for subsistence markets and remained localize to villages near big monasteries. Much like in England, industrial revolution brought pasteurization and consolidation of cheese making to large dairy companies.

It was only in the early 80’s that cheese production returned to farms, and with it the use of raw milk. Most cheeses during that time where made in County Cork and slowly other parts of the country have started to produce excellent cheese as well. There are a high number of cow’s milk cheeses, even if sheep are so familiar in the Irish landscape. In the Americas, the most common Irish cheese is commercial cheddar (think Dubliner), but increasingly in cheese stores you can find Cashel and Crozier Blue, Ardrahan and Coolea. They are all great, but Crozier around this time is just amazing!

My favorite Irish cheese is Durrus, however as of late it is very difficult to find a good round outside of Ireland. This raw cow’s milk cheese does not travel well in refrigerated containers and without proper washing. It also cannot wait to be eaten the 60 days required by the FDA to be brought to the US. I had one in London that was nutty and stinky and reminded me of cold rainy days working at Sheridan’s Cheesemongers sharing a cup of tea and a bite of creamy Durrus on fresh baked bread.

If you have the opportunity to travel to Ireland, check Durrus out and if you find Milleens, Desmond, Cooleney or Smoked Gubbeen also make sure to buy a big chunk and have them with a pint of Smithwick's

You can find more info on Artisanal cheeses from the Emerald island at: http://www.irishcheese.ie

On Cheese Judging #catando

2011-02-16T23:17:00.000-08:00

For the past three days a couple of cheesers on twitter have been discussing on how to judge cheese. We have had input from cheesemongers, makers, marketers and other judges. I would like to extend this conversation to all of you, as we try to come up with a consensus on: what a cheese judge should know? Please contribute your ideas. If you want to contribute on twitter, please use the hash tag: #catando - I will collect all comments and draw some conclusions from your opinions.

You can also contribute in our facebook page: http://on.fb.me/catando

Para hacer esto mas interactivo y tener mas opiniones, me interesa que los queseros de habla hispana también participen. El tema es: Que necesita un juez quesero saber? Sus opiniones son bienvenidas. Si quieres contribuir en twitter, usa la marca #catando y yo recolectare todos los comentarios para sacar conclusiones de tus opiniones.

Tambien puedes contribuir en nuestra pagina de facebook: http://on.fb.me/catando

Asociación Mexicana de Queseros

2011-02-15T23:55:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I am involved with various cheese projects in Mexico. The principal one is in Chiapas, where I have been advising for the past four years the Ministry of Agriculture (Secretaria del Campo) on flavor profiles of two of the most famous cheeses. Another one is supporting cheesemakers and affineurs in Queretaro and Michoacan and the last one is to create the first cheese-aging facility in Mexico City along a small educational center. While many have asked me to join efforts and turn my cheese interest into a full time commercial endeavor that is completely involved in selling cheese in Mexico and exporting to the US, Canada and Europe, I have decided to stay out of that game for a while and let others more knowledgeable of marketing start businesses.

However, I do have opinions on the way Mexican cheese should be commercialized, how farmers, cheesemakers, and affineurs should be supported and on legislation that could foster growth in this industry. The industry that I am referring to is the one that produces artisanal cheese based on the protection of Mexican culinary culture. I am less concern about large dairy conglomerates, as they have already found a way to turn profits for their investors. Still, I have not been able to decide the best way to move forward, but I know we need to start an organization that can support Mexican cheesemakers and bring better products to consumers.

A while back, a very enthusiastic french transplant to Mexico proposed me to start the Mexican Cheese Society, modeled after the American version (ACS). A Mexican professor of dairy sciences suggested contacting the Guilde des Fromagers and ask them to start a chapter in Mexico. Finally, an American scholar involved with the ACS proposed to follow the Canadian example and first start state organizations that would support themselves with expertise and lobbying power and then expand to the country, just like the Ontario Cheese Society is now doing it. She offered the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association as the best American example of a powerful and knowledgeable association. I have also looked at the models created by the British, Irish, Australian and New Zealander cheesy enthusiast. They all have great ideas, but in my opinion they are missing something. In essence most of their organizations are trade associations mostly started by cheesemakers to concentrate their efforts on pushing local legislators to gain grants, resources, or to move legislation in benefit of small dairies. Few of these organizations expand their efforts to include distribution companies (food companies), in a push to court an unlikely ally in the race to sell more cheese. The problem with this unlikely pairing is that in most markets, small cheesemakers and food companies are in two different businesses all together. Artisanal cheesemakers are in the business of turning milk into cheese to sustain themselves, their lifestyles, to feed people with good cheese, and some times to produce small profits to their investors. Food companies are in the business of making a profit from transportation, consolidation, distribution, and marketing of food. The difference in business models pits the two camps in a battle where cheesemakers seek to be paid better for quality products and food companies would like to pay less to producers while charging more for processed food to consumers.

I know this reads as a familiar complain against large supermarket chains, food consolidators, investors, and consumers of commercial products. Still, I believe there is something to be said for a different way to organize ourselves and to think about the way we feed ourselves. I am not claiming that I have all the answers or that I do not consume commercial products, benefit from food consolidators, or sometimes shop at supermarket chains. I am instead trying to contribute ideas to a discussion that many times feel stagnant in accusations and apathy to have a conversation about change. Here are two sample articles of what I am talking about, in B. R. Myers' article for The Atlantic the denunciation of foodism is enough to turn you off of ever thinking about the politics of what you eat. In the response from the Village Voice's Robert Sietsema, you are left with accusations that do not help in trying to answer the underlying question of both articles: why are there so many people writing about food? If you add to your reading list this guest post from my friend Jen Boylan for Svelte/Gourmand and this video on TED on a lecture by Carolyn Steele on "How food shapes cities," you may be left with the desire to do something but not know what to do. On my end, I always feel tired and walking over the kitchen to grab a piece of cheese to feed my apathy in trying to think what to do next. I think Jen is in the right direction in trying to engage in the conversation and allowing for the hard questions to be asked by her students. However, not having a group of interested teenagers has turned me to the Internet and to writing this blog. Still, I'm not sure how I contribute and if maybe it is just best to keep eating and worry my pretty-little head with flavor rather than politics. I'll be honest; sometimes I do wish I could become the head cheese buyer for a large store and travel around the world only worried about container measurements and temperature levels, instead of humane animal treatment. Still, I know from talking to the head buyers at Whole Foods, Tesco, Provincial Fine Foods, Murray's Cheese, Sheridan's Cheesemongers, and many other cheese consolidators around the world, that the politics are always present and they not only worry about profit margins but also about the livelihoods of the cheesemakers. Heck, even the dairy buyer for Walt-Mart in Mexico told me during an event in Chiapas that they too were thinking on the best ways to support local cheesemakers, but still needed assurances that their products will be shelf-stable. So, what is there to do?

I think, we still need more transparency about what we eat, where it comes from, and the ways that our choices impact our environment and societies. It is for this reason, that I envision an Asociacion Mexicana de Queseros, not only as a lobby or trade group, but also as an organization that supports educational projects at all levels. In my head, it looks like a research institute investigating and disseminating the best practices to care for animals, and how to produce, market, buy, consume and ultimately enjoy better cheese. My idea is a think thank / consumer organization / center for the distribution of knowledge. This idea already exist around wine, with many enology institutes that produce great scholarship on the many issues relating to wine production and consumption.

The first steps to create a trade organization in Mexico are already underway. I am not longer part of that effort, because I'm still not sure that this is what Mexican cheesemakers need. Still, I am not completely stepping out and rather I am consulting with many cheesemakers in Mexico and around the world on the ways to build a better movement. A movement that supports livelihoods, educates, and also informs consumers of their choices. If you would like to contribute with your ideas, please email me. I will soon present a finalized idea that has input from cheesemakers and academics in Mexico.

Here is other link to a good article on The Atlantic by Josh Viertel on the way we need to lobby for better information: Froot Loops vs. Real Fruit: For Real Change, Don't Look to Obama.

Cheese withdrawal

2011-02-07T01:23:00.000-08:00

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone, hope the Year of the Rabbit is full of surprises.

It is now about two months since I got to China, however, not since I last had cheese. Soon after I ran out of the carefully packaged pieces of Camembert, Grayson and Roquefort that I smuggled into the country, I found the local distributor of Yellow Valley cheese in Xi'an. I bought three wheels and snack on it with joy. I even shared with Chinese and ex-pat friends, to a general consensus that it was nice but a little salty.

Those three mini-wheels also ran out and now I'm left with nothing to replace them. The new shipment from Shanxi comes until next week and I am in full withdrawal. I have cravings, dreams and my cheese obsessions fueled by tons of tweeter messages has turn my yearning into a crazy desperation.

While watching TV last night, we have been catching up on US and English TV series; I scream cheese pairings to drinks fictional characters were drinking. The night looked like this: when watching The Wire, it was all pungent cheeses and new American classics paired with US domestics beers drank by hunky Det. Mcnulty, then came the mountain cheeses and hard pressed Europeans to match decadent wines and after dinner drinks enjoyed by the Crawleys from the Abbey, to end with the sad moment of watching the terrible and completely wrong Sex and the City 2 movie only to dream about luxurious goat cheeses to pair with the copious amounts of bubbly and yearn for halloumi, quark, and farmer's cheeses to eat in the dessert oasis with fresh dates and sweet teas.

Oh how, I miss cheese!!!! Anyway, before I go crazy, I leave you with these two stories on cheese in China. First, a good post from Culture Magazine on Chinese cheeses and then a news story from the Telegraph on Beijing Grey Camembert.

Enjoy.

Global food

2011-01-23T22:33:00.000-08:00

Two of the most common questions I have been getting over the last four years since I started coming to China regularly, are: Can you get used to eating this? And How come you know how to use chopsticks? Both questions always come with just the right amount of naiveté, pride, and disbelief. In a country where many people are still yet to "see a foreigner," it is warranted that some Chinese people still remain in the dark about the cultures and ways of the rest of the world. For a country, that heralds its raising profile to become the next super power, its people sure are still bugged down with antiquated stereotypes about different cultures. I write this not to complain or with anti-Chinese sentiment, but rather from the perspective of a person less mesmerized by economic indicators.

How I normally respond to those questions is: this food is not that different from stuff we get in Mexico or the US, and we sometimes also use chopsticks to eat. Every time, I answered annoyed and not thinking much about the implications of the questions. However, a couple of days ago that all changed and I finally understood why these foods taste familiar and some of the assumptions of people about the "west."

Just after a month of eating only Chinese food, we went to a German inspired Brazilian-rodizio style microbrewery and buffet to have Mexican meat. In the US and Mexico, I try to maintain vegetarian mostly for ecological reasons. China is different, because there is no real concept of vegetarianism amongst the non-religious population and therefore everything is made with some type of meat or its stock. Buddhist Chinese who keep vegetarian eat at home or at special restaurants near temples. Xi'an is unique, in the sense that it has a large Muslim population and therefore Hallal restaurants abound but they also serve meat, mostly lamb. The idea of going to a grill sounded horrible at first, but I could not decline, as it was an invitation by a friend. She had made a point of finding a restaurant that would serve something Mexican, so I would not miss home. She imagined that a month without my own food would have me ready to leave China; she had experienced a similar frustration over a four-month visit to Baltimore eating only "American" food.

Now, after understanding a couple of things that was one of the most interesting cultural experiences I have had in China. But before I start Orientalizing my hosts, let me paint a scene for you of this "western" style restaurant for you. A disclaimer, the term "western" refers to food from Europe and the US. Basically anything not considered Asia. Chinese describe everything this way and pose their own culture vis-a-vis assumptions about what the "west" is like. My question is always if Mexico is considered part of the west, and while sometimes it is also described as such, most times it is not. Mexico is mostly known for its immigration problem and spicy food, both cultural references popularized in US media.

The place is called Golden Hans Restaurant and the logo of this chain steak grill is a caricature of a Bavarian German dressed in traditional attire. The restaurant is in a two story-high building on the east of city inside of the Xi'an Wall. The place houses two brewing thanks and they serve a lager and a dark beer on tap. The service is a buffet of mainly Chinese dishes like noodles, rice, cooked vegetables, fish skins, soups, and a very large dessert table full of little cakes and muffins. The meat is all done with spades, like giant skewers, that are grilled and you can get 32 different types of meats, including chicken hearts, beef tongue, Canadian bacon, and small sausages. The Mexican meat was a pork sausage that was partially smoked before it was grilled.

We arrived around 7pm and got pints of dark beer. The first thing I notice was that the table setting had a fork and a knife instead of chopsticks and no cups for tea. The place was filled with families and groups of young guys out for the night. My friend's husband and I could not communicate with each other as he only speaks Chinese and I still don't speak the language, so we decided to let the others talk without constantly translating and head over to the buffet table. There, I picked everything that looked "western" and my friend everything that looked Chinese. I went for kidney beans, fried rice, spaghetti, and slices of watermelon. He went for fish skins, lotus roots, aspic, and noodles. Once back at the table, my plate was full of small pieces of meat that the guys with the spades had been cutting and serving. The entire feeling of the place was like a Brazilian rodizio, but we had no signs to stop service of the meat. Since, my friends didn't like the dark beer, we ordered a large pitcher of lager and starting eating. As the conversation started being all in Chinese, I had time to get distracted and look around at the other tables. The table next to us had two young couples and they also had gotten the dark beer, but the pints remained untouched after the first sip. Also they were not using their fork and knife to eat, they had asked the server for chopsticks. I quickly turner around and looked at my friends and asked my husband to translate: How come you know how to use a fork and knife? After the normal delay for the translation, they all laughed as they realized how the opposite question sounds to me.

This turned the conversation into the differences between Chinese and western restaurants. They wanted to know if this place was like restaurants in the US or in Mexico. We explained that this was a mix of many styles of restaurants and describe the parts that felt specific to each place. The Brazilian rodizio, the American buffet, the Canadian microbrewery, the German attires, the French desserts and how it all together felt like an amusement park. On the way back home, I kept thinking about the foods that I miss. Hummus, frijoles refritos, salsa verde, grits, samosa chat and obviously cheese are on the top of my list. When I'm in the US or in Mexico, I always miss proper dumplings, hand made noodles, and buns. They too have become part of the foods that I normally eat and now consider my cuisine. For as much as I like to eat only local and seasonal, there is something about global flavors that is very attractive. I guess this exposes how bougie I am and won't try to apologize for it. I just know that when the food revolution comes, I will still try to replicate the flavors of my adoptive countries.

The picture on top is of an Ice Peak orange soda. It is made in Xi'an and it is everywhere, you can read more about it here.

There is a wonderful academic essay on the use of chopsticks and enjoyment of food. Here is the reference: Roland Barthes, “Chopsticks,” from Empire of Signs. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982).

Also, as promised, here are some pics of various foods: Xi'an restaurants. Since there is no access in China to twitter from my mobile device, I have been using foursquare to tag the restaurants we normally eat at and I recommend. You can check those updates by following me on twitter @CarlosYescas

On other news. I am happy to inform that I have been approached by the Cheese Slices program to film an episode about Mexican traditional cheese-making. I will keep you posted on that, but until then, please let us know what cheeses from Mexico you would like to see featured. Here are some of the ones that I have reviewed: Quesillo o Queso de Hebra,  Queso de Bola de Ocosingo,  Queso de Cuadro Doble Crema, and  Queso tipo Manchego.

Cheese of the Week: Yellow Valley Gouda style

2011-01-09T02:54:00.000-08:00

The label reads "Traditional Dutch Farmhouse," but it is made in Shanxi Province in China. So what does it mean to be traditional Dutch? and how about being a Gouda? The true is that this Chinese cheese should not be considered either, but rather a very good example of the what is possible to produce with good milk, salt and cheesemaking expertise.

The cheese (original flavor) is yogurty, more like an American Brick than a Dutch Gouda, with a good amount of salt coming from the rind. It has small eyes in the paste resembling a semi-hard rather than a hard cheese and the aroma is fragrant but a little sterile. Marc de Ruiter the cheesemaker, prides himself of a very clean production and definitely the cheese did not give any off smells from unwelcome bacteria. I also tried the 'italian" flavor, which has tomato and other spices, while it was less salty it was a little dryer making more a grating cheese than a table cheese. Overall, Yellow Valley is a good cheese that could use less salt and should be eaten a young age. It melts fast, making it a great option to add tor a "western" style meal (pasta, sandwiches, mashed potatoes) and if in China you should look for it.

The story of Yellow Valley is easy, you can read it in their website, a Dutchman move to China to support local sustainable farming and had a passion for Goudas of his native land. He started making cheese from an old recipe, pays above market prices for milk, and takes care of the people and animals who have decided to join him in producing this cheese. The story feels familiar because most cheeses of the Americas have a similar story. What is truly unique about this cheese is that its market depends almost a 100% percent on it being consumed by foreigners in a country with no cheese eating culture. Therefore the production is small, but the opportunity for expansion is huge if ever more Chinese people start incorporating cheese into their diets. Here a video about that potential posted by The Cheese Goddess from Chinese english TV.

However, what interested me about Yellow Valley is less about its market potential and more about an interesting way of approaching a common problem. Increasingly, the lifestyles of small farmers around the world are being eliminated by our reliance on the production of food by conglomerates. This means that the small guy is pushed out because of unfair competition from large corporations receiving large subsidies in the form of tax incentives, artificial low oil prices for production and transportation, and unlimited access to high-interest credit for consumers.

The story of Marc de Ruiter is similar to that of other in the cheese world who have moved around the world to help small dairy farmers develop a better market for their milk and have turned into cheesemaking as a real possibility. To mind comes Joseph Dubach, who taught Bill Hogan (West Cork Natural Cheese Company) maker of Desmond and Gabriel in Ireland to make cheese in Costa Rica. Other stories are those documented by The What Took You So Long Foundation in Africa about camel cheesemaking.

I hope to visit Marc soon and learn more about his work, but for now I have three wheels of his cheese which are great for snacking and taking a break from noodles and other Chinese food.

Chinese Cheese

2010-12-27T00:49:00.000-08:00

It has been almost two weeks since I arrived in China. This is my third visit to this country and this time I am truly going to learn the language. As I mentioned before this blog will turn into more of a food blog and less about cheese. At least until I go back to a country that has a substantial cheese culture. But for now a small post on Chinese Cheese.

Many times people ask me, why do Chinese don't eat cheese. The most common explanation is that there is no milk-drinking culture in most Asian countries and therefore people here are lactose intolerant. However, that explanation is incomplete, not only because there is a growing milk-drinking culture and has there been one for at least a decade, but also because most semi-aged and aged cheese have very small amounts of lactose. More important, I think is the lack of a culture that supports eating cheese. For the most part, Chinese food includes either rice or noodles as the staple and then sauce, meat, vegetables and other things are served on the side to make a full meal. If you think about it, cheese is not something that we eat just on the side as an add on flavor. Even when melted, cheese is a big part of the meal not just and added flavor. This translates in a culture with no cheese eating habit and obviously not a cheese making culture to sustain it.

Still, globalization is quickly changing all that. More and more, middle class Chinese families try to emulate the eating, drinking and consumer habits of the US and Europe. This has translated in more super markets and American fast food chains opening in China than any other market in the world, but also into new products being commercialized for Chinese consumption. Among them are wines, liquors, sodas, chocolates and slowly cheese. Unfortunately the cheese being commercialized are not small artisanal cheeses, but rather commercial cheese foods that are emulsified with flour, oil, and whey to make cheese spreads or slices. So far I have not seen in any supermarket any non-commercial cheese and obviously the local markets do not carry it either. What the markets do have is a large variety of tofu, which I hope to try and cook.

Nevertheless, with globalization also comes different ventures and there are currently at least two places that are starting to makes cheese in a more "traditional" style in China. I still haven't tried them, but here are links to find them. If you know of any other or have tried them please let me know. I hope I will try them both soon and have a full review of them.

Yunnan Goat's Milk Cheese
Shanxi Cow's Milk Cheese

Also a group of ex-pats in China are trying to introduce cheese and wine into the Chinese market. Here are two links to two societies that are interesting. I also haven't been able to contact them, but in time I hope I could see what they are all about.

Beijing Cheese Society event
Grape Wall of China Blog

Finally, I would like to talk about about cheese from the "other" side of the world. Let me start with my six hour trip to Amsterdam. In my way to China, my flight from Boston to Detroit to Shanghai got cancelled and in order to leave the US in time to beat the upcoming snow storms, I was put in a Boston-Amsterdam-Shanghai flight. This brief but enlightening trip to The Netherlands, corroborated my worries about cheese in Europe. As you may remember, during my trip to Paris a couple of weeks ago, I was discouraged by the amount of commercial cheese in supermarkets. This was the same situation in Amsterdam. All the places I went had, yes "dutch" cheese, but still all pre-packed and all were more than just rennet, milk and salt. Everything had a chemical additive.

I'm sure it has to do with the places I visited and this is the same everywhere, but to think that the consumers in theses markets in places like France, England and The Netherlands with real cheese cultures would settle for commercial cheese is really sad. In any case, to end on a positive note, I leave you with two of the latest post from David Labovitz who recently visit two Comte cheese facilities in the Jura region of France and in his writing you can totally sense the cheese culture when the cheese makers go back to eat breakfast.

Enjoy

Comte posts from David Lebovitz on Making and Ripening.

E Gourmet

2010-12-12T11:30:00.000-08:00

Lactography is again on the field. Yes, we are teaching about artisanal Mexican cheese at this event. The event is a three weekend affair and we have cheeses from Chiapas, Queretaro and Chihuahua.

Apart from the educational program, in which we teach people how to taste, eat, cook and pair cheese, we are also selling some of the cheeses and providing information about the cheesemakers.

We are looking to raise awareness about the need to support local makers and seeking funds to help cheesemakers purchase new vats and tables for their facilities. We will have pictures on our new facebook page.

If you are in Mexico, please visit our stand and learn more about the awesome cheese produced in Mexico.

Cheese travels

2010-11-29T15:38:00.000-08:00

I'm on the middle of a two-week trip to England and France. The primary purpose of the trip was to come judge the World Cheese Awards in Birmingham, England. This is the second time that I judge these awards and happily I was chosen again by the Guild of Fine Foods to be one of the fourteen International Supreme Judges.

The trip has been fantastic, not only because I got this great honor, but also because this was the first time that Mexican cheese participated in the competition.

It was such an experience to see the head global dairy buyers for Whole Foods and Tesco taste Queso de Bola de Ocosingo and give recommendations on how to improve the cheese.

The winner of the awards this year was Cornish Blue, a newish (10 yo in the market) cheese that easily took the top prize for England after a ten year wait.

Cornish Blue was so delicate, the paste so creamy and the veins of blue perfectly covering all the surface of the cheese. The rind looked rugged but gentle, like a beautiful rock that has been carefully washed away by the ocean. The smell was earthy, sweet and mineral. Truly a gorgeous blue cheese.

This year, I championed for the Supreme Judge panel a Camembert with breadcrumbs infused with Calvados. This was a really risky option, because this style of cheese is unique of flavored cheeses and people either hate it or love it. The piece that we tried was a perfect example of raw milk Camembert that was very lightly covered with breadcrumbs and the Calvados making the perfect balance. At the end my cheese divided the Supreme panel in two, with all the British judges hating it and all the rest of the international judges loving it. The South African and Japanese judges loved it so much that it got 5 points from them both.

At the end, I was happy to have chosen such a unique cheese and now understand the privilege of being a judge that mainly works in North America where tradition is being enhanced by innovation and an open palate.

Another great piece of news from the WCA is that my old friend Sarah Bates from Sheridan's Cheesemongers was chosen this year to be the Irish judge. Sarah is cheese royalty, being the daughter of Jeffa Gill maker of Durrus and the woman recognized as the mother of raw milk artisanal cheesemaking in Ireland. Sarah is the manager of Sheridan's in Galway and the number one person responsible for my career in cheese. You can see the video here.

I write from the Eurostar back from Paris to London. I hadn't been in France in eleven years and I found it ever so enchanting, even if a little depressed. Cheese adventures included the obvious trips to local cheese stores and a small tasting of cheeses that don't make it outside of Europe. I will post pictures and names once I get back to NYC and I can upload them from the camera.

The most surprising thing about cheese in France, or at least in the places that I visited in Paris, was the flooding of the market of bad commercial cheese.

I still can't understand why is this so, this being the most obvious place for good quality cheese. After talking to various people about it, including academics, chefs and expats, the only explanation is that the same depression that people have over a financial turn down, racial and ethnic tensions, and growing discontent with the government over proposed neoliberal reforms has made people also apathetic about food.

In bold terms, that quintessential French "joie de vivre" is being diluted. The way that I perceive it is by the selections people make and to me those over what cheese to eat are really important.

This is not a unique French situation, my friend Sarah mentioned the same thing going on in Ireland and just before coming on this trip I had the same feeling in New York. The only difference in the US being that there is truly a food revolution in the midst that I did not see in France, but that it's happening in England.

On other news, i am not smuggling cheese in my bag - yes, you read it well. I am not bringing any cheese back with me from France to England. Partially because nothing was left of the cheese that I bought for the tasting, but also because there is so much cheese waiting in England. Finally, cheese is about sharing for me, and I normally bring cheese back to share with loved ones, but this time I have a gorgeous travel companion who has been eating and enjoying with me.

Expo Chiapas 2010

2010-11-06T06:07:00.000-07:00

I will be in Chiapas for this event. This will be the fourth time that I will be judging cheeses from Chiapas. The two cheeses from this state that are going to the World Cheese Awards will not be competing this time to allow other producers to have a shot.

The other cool thing about this Expo is that there are many small producers of artisanal foods from Chiapas and other states of Mexico. The event is really festive and I will be posting pictures that you can access in the feed.

Because the cheesemakers now have a lot of experience doing this type of events, we are also planning a small workshop on marketing and so my sister is coming with me as she has a small catering business and will start commercializing the winning cheeses in Mexico City.

Cave Aged - Semi-Mature

2010-11-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

Today, the blog is one year old. So many adventures in this past year and so much new cheese.

I wanted to mark the day with a post on the lessons-learned and plans for the future. Instead, and because the risk of getting really sentimental worries me, I leave you with the promise of great new adventures.

In the next couple of days Lucy's Whey at the Chelsea Market will also be turning one year old and I will be traveling to Birmingham, England to judge the 2010 World Cheese Awards.

Thanks for following, reading, making comments and eating cheese.

Feria de Fomento Gastronómico Nacional

2010-10-27T19:08:00.000-07:00

There is a really interesting group of Mexicans and foreigners living in Mexico City working towards a more sustainable future. They are doing this by supporting local producers, learning how to eat, shop and promote small producers and to recover part of the culinary culture that Mexico is quickly loosing with the commodification of markets. I have come to learn about their work by following other Politics students tweeting about many issues in Mexico, one being good food. They too have a passion for food and politics, I call them the lactographers and along some awesome people around the world we have a vision of eating better, while also helping small producers keep their livelihoods.

It is for this reason, that Lactography goes beyond the blogosphere and the halls of cheese contests to let residents of Mexico city to taste some of the most amazing cheeses being produced in the country during a unique event hosted by a group of students concern on issues of sustainable gastronomy. Lactography will have a small stand with cheeses from Chiapas, Queretaro, Oaxaca, Puebla and Michoacan; showcasing five styles of traditional Mexican cheese.

The event details are:

Cocinando el Futuro de Mexico
Dia: 18 de Noviembre - 11 AM a 6PM
Lugar: Universidad Anáhuac del Sur

If you are in Mexico City, make sure you go and visit. There will be two cheesemongers trained by me (one is my sister, who shares my passion for food) and you will be able to taste, purchase and learn more about our culinary culture.

On our way to Birmingham

2010-10-22T19:04:00.000-07:00

That is, Queso de Oveja Semi-maduro (Queretaro), Queso de Bola de Ocosingo (Chiapas), Queso de Cuadro (Chiapas) are going to represented Mexico in the World Cheese Awards in England. This is the first time the judges will be able to taste these cheeses in competition. Most likely this is the first time that samples of the cheeses are making it out of the country. This opportunity is timely as the Mexican Cheese Society (or better the Sociedad de Maestros Queseros Mexicanos) started in Mexico over the summer. We will soon have a website, but for now the five founders (or constituyentes as I like calling us) are working on our own projects supporting Mexican artisanal cheesemakers. Our vision is twofold, on one hand we want to promote, protect, support, and eat artisanal Mexican cheese. We also want to introduce Mexico to the cheese world, by representing Latin American flavor both in North America and in Europe. We are committed to work to conserve Mexican culinary culture and open up the borders for cheese, cheesemakers and cheese-experts.

The World Cheese Awards are this year in Birmingham, England from 23 to 25 November and there will be around 1800+ cheeses from 33 countries with about 150 judges. I am one of those judges, along with great people that have also made cheese their passion. The title of judge is a difficult one, because it conveys an idea of people deciding that a cheese is good or not based on arbitrary values connected to the subjectivity of taste. For that reason, I think most cheese judges would agree that we are taste empresarios. Our job is to taste cheese and decide how that cheese could be better according to what that one particular sample is like. We are not in this business to tell people to stop making cheese (unless you are making cheese-foods), but rather to help cheesemakers achieve a dream. Of course that dream is partially economic success, but I believe there is a way to make this sustainable.

The fact that three Mexican cheeses will be in the competition is a very proud personal moment, not because I have nationalistic feelings about dairy, but because these three cheeses and their cheesemakers have been carefully nurtured by me, to get them to where they are today. The cheesemakers that produced them started with great cheeses and after many consultations about how much whey to extract, the type of rennet to use, salt amounts, and acidification and aging process they have turned to be amazing cheeses that can compete with the ones that I tried in the 2009 WCA. I sponsor them to be in the competition and I hope they do great!

Also to report, I just got back of my first trip to Tabasco, where I judged the 3rd Regional Artisanal Cheese Fair. Tabasco is a small state in the coast of the Gulf of Mexico with a growing cheese culture. Cheesemakers from this state have already gotten a collective trademark for the Queso de Poro de Balancan. This cheese is unique of this state, as it was invented there by a cheesemaker who apparently was looking to make Edam style cheese, but because of the higher temperature and the amount of water in the milk (whey), he ended up with a cheese that is rubbery, salty, and perfect for snacking.

Apologies for the long delay. This statement assumes that your are reading and wondering where I have been. If you are, thanks for following. The absence in this space does not mean that I'm not following cheese. Updates are constant on twitter, even if you don't have an account you can check my feed on this site on the top left-hand side. If you do have an account, follow #quesoMexicano for artisanal Mexican cheese news and #WCA for the awards. Thank you again.

Camel Cheese

2010-09-28T21:04:00.001-07:00

If you are in New York City and would like to have a taste of cheese from China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan join me and others to welcome the team of the What Took You So Long Foundation as the come back from the first leg of their tour to document the culture of Camel cheesemakers.

Here are the details:

PRE-EVENT EVENT!
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Time: 6 or 6:30PM @ Barnyard Cheese Shop (http://www.barnyardcheese.com/)
Location: 149 Avenue C, New York, NY

CAMEL CHEESE EVENT
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Time: 8 to 11PM @ THE BLIND BARBER (http://www.blindbarber.com/)
Location: 339 East 10th Street, New York, NY

In attendance will be special guests to add an entertaining and stimulating twist to the night including a cheese scholar (me), DJ, Photographer, and performers of various kinds.

Dress to Impress!

Cost : $5 + it will be added to our Kickstarter and you will get a reward.

You can still get a prize if you can't make it: www.kickstarter.com/projects/353808285/what-took-you-so-long-to-find-camel-cheese

or you can also find them on facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=110088319051370

Cheese Politics Class

2010-08-30T22:07:00.000-07:00

We find American politics invigorating, but not always delicious. For intellectual stimulation that will also tantalize your tastebuds, we would like to introduce you to one of our favorite subjects: Cheese Politics. We're pitting Red States versus Blue States to see who will reign as king of curd. Will Texas, Virginia, and Utah present the winning campaign, or will California, Vermont, and Oregon rule the soapbox? Carlos Yescas, food consultant, cheese judge, and PhD student in Politics from the New School for Social Research, will guide us through a tasting of cheeses from across the country, all framed by hot topics in domestic politics. It's almost fall--time to put our thinking caps on as we settle into a plate of great American Cheese.

When: 09.11.10
Time: 6:30-8:00 PM
Instructor: Carlos Yescas
Cost: $50.00

Tickets available at: http://www.murrayscheese.com/edu_class.asp?number=CHEESECOURSE09111001

(sorry for the shameless self-promotion)

Festival del Queso - Ocosingo 2010

2010-08-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

Festival del Queso
Date: 13 -14 August 2010
Place: Ocosingo, Chiapas, Mexico

I will be judging approximately thirty cheeses and will be giving a speech entitled: Los Quesos Mexicanos Genuinos: La necesidad de una legislacion quesera (Mexican Genuine Cheeses: the need for cheese legislation)

Follow me on twitter @carlosyescas, as I will be micro-blogging from there.

Mexican Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-07-29T11:36:00.000-07:00

This is from another supermaket in Mexico City. As you may remember, I wrote that there are very few cheese stores in Mexico city and the places with the largest selection are supermarket chains. This one is called City Market and it is definitely upscale, with their fine food prepared food menu, brick oven pizza shop, gelato counter (not helado), and a pinxtos bar (not tapas, they use the Portuguese word to add to the snobbery). However, it is the only place around me that has organic eggs, soy and rice milk, and decent coffee selection from Chiapas.

Their cheese counters have flags from the countries they say they bring the cheese from, but it is all a mediocre selection of pre-processed - pre-cut cheese. They did have a Foume d'Ambert that looked ok, but was completely unwrapped and exposed making sure that this very expensive cheese will be dry and old in a couple of days.

The only interesting offering was an artisanal quesillo, which promise to be good from the huge "enredado" in the case. The brand is La Huastequi and it said it is artisanal. I bought a piece and will be tasting it soon, at the counter it tasted good if a little dry. I also got a small Queso de Petate (another name for farmer's cheese) from Oaxaca made according to the label in an artisanal way with no preservatives by a company called Xipe.

Cheese selection @ City Market - (Col. Del Valle, Benito Juarez, Mexico, D.F.)

Mexican Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-07-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

These trucks are everywhere in Mexico city every Wednesday and Thursday, when these families come from Oaxaca to sell their products in the city. The quality is good, clean and the prices average. We buy from them Queso de Canasto and sometimes Quesillo. The only problem is that we don't know about the production methods back in the farm. If you are in the city, stop by one of them and try their cheeses, buy a little piece of quesillo, a tlayuda, some chapulines (grasshoppers) and ajos salados (tosted garlic with chilly and salt) to make a salsa for your very Oaxacan quesadillas or Tlayuda as they call it.

Their selection includes: Queso Oaxaca (quesillo), Panela (a feta-like cow's cheese), Menonite, Canasto (farmer's cheese), and Requeson (ricotta-like), Chiapas (Doble Crema de Cuadro), Cotija, Chihuahua (cheddar-type).

Cheese selection @ El Puesto Oaxaqueno - (Col. Napoles, Benito Juarez, Mexico, D.F.)

Wedding Cheese

2010-07-25T12:27:00.000-07:00

The original idea was to give people some guidelines on how to go about buying cheese for their wedding, but then I thought to myself, I will not take someone else's rules. This is my event and only the two people getting married know what the entire event should be like. But before I turn into Groomzilla, here are my menus and a small explanation of why I choose the cheeses in the boards and dishes.

One of the first events we had on our way to getting married was a good-bye picnic in Prospect Park, Brooklyn where a lot of our friends from New York came. The day turned out to be a gorgeous sunny, warm and aromatic day. I love the smell of Prospect Park; the air from the marshes there along with the briefs swifts of ocean air, make the place a perfect spot to clean out your lungs from the city traffic.

For this event, we asked friends to bring food potluck style and everyone outdid themselves. From small sandwiches, to spring rolls and awesome endive salad with a fatty pecorino. Everything was delicious. I got the cheese for the picnic at Lucy's Whey at the Chelsea Market, at Murray's Cheese in Greenwich Village and at Formaggio's and Saxelby at the Essex Market.

My idea for the cheese was to have a fresh board, nothing heavy that will be difficult to eat with the heat of the day and also nothing with a rind that would start turning crusty and old after being out of the fridge and in the sun for a while. Because the picnic was also part of the wedding celebration, I wanted something romantic and have to admit that looked everywhere for Coeur de Neufchatel, but nobody in the city seems to carry it.

I also wanted local cheeses and crowd pleasers, so I made my mind and got some American and some French, the board included (pictured on top)

Cremont from Vermont Butter and Cheese Co.,
Langres from France,
Mountaineer form Meadow Creek Dairy (in Virginia),
Tomme de Savoie from France, but this is produced by a small cheesemaker and the production is really limited only available at Formaggio's, and
Gorgonzola Picante from Italy (this was the only outliner and a total wild guess, that worked great in the summer heat)

The other cheese that I bought but didn't make it to the board as my husband and I ate all the night before the picnic was Moses Sleeper from Jasper Hill Farms. This was available only at Saxelby and it was so perfect runny and creamy that needed to be eaten right away.

All the cheeses worked well together and people got to taste them with food, which is great. We had a couple of baguettes on hand and tons of other food to munch on. My personal favorite that day was Cremont and Will's was Mountaineer. Langres is a huge crowd pleaser and it is too bad that Murray's no longer washes them in-house before putting them in the shelves. Back when I was in the caves, we brushed them every other day and they turned even more funky after being with other washed rinds. If I ever start an affinage room in my house I will definitely try to wash my Langres too.

In a non-wedding note, the day of the picnic was also the day of the first cheesemongers invitational organized in NYC. I was at the event and got to see so many friends and people in the cheese world. It was truly a unique experience.

The second event involving cheese to celebrate our marriage was a cheese tasting for our friends and family in Mexico City. Since Will and I are not religious, we wanted to do various events where our loved ones will share in the experiences that make us individuals but also a couple. Will choose to have a private showing of the Polyforum Siqueiros light and sound show for everyone and I organized a tasting of Mexican cheeses.

Here that challenge was even greater, but with the help of cheesemakers, cheesemongers and my mom, all the cheese arrived on time and was ready to be tasted by everyone a day before the wedding. I choose four Mexican cheeses, from three different regions of the country. The reason was that I believe that these cheeses represented our culinary culture and a distinct terroir.

The board had:

Queso Doble Crema de Cuadro, Chiapas (pictured alone)
Queso de Bola de Ocosingo, Chiapas
Queso Menonita, Chihuahua
Queso de Oveja, Queretaro

The two first ones are made in Chiapas with cows’ milk, if you check back in some of my older posts you will find a description of them. The third one is made in the North of Mexico by a Mennonite minority. The ones that I got were not on top of their game, but you could taste the terroir of the Northern pastures with a more fat flavor and perfect coloring. The last one is made by a great couple who just started making cheese a couple of years ago. They established themselves in Queretaro, which is becoming a Mecca for cheese and wine. This particular cheese is excellent when is slightly mature, you can find information about them at Quesos de Oveja.

I paired these cheeses with grapes from Hidalgo, Pitahaya from the coast, caramelized figs from the middle part of the country, freshly squeezed orange juice and Bola De Oro coffee. I gave a little presentation about cheese tasting and invited future members of the board of the Mexican Cheese Society. It was such a fun thing to do.

I wished I had been able to bring Queso de Poro de Balancan and real Cotija and Quesillo de Oaxaca, but synchronized logistics in Mexico are still our Achilles heel and you cannot completely depend on people sending the cheese on time.

The last event was the wedding itself, and the banquet afterwards. We choose a restaurant call Saks in San Angel, mostly because they are one of the few restaurant in Mexico that serve organic and local produce and meat. There were two different cheeses in the menu at the banquet, not as main dishes but rather as part of another dish. The first was Requeson, which is not really a cheese; it is like Ricotta a second cooking of leftover whey. This was served on blue corn tortillas to make an amazing quesadilla. The other cheese was a manchego style cheese (read my entry on Mexican manchego style cheeses to understand what is this cheese) melted with mushrooms, squash blossoms and spinach, inside a phyllo pie dripped with poblano cream. This last one was our vegetarian option and for the meat eaters we had local ribs of lamb encrusted with herbs.

The menu was a total success with everyone feeling super full and happy. For me and Will this was the best present, to have everyone that loves us with us that day eating, experiencing and enjoying all the things we love. Cheese!

Mexican Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-07-13T17:21:00.000-07:00

For this first installment from Mexico, I wanted to show you in pictures the terrible selection of cheese at commercial outlets. This, however, it is in no way a representation of the nascent artisanal cheese industry in the country. In the coming days, I will be blogging about cheese produced in Mexico that is of great quality and you should look for.

The two first pictures are the selections from Comercial Mexicana (Col. Mixoac) and the second two are from Walt-Mart Superama (Col. Napoles), while I did find an organic option at the subsidiary of Walt-Mart and a cheese flavored with Nogada, everything is pre-packaged making all their cheese to taste plastic in the outside and impeding any maturation that may have turn both cheeses into very interesting options.

These two commercial outlets cater to the middle and upper middle class in Mexico and therefore seek to offer more "variety." The problem is that most Mexicans are still new to cheese and buy anything that is available even if not of the best quality. For those reading this in the rest of North American, the situation here is similar of that of Canada and the US back in the late 70s and early 80s, when people there started looking for fine food options but the only products available where those produced by conglomerates.

Cheesers in DF are starting to go back to local markets and tianguis to buy from the puestos that source crema and queso from local ranchers in the nearby states.

The last picture is from smaller outlet. El Capricho Gourmet is a little store that I used to consult for, but since has change ownership and its still looking its niche. Their cheese selection is respectable but lacks a knowledgeable monger to care and sell their cheese.

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-06-20T18:37:00.000-07:00

This cheese store in Williamsburg has an impressive selection.

However, it is my least favorite of all the cheese stores in the city. The two reasons for this, are 1) it is expensive and 2) the cheesemongers are terrible at explaining anything about the cheese.

For me a bad cheesemonger ruins the whole experience of buying cheese. The problem is that most of the mongers here seem to be more interested in their own knowledge, rather than on educating the consumer. The clientele here seems to appreciate that, but to me this translates into a place that can overcharge for cheese as people are more interested in the consumer experience than in enjoying and learning about cheese.

I know this is really harsh, but while I know it is difficult to find committed people to be mongers, it is also true that if you provide a work environment that is nice and make mongers feel comfortable in their work they will turn into loyal promoters of your store.

Having been a monger myself, I know that sometimes it is difficult to deal with customers. However, my manager was so awesome at being supportive, making me tea after a bad customer or taking over an abusive one, that it was always easy to take care of the next person with a smile.

I got Stilcheton and Tomme de Berger - I went for these two, because I knew what to expect and that way I could just go in and out of the store.

Cheese selection @ Bedford Cheese Shop - (Brooklyn, NY)

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-06-20T18:29:00.001-07:00

The great thing about the selection at Whole Foods is that it is cheaper than in many other places. The problem is that their mongers are not the best trained and so they let the cheeses dry, crack, or age too much.

This time I didn't get anything because the line was insanely long, but I normally go to Whole Foods to buy things that are going to be used within the week to cook.

Cathy Strange is the Global Cheese-buyer for Whole Foods. She is a great person, who I got to meet in the Canary Islands for the 2009 World Cheese Awards. You can follow her on twitter @WFMCheese.

Cheese selection @ Whole Foods (Bowery) - (New York, NY)

New York City

2010-06-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

I moved to NYC four years ago. I was coming from living in Ireland, working for Sheridan's Cheesemongers in Galway, and studying a Master's of Laws. I already knew a lot about European cheese, but was not aware of the cheese revolution in the US.

Before I left the emerald island, my fellow cheesemongers in Ireland gave me two amazing presents. One was a cheesemaking class with Silke Cropp in county Cavan to make Corleggy and the second was a gift certificate for - what they said was one of the best cheese stores in the US - Murray's Cheese.

I arrived in the city and after settling in my new life, I checked out their website and got excited about all the classes that they had. Immediately, I called to introduce myself and the amazing Nora Singley asked me if I wanted to help out as an assistant in the classroom. Soon after I was assisting classes every week. A couple of months later, Zoe Brickley (former Cave manager) started looking for apprentices for the caves and me and Svetlana Kukharchuk-Redpath started interning three times a week.

It was there in the cold caves underneath Bleecker Street, with the guidance of Zoe, Nora, Pedro and Joaquin that I learnt about affinage, cutting perfect pieces, and tasting for perfect ripeness.

After that time, other great people at Murray's helped me learn more about cheese. Liz Thorpe, Taylor Cocalis, Louise Geller and Chris Munsey among many others. They all became part of my New York City experience.

But before this becomes a list of the people that you may not know. Let me tell you what is the purpose of this post. I write this as a public acknowledgement to the unsung heroes of the city. It is also a semi-goodbye to a city that has been good to me.

NYC is for better or worse one of the nodal points of the world. I call it this instead of a “world capital,” “the center of the universe,” or any other cliché term, because to me the city is exactly that - a big point of connection among many smaller places.

Those smaller (and bigger places) are the places where cheese is made, matured, and sold. The farmers, cheesemakers, and mongers are out there, caring for that cheese that will end up in our dinner table in 3-to-24 months.

The city is a big market place, where success stories are made and truly unique cheeses (and people) become the talk of the town. I can’t say that I love that about New York, but what I can say is that if you are willing to put the time to make it here, you have a good chance.

However, not everyone comes to the city in the same terms, not everyone gets to talk about cheese and enjoy it at dinner, some are the silent workers who clean the kitchens, mop the floors, and keep this town running day-in and day-out.

Most of those are immigrants and like me they came here looking for a dream. My dream was to work at United Nations, and continue to work with cheese. I never imagined that I would one day be a cheese judge or better a cheese academic, as my friend Dimitri Saad calls me. I came here to be with my family – my boyfriend – here I found new friends.

Immigrants, especially those from Mexico, come here looking for jobs that do not exist back home. They come here too, with their family and find new support systems. They have dreams of making it big and going back home to show the fruit of their work.

Still, the situation for all those migrants (particularly the undocumented) is getting harder and harder. They are now treated not only as second-class humans; they are also dispensed as targets for cheap political tactics.

There is no easy solution to the immigration problem of the US, and I don’t pretend to have the answer. What I do have is a very clear understanding that the only way this city and probably this country functions is because of all those immigrants that work hard and maintain our cheese-stores stocked, clean, and staffed.

As I leave the city for a while to continue researching to have a more complex understanding of a possible solution. I ask you to keep in mind those migrants, who like me would like to come and go easily and not live in fear of deportation for working in the things they love.

Other people that shouldn’t go unmentioned for making my NYC cheese life so fulfilling are Jen Boylan-Sessa, Michael Anderson, and Amy Thompson. There are many more people beyond this small list of New Yorkers, they are out there in the smaller places and I hope to see them all soon.

Cheese Images

2010-06-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

Here are two sets of pics with images that didn't make it to the blog. Most pictures are taken with my iPhone.

Since, I am moving to China, a country with no cheese culture, this blog will start to include other foods. Mostly artisanal, but also traditional ways of cooking and eating. I hope to follow in the footsteps of a great blog that my boyfriend used to write. You can see his writings at Cooking Fire. It was in that space that I published my first blog post about being an apprentice at the caves of Murray's Cheese in New York.

Enjoy. Carlos
Lactographer

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-06-06T11:06:00.000-07:00

The newest addition to the list of cheese stores in New York City is BKLYN Larder.

They have a nice working cave to hold their cheese and a good mixed selection of imported and American cheeses. The staff is nice, their signs are funny and the non-cheese selection really complete. Including some of their own in-house made cured meats and some meats from Dickson's.

I got a big chunk of Tractor Cheddar from VT and a small piece of Pantaleo from Italy. I had never tried the cheddar and I was looking for something easy to put in sandwiches. The Pantaleo was one of the cheeses in the dessert list at Lupa Osteria Romana in the city. I didn't have it there, because I was too full from an amazing fish dinner, so I wanted to try it.

Cheese selection @ BKLYN Larder - (Brooklyn, NY)

Flavoured cheese

2010-06-03T11:12:00.000-07:00

Another question that I get is about cheeses that have added flavours. You know the type, jalapeño jack, dill harvarti, or truffle pecorino. I sense the question normally has two hidden agendas, depending on who asks.

On one side are the "amateurs," who want a guilty pleasure validated. On the other are the "experts," who are tasting my cheese knowledge. My answer always, for this and other questions about flavour is - eat what you like and if you have the opportunity look for non-commercial cheeses that only have natural flavours and not chemical compounds to give the extra taste.

Flavoured cheeses are not an invetion of modern cheesemaking. There are great European cheeses with a large tradition that have added flavours. My favourite of these type of cheeses is Brin d'Amour (also known as Fleur du Maquis). This Corsican cheese is covered with herbs and peppers which infuse the paste made with sheep's milk to give it a subtle pastoral flavour.

Many other European cheese have added flavours, amongst the most famous are: Pecorino Rosso, Aromes au Gene de Marc, Sage Derby, Taramundi and Nokkelost. In this category we should also consider the smoked cheeses and those wrapped in leaves like Banon or Valdeon (Blue). Of the smoked cheese the Italian - Ricotta Affumicata and the American smoked Mozzarella are two of the most famous in this family.

Lately, many Canadian and American creameries are debuting flavoured cheeses. Most famous is the amazing Barely Buzzed by Beehive Cheese Co. in Utah. This cheddar type cheese is rubbed with lavander and coffee to create a great dessert cheese. A new one that they also developed is SeaHive, which has honey and salt. I love this creamery not only because they are innovative, but also because they take risks and know their craft enough that they can turn a crazy idea into an awesome cheese.

Other amazing cheeses in this category are, the pungent Hoja Santa made with fresh goat milk's or the Rosemary Cheddar by Rouge Creamery or their Rouge River Blue.

Finally, there are collaborations between creameries and other food companies designing interesting mixes. Two that I tasted lately are made by Harpersfield Farmstead Cheese Co, both were semi-hard cheddar type cheeses. One had Raspberry Herbal Tea and the other was made with Lapsang Souchog Black Tea, both were commissioned by Harney and Sons tea.

Like always the mix is the result of the ingredients, in this case both the tea and cheese were of excellent quality, but their aging needs a little work. However, I recommend you getting some if you see them or if you buy tea. Remember that the only way that cheesemakers can improve their craft is by having people like you and me eating, tasting, and giving feedback. Here is a pic of the cheeses, apologies for the link, my computer is busted and my photo memory is lost in the immensity of the time machine.

Cheese of the Week: Tronchetto Miele

2010-05-23T15:49:00.000-07:00

This has to be one of the best flavored cheeses out there. The paste was chalky the underind full of goaty flavor and the rind had a hint of honey that got more pronounced as the cheese aged. Overall an amazing cheese.

The label has this little rant in Italian supporting raw milk: Il latte "crudo" e un alimento "vivo," non viene privato delle sue caratteristiche originaire e mantiene tutte le sue qualita.

I got this amazing cheese at the Formaggio's on Essex Market in NYC. Brooke the head monger at this cheese store is superb and always has great recommendations. A couple of weeks ago she recommended Papillon Pur Brebis Pave d'aveyron from Belgium.

Coming up a post on flavored cheeses, stay tuned...

Thanks to my fried Ale for my newest cheese-board.

Cheese Solidarity

2010-05-17T14:09:00.001-07:00

Since I started using Twitter, I have been following an awesome guy named the @CurdNerd. He is from New Zealand and is living in England and the person behind the #cheesesolidarity hash tag. His concept, as I understand it, is an easy one.

There are very few of us really committed to the idea of artisanal cheese and we should all support each other, but most importantly the small cheese makers. The problem is that because the profit margins are so small, some big players are getting territorial about their turf and markets. Unlike wine, cheese companies/retailers are not directly encouraging cheese connoisseurship. They have instead opted for the middleman model standing between cheese makers and cheese consumers. This is basically my whole problem with the international foodie circuit.

At the same time, some cheese experts are more worried about helping companies sell more cheese and less about helping cheese makers maintain their livelihoods, cultures and life styles. This late capitalist model prefers fancy over local, food as signifier of style rather than culinary cultures and it thrives from corporatization while obscuring craftsmanship.

It has been over a year now since I spoke about this in the 2009 Ontario Cheese Society annual meeting in Toronto, Canada. Back then I was pushing for a North American expertise of cheese. My remarks while welcomed were recieved with hesitation, especially from the big players.

Later in the year in my way to the Canary Islands for the WCA, I had the opportunity to talk to Jaime Montgomery from the now famous English cheddar. He like others and me in the event were worried about the direction that the cheese industry was going and wanted to change the emphasis to the craftmanship. I should point out that this is not just a conversation that existed with cheesers of the Anglo world; Spanish, French and Swiss judges expressed similar worries. Me as the only Latin American and the judge from South Africa were concerned that this marketization would destroy small local cheese farms in our counties. Giving way to a foodie market that rather consumes fancy food from factories bought at high-end markets than local productions from farmers and mongers.

Finally, after a brief conversation with Mateo Kehler, and other members of the American Cheese Society, I realized that the only thing I could do, was to directly link up with cheese makers to learn from them how we could ensure that their livelihoods were maintained for them, their families and their regions.

It is for this reason that I keep helping cheese makers in Chiapas pro bono and this summer I am planning to expand to help cheese makers in other regions of Mexico. I am also hoping to help start the Mexican Cheese Society.

In the mean time, I ask you to email me with suggestions and how to help cheese makers, opening markets, fighting lame legislation, finding funding and expertise, and connecting with cheesers all over the world.

In a sense keep the #cheesesolidarity going!!!

Culinary culture

2010-05-04T09:42:00.000-07:00

If you follow me on twitter, you may know that I am fighting a very-familiar battle for cheesers out there. The battle is against big dairy corporations, their lobbyists and elected officials with no backbone. The fight is over pasteurization and this time the battleground is Mexico. However, the fight does not look much different in the rest of North America, Australia or New Zealand for that matter.

My battle is against a law proposed in the Federal Congress by the Ministry of Health that would outlaw cheesemaking using raw milk. The passage of the law would not only criminalize small artisanal producers, it will also constitute an assault to our culinary culture.

Yes, I know that both charges are really strong, but that is exactly what this proposed law (we'll call it NOM 243 by it's filling number) would do. Let me explain why and present the case for raw milk cheeses in an entirely Mexican context. If this sounds familiar to you, but you are not from Mexico or live there, it may be because a very similar situation exists in your country.

Let's start with a basic facts, Mexico did not have cheesemaking or any dairy industry before the colony. It was with the arrival of the Spanish and Italian monks that cheese made it's way to Mexico. This, however, does not mean that cheese is still foreign to Mexican cuisine. What it means is that cheese, like many other food ingredients in Mexican cooking, is a clear representation of a complex, varied, and vibrant culinary culture.

This culture inherits a strong indigenous sense with ingredients like corn, chilies, chocolate, cactuses, tomatoes, and vanilla. It borrows techniques from Spain like salting fish and meat and integrates milk (and it's by-products), bread and most meat into the cuisine. But the story does not end there. Mexican cuisines also learnt and incorporated French sauces, Italian meat curing, Chinese soups and broths, and we also use tahini and pickles from Mexicans whose backgrounds are Lebanese and Jewish. Increasingly our food is also influenced by new immigrants from Haiti, Argentina, Central America, Brazil, Korea and also from the US.

It is exactly within this diversity that Mexican cheese finds its place in our cuisines. Cheese in Mexico is not only a food product, for many is a way of life. Here I am talking of the small artisan producers who produce unique cheeses in all regions of the country. Think for a second of the Menonites of Chihuahua, the small communities (some indigenous peoples included) of Oaxaca and Chiapas who make Quesillo or Queso de Bola or Queso de Cuadro and of small ranchers in Michoacan who turn amazing raw milk into Cotija cheese. Those artisan cheesemakers learnt their craft from their grandparents who in turn learnt from their grandparents. Most of them use raw milk to make their cheeses. They have small herds that are taken care by the immediate family and worry a lot about the well-being of their cattle, their cheese and their customers.

If the proposed law passes, it would criminalize their way of living. Most of them would have to leave cheesemaking as they won't be able to afford pasteurizing machines and will rather sell milk for liquid consumption. Others would defy the law and continue making cheese with raw milk, but their productions will be pushed to the illegal market raising the real risk of having an outbreak of food-related illnesses from dairies that are not carefully inspected and regulated.

That situation already exist in Mexico, as there are laws in place for limiting the use of raw milk, but this law will completely outlaw this practice. Just to be sure, I am not advocating for no regulation. I am arguing that we don't need laws that prohibit completely traditional ways of cheesemaking and that instead we need strong mechanism for monitoring that the raw milk that is used for human consumption is clear and free of pathogens that can affect human health.

In a sense this proposed law is the option to solve a problem on the cheap. By outlawing all production of cheese with raw milk, the government only needs to enforce the law by sanctioning producers who go against the law. While establishing a monitoring system, guidelines, and trainings for dairy producers and cheesemakers, is expensive, labor intense and requires long term planning. Outlawing something from a comfy office in Mexico City is the easy way out.

The project that I am involved with in Chiapas to create a collective trademark for the Queso de Cuadro is the right solution. This project involves producers, farmers, government and academia in finding a way to maintain traditions while ensuring that cheesemaking is safe and clean. It is an initiative that has the backing of many stakeholders, making it a slow process, but at the same time it ensures that the ultimate decision would have the backing of all involved.

So what is it about raw milk? Why are so many of us fanatics of it and what does it have to do with Mexican culinary culture? Before I answer to these questions, let me tell you a short story about one of the cheese judging competitions that I hosted in Chiapas.

In my first trip to Chiapas, I tasted 45 samples of Queso de Cuadro. There were producers from the many regions of the state, and while most cheeses tasted similarly I was able to taste the terroir of the farms where these cheeses were produced. Those from the mountain region were dryer and fattier. The ones from the plains were more lactic (milky) with fresh smell of grass and those from the coast were sweet and aromatic (like tasting flowers). One cheese from the coastal region stood up in smell and flavor. It was sweeter than the others and the smell reminded of ripe fruit instead of flowers. After the competition, I asked the producer of this unique cheese about his herd, the location of his farm, the weather in the region and finally about the feed the cows eat. I was surprise to find out that while his dairy is similar to all other in the region the feed that he gave the cows included a stick of sugar cane in the middle of the day. He said that the cows loved the sugar and produced better milk. He said that he was worried that I was gonna ask him to stop feeding sugar canes to the cows. Instead I was for the first time realizing how much impact feed has on the final flavor of the cheese.

Pasteurization kills harmful bacteria and pathogens in milk, but it also destroys all the complexities in the milk from the various aspects present in the terroir. This means that flavors are more generic and it really doesn’t matter where cheese is made, as no trace of the location where is made is maintained. However, taste alone is not enough to argue that milk should not be pasteurized, especially if there are concerns about the quality of the milk.

Here is exactly, where the minutia of the argument becomes relevant. The solution is to ensure better milk, cleaner and safer techniques, and also to care and be responsible for milk producers’ livelihoods. This is impossible to achieve when the only reasoning behind producing milk is to turn a profit. Milk, while treated as a commodity in economic markets, it is also a food for human consumption. However a lot of people, companies and farmers forget this. They only see dollar/peso sings in the liters/gallons of milk produced and not a food with nutritional value, a story and benefit for our population. Food companies are not in the business of feeding people, they are in the business of making profits with products that we all need daily.

We need to move away form this economic model, which is ending traditional ways of production and hurting our environment. The solution is smaller farms, local consumption and care for the trade of farming. This is why I advocate for raw milk, to support our dairy farmers who are willing to produce good milk for us because they love what they do, not because they want to turn a profit at expense of the animals and the consumers.

If you are interested in learning more about the campaign in Mexico against NOM 243 follow me on twitter (@carlosyescas) and make sure to be ready to talk about raw milk to everyone that needs help understanding why this matters.

For resources in English visit the Alliance for Raw Milk Internationale, they have info about similar movements all around the world.

Cheese in Restaurants

2010-05-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

One of the most common questions that people ask me is "what restaurants do you recommend to go eat cheese?" While there are many in New York and elsewhere. I am yet to find one where I feel that I am getting value for my money.

My problem is that for the US$16-24 dollars you could get better cheese, than the three/five tiny, mishandled/abused, old pieces of cheese you normally get. Still, I continue to try different restaurants and their cheese plates. I know that there will be a great restaurant soon. My only rule for choosing a restaurant where I would order a cheese plate is a good display. If you are able to see the cheese, either in a fridge (like the one in the pic), a display or a cart. These restaurants most of the times care a great deal about their selection and the cheese plate will be better.

In New York City try Casallula and Artisanal. My recommendation for Artisanal is to go during lunch, this way the cheesemonger will have more time to come to your table to explain the cheese you are getting and the selection will be better. Enjoy!

For amazing Mozzarella di Buffala fresh from Italy also in New York City go to Obika, just beware that the carbon miles of these delicious mozzarella balls should prevent you from using your car for about a week and plant a tree this spring.

Do you have recommendations? Let me know in the comments section.

This pic was taken at the Terzo Piano which is the restaurant at the Art Institute of Chicago. For a list of their cheese selection go here.

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-05-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

Everyone in NYC told me I had to check out Pastoral when I travelled to Chicago, and they were right. Their selection of world cheeses is good, their American selection strong, but the best part is that they have cheeses from the Midwest that we normally don't get in NYC.

I visited the store twice, and while the first time the cheese selection was not as good. In my second visit, I got a great cheesemonger that was able to introduce me to great cheeses. Hail to the Savvy Cheesemonger! The second time I got:

Ewe Bloom - Prairie Fruits Farm (Champaign, IL) - Bloomy ewe's milk triangle made with pasteurized milk. Perfect gooey under-rind and chalking middle. Great for spring days. The taste as fresh, with a hint of pepper, but mostly really sheepy.

Little Darling - Brunkow Cheese of Wisconsin (Wisconsin) - This hard cheese, is sharp to taste with a gorgeous cream color. The rind smells amazing, like walking into a moist cave and the texture is soft. This cheese reminded me of those small production cheddars from Ireland, it is made with cow's milk. Great cheese!

Marisa - Carr Valley (Wisconsin) - Sheep's milk cheese for those starting to experiment with non-cow's milk cheeses. This is a perfect example of what can be achieved if the cheese maker knows her trade. Flavor, smell and texture are perfect, creamy, and fatty. Wish I had bought more.

Cheese selection @ Pastoral Cheese - Loop (Chicago, IL)

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-04-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

Blue Apron in Park Slope is quickly becoming my favorite cheese store in the city. They have a great selection of cheeses and it is close to my house in Brooklyn.

This time I got Fleur Vert, I use it as a substitute of cream cheese. Love it on toast in the morning. It is a fresh goat cheese enveloped in fresh herbs and juniper berries. Tangy, herbal, with a very green flavor.

Cheese selection @ Blue Apron Foods - Park Slope (Brooklyn, NY)

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-04-16T11:34:00.001-07:00

I know that D&D played a key roll in bringing fine cheese to the US under the direction of Steven Jenkins, but lately their selection looks really old (stale). The cheddar's that they have from Neal's Yard looks really abused (meaning mis-handeled).

This is happening in a couple of places around the city, I think the slow recovery of the economy is still impacting cheese sales making it more difficult to move big quantities of expensive European cheese. The problem is that many of the big cheese stores are only able to make a profit because they buy big volumes at a discount - economies of scale. The trade-off is that if they cannot sell their inventories all their cheeses sit on shelves for longer periods of time. Stores are not a good environment for cheese, as they are normally too dry and most cheeses need regulated moisture in the environment to not crack or become old. Once a cheese is open, it is really difficult to keep in good shape in over-refrigerated environments.

A way to prevent that the selection looks old, is to have a good team of cheesemongers (no attitude is important) to take care of the cheese, but also to approach inexperienced customers that would like to buy something but are unsure about what to get. Good knowledgeable staff is difficult to come buy, specially when sales are low, however there are ways to ensure that your employees help sell more cheese. A good way is to give them a good environment to work (benefits, breaks, job stability) - if mongers are happy they will sell more cheese. I know this from experience. Sheridan's Cheesemongers in Ireland is a great little company that cares for its employees and when I was there it was easy to sell cheese because people weren't worry about their job.

Dean and Deluca is still a good option to get cheese, they are conveniently located in the city and have good quality. They just need to ensure that cheesemongers are happy, approachable and they will do the rest by selling more cheese. Their cheese needs more attention and love.

Cheese selection @ Dean and Deluca -SoHo (New York, New York)

2010 World Cheese Awards

2010-04-13T05:43:00.000-07:00

The 2010 World Cheese Awards takes place at BBC Good Food, Birmingham, UK 24-28 November.

For more information visit the 2010 World Cheese Awards page.

If you are interested in sponsoring this leading dairy event click here.

The High and Low Politics of Cheese

2010-04-12T18:48:00.000-07:00

The cheese talk at the New School went great. I got great questions and examples from the students. However, I was surprised that only a bunch of them knew about production of milk by conglomerates. After all, I would have guessed that most of them would have watched Food Inc. or read one of the many popular books on food culture. My surprise was that these students are in a Food Studies program, and I would have guessed that they would be more aware of the contemporary discussions about food safety.

I cannot explain what this means, but sure I can think of a couple of reasons of why some people are so involved with these discussions, while others seem to have missed those news reports about recalls of contaminated foods. Perhaps is the fact that so far the dairy industry has been careful enough to avoid a major outbreak of listeria or other related sickness from contaminated milk. I am not saying that milk produced by conglomerates is contaminated, but that there are some cautionary warnings from the way other products in our food supply have suffered that could point to potential risk in milk production as well, including treatment of animals, feed, and worker’s rights.

Some people that I have talked about this mentioned that a lot of the discussions about food safety are perceived by a majority to be a very complicated issue better to be left to experts, while they worry about how to “pay the bills.” This I call the high politics argument (I am a PhD Politics student after all). Others have mentioned that while people are aware of the issues, there is not much that the common person can do and better not to worry about it much and hope for the best. A good friend of mine called this "the politics of consumer choice - those politics that I can only act on in the supermarket aisle." These are the "low politics of cheese." The distinction is not economic, but rather substantive about how to approach food culture.

My concern is how do we connect the two? What needs to happen / or is already happening that would allow us to connect our consumer choices with the necessary changes at the macro food level to ensure that we have healthy options for all while at the same time we provide food that is safe? Maybe the solution really is more local production, and sure I am a supporter of it.

However, the kids in my class seem unconvinced. I guess there is a lot of work that still needs to be done.

Cuttting the cheese

2010-04-06T08:39:00.000-07:00

As you may have guessed by now, I am trying to be serious about cheese; this normally means reading, tasting, and immersing myself more and more in the world of cheese. Another way of being serious about it is by teaching classes and trying to expand my knowledge by hearing what other people have to say while teaching. This is why I keep taking classes at Murray's Cheese and at any other places that offer new topics. NYC is great for that as so many of the cheese stores have an educational program.

However, this time I am doing something different. I will be teaching a condensed version of my Cheese Politics class at the New School. My friend Maya is teaching Food Politics here and invited me to talk about Cheese as a food full of politics.
As a good Academic, I consider this opportunity unique. Not only because it is at my graduate institution, but because the topics that I hope to explore are different. The first difference with my other classes is that this one won't have a tasting component. That is really difficult when talking about a food that it is so much about the smell, the texture, and the flavor. However, what I hope to do is to talk about cheese as a political process, not just the making and aging of it, but also all the decisions that are taken in its commercialization, consumption, popularization, and fame.

I hope to learn as much as I hope to teach this group of students. I will have a full report on it, as I think it will be a great tool to understand how people see cheese not just as a food to enjoy, but also a food with a cultural/political baggage.

On a different topic: The knives and cheese cutting utensils are mine. I was cleaning them over the weekend and took a picture of them for the blog, but didn’t know how to use it. Here they are for your reference. I know the names of some of them, but not all. If you recognize them post their names in the comments.

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-04-05T20:00:00.001-07:00

Cheese selection @ Supermercado Ley (Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico)

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-04-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

Cheese selection @ Comercial Mexicana (Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico)

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-04-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

The great thing about Formaggio is that they go for depth in their selection. While other cheese stores have all the staples and the big names in cheese. Formaggio's takes it one step beyond and finds rare, small, and really unique cheeses from Europe.

They are one of my favorite cheese stores in America (the one in Cambridge is best, but NY is good too). I have great loyalty for them, as I took my first cheese class with one of their guys and they are from Massachusetts (my adoptive America home state).

Cheese selection @ Formaggio - Essex Market (New York, NY)

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-03-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

Cheese selection @ Saxelby Cheesemongers - Essex Market (New York, NY)

Check out their website at Saxelby Cheese.

I love their American selection, I got cheese curds from Hillcrest Dairy (NY) and Winnimere from Jasper Hill Farm (VT).

Irish cheese

2010-03-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe that I just got a cooleeney mini. I am so excited to have a true Irish cheese in my plate. Irish cheese rocks!!!

So, I guess it is time to let people know where did this crazy cheese passion started. As I normally tell the story, it was the day that my dad gave me a wheel of cheese for my 13th birthday that my love for cheese started.

He, being the amazing dad that he was, a man before his time, on the day of my 13th birthday in 1991, just before the first Iraq war started, gave me a "cow" for present. The real gift was the production of milk of one cow for a year in the form of one wheel of cheese a year. He was supporting the first CSA in Mexico in a time when climate change was just a high level discussion in European capitals and food security was not yet related to the current idea of Chinese food sovereignty over ensuring enough rice grain to support the population of that country.

The wheel of cheese was of Queso Añejo, made in the Mexican state of Aguascalientes and the flavor was amazing. Sharp in flavor and stinky in smell, bounded by cheesecloth secured by lard and aged for 8 months. My mom would cut it carefully and only let me cut a piece the days that I had eaten my vegetables and meat. Back then I was a cheesaterian, only eating cheese - refusing to eat veggies, meat and sugars.

After this early encounter with cheese, I would go back to eating processed cheese, including spray cheddar cheese, until one day after college when me and Will took a class at the Boston Center for Adult Education with the head buyer of Formaggio's and tried amazing Italian, French, and American cheese. It is from this time that we still eat Pecorino Rosso, rubbed with tomato and Cenapata, a quince paste spiked with mustard seeds.

From this moment on, cheese returned to my diet and has not left. But where I really learned about flavor, texture, smell and craftsmanship was in Ireland. Under the guidance of Sarah Bates and Kevin Sheridan at Sheridan's Cheesemongers in Ireland.

There, I learned to love Durrus and Sarah taught me to choose the best wheels. I understand the complexity of Ardrahan and the need for it to keep moist, and the heritage of Cooleeney. I'm sad to not have access to Milleenns and Mt. Calhan here in the US. But above all, I miss my Irish customers and their way to ask in Irish for their cheese and their apologetic way for not liking a French cheese and always taking the Irish option.

Quesillo o Queso de Hebra de Oaxaca

2010-03-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

This cheese is most commonly known as queso Oaxaca. It is the only cheese made in Mexico of the Pasta Filata style. The name "de hebra" refers to the long and thin shreds that form long pieces of cheese and are then braided into a small ball and sold fresh.

Traditionally, it was made with raw cow's milk only in the state of Oaxaca, where it is used to make "tlayudas." Now it is produced all over the country and in the US with pasteurized milk. The flavour of the original cheese made with raw milk is tangy almost sour but also slightly sweet. Its aroma is that of fresh milk and most times some left over whey is released when the ball is unbraided.

This cheese became popular for its capacity to melt, but not brown. This makes it the perfect quesadilla cheese, because it allows for the quesadilla to be soft in the center. Also its mild flavour is great for pairing with many different types of salsas.

As of right now, there is no initiative by producers in Oaxaca to seek a DO, which means that you can get excellent quesillo everywhere, but also allows large commercial outfits to make poor examples of it readily available in super markets and major retailers.

If you have the oportunity to travel to Mexico look for pick-up trucks parked in corners of major cities with big banners announcing "Productos Oaxaquenos." There you will find fresh examples that you will need to consume right away. The best age of this cheese is at about day one to day four of being made, and you obviously should look for the hand pulled versions as they are always fresher.

Commercial versions and those made in the US lack moisture and the cheese is gummy. If you don't have the option of buying the real deal. Look for one of the commercial ones that looks more loose and make your own whey and let it sit on it for a day to allow for the wet environment to moist the dry curd.

Quesillo is one of my favourite cheeses and everytime I get to see a good ball I ask for a taste and buy a big chunk. In my local Mexican market they have a good version made with pasteurized milk, the only problem is that I don't know the source of the milk and therefore it is more likely cheap milk from dairy facilities that tend to produce unhealthy milk that must be pasteurized to prevent outbreaks of listeria.

Nevertheless, this is a great cheese style.

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Queso tipo "Manchego" Mexicano

2010-03-22T08:11:00.001-07:00

This cheese is very popular in Mexico. Like Quesillo de Oaxaca it is mostly used to melt in quesadillas and in many other Mexican dishes with melted cheese on top. The name is a misuse of the word Manchego, as unlike the original Spanish Manchego, the Mexican version is made with pasteurized cow's milk.

I think of this cheese as a mix of a cheddar and a colby. The texture is normally bouncy, straw color and creamy looking. The smell is sharp, like that of a cheddar, but the flavor is closer to a tangy colby. Good versions of this cheese are creamy and the fat of guersey cows milk make it really nicely rounded. It is great for melting and it would create a gorgeous crust if put in the oven on top of enchiladas.

However, most versions in Mexico are now commercial with little resemblance to those "manchegos" of my childhood. The problem with the commercial versions is that we do not know where the milk comes from and that normally means that the milk needs to be pasteurized to keep it safe.

Since the beginning of the entry of Mexico to the global economy, conglomarates have taken over the dairy industry with large holdings in milk factories in states in central Mexico.

Good substitutes for this cheese are Queso Chihuahua and Queso Menonita. Both these options are produced in the north of the country and are normally produced in smaller farms. Queso Chihuahua is made into big ground that resamble a parmesan, and are covered with cloth and aged between 6 to 8 months.

Queso Menonita is produced by Menonites who settled in the state of Chihuahua and produce blocks of their cheese from their own cows. This religious/ethnic minority established in Mexico fleeing religious intolerance in the US after having migrated from The Netherlands. Their cheese can normally be bought from them in the edges of their farms or in Mexico city where it is common to see men dressed in their traditioanal overalls and cowboy shirts.

If you have the opportunity to travel to Mexico and to buy one of their blocks, it will last about 3 weeks once open and its flavour will transport you to their farms and their simpler way of life.

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Queso is Cheese

2010-03-17T17:55:00.000-07:00

Recently someone asked me about a good cheese book. I quickly responded that there are none in Spanish (at least not online or in bookstores in North America). What this means is not that cheese is not consumed or a big part of Latin American cuisines. What it means is that up-to-today book publishers have not seen a market in producing an original work about this food in the Americas. There are a couple of translations of good books produced in Europe and the US, but they only concentrate on what I normally call: The Big World Cheeses.

Those cheeses are the popular cheeses from France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands and England that most people know and have many imitations. Think of Brie, Camembert, Provolone, Mozzarella, Parmesan, Gruyere, Emmental, Manchego, Gouda, and Cheddar.

The lack of specialized cheese books in other languages is common. My friend Svetlana just filled this gap by publishing a compendium in Russian and I know that some of the judges of the World Cheese Awards are thinking of producing similar books in various languages. In my case, I am thinking that it will be great to write such book in Spanish for the Mexican and the Latin American market - so I am looking for a publisher (does anyone know anybody?)

I know that there is a desire for such book as some people involved with the American Cheese Society are looking to start a Mexican chapter of the organization and learn more from the cheesemaking of Mexico. I hope to be more involved with this project over the summer and hopefully get some Mexican cheeses to enter the World Cheese Awards competition this year in London.

But in the mean time, I would like to write here a little bit about Mexican cheeses. I have already written in this space about two of the Mexican cheeses from the southern state of Chiapas. Queso de Cuadro y Queso de Bola are both raw cow's milk double cream cheeses. They are tangy, salty and smooth. Almost like a goat cheese in texture but with the flavor punch of a sharp cheese.

Other cheeses produced in Mexico are: Quesillo from Oaxaca; Cotija of Michoacan; Queso de Poro made in Tabasco; Requeson common in central Mexico; Menonita, Adobado, Botanero y "Manchego" (Mexican Cheedar) from the north, and a stinky washed rind from Baja. Other cheeses made of goat's and sheep's milk are starting to be made in central Mexico, but still are single farms with generic names that could use support to improve on their cheese making techniques and decide on characteristics of their cheese.

In this most recent trip to Mexico, I have had "manchego," cotija and quesillo. In the next posts I will write about them, except for cotija. I have very little knowledge of this cheese, but I have a good friend who wrote a paper for the FAO about it and is doing a PhD on a related topic. I have asked Thomas to write a little post about cotija and I hope this will be the first of many collaborations for this blog.

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Travel Cheese

2010-03-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

I was talking to Murray's cave master, Michael Anderson about the hoopla about the breast milk cheese that keep foodies in NYC busy last week. After explaining to my friend Maya why you cannot actually make cheese out of this milk, and that this cheese must have had another milk added (cow's in this case), we then talked about all the people getting really serious about cheesemaking and cheese-expertise. That is really exciting as the cheese world needs more advocates.

This I hope translates in better cheese being demanded in more places. In my most recent trip, I noticed that JFK airport does not have a gourmet food store and instead everything sold in the duty free shops are imported brands of liquor, chocolate, cigarrettes, and fragances. This is also the case in other big airports in the US and Mexico. But not in Canada or Europe. Shanghai airport in China also has only international brands in it's shops.

Toronto, Reikjavik, London, Madrid, Dublin, Milan and Amsterdam (some of the most recent airports that I been in the past 4 years) have stores featuring local foods, brands, and gifts. Including cheese and other foods. I am not sure what is the reason behind this, but what I think is that the lack of local foods maybe be a signal of the declining pride that there is on national cuisines and products in these countries.

If anyone has a better explanation, let me know. For now I leave you with this reflection, which I hope leaves you thinking but without cheese - just like I got to my destination after being in JFK and Mexico City airport.

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Oscar cheese

2010-03-10T20:23:00.001-08:00

Food Inc. didn't win at the Oscars, instead The Cove did, with it's message to save dolphines from the disgusting practices of some Japanese fishermen.

I had my money on Which Way Home, the movie on the immigration of unaccompanied minors from Latin America to the US. I supported this movie over the others, because after watching it twice, presenting it at a film series at the New School and participating with the director on a panel. I realized how little regular people know about this increasing issue. I used to work for the Consulate General of Mexico in Boston and helped dozens of minors to go back to Mexico and parents to try to locate their children in the US. I wanted Which Way Home to win hoping that more attention will be given to the immigration of unaccompanied minors and immigration reform more generally.

This made me think about the role of movies and documentaries in affecting public discourse in the US and abroad. For example the Chinese movie on the protests of families over the dead of children during the earthquake in China has been censured by the goverment and some friends in China said that the Oscars were not broadcasted in the country over the real possibility of this movie winning an award.

The fact that Food Inc. was participating is important, but unfortunately the movie didn't achieve it's aim. For people aware of the challenges facing our food supply and climate change the movie added little to the debate. To people uninterested in the topic this documentary was inconsequential and to detractors of this issues was an easy target.

However, the issues in the movie are super important and people should really watched if they haven't done so.

To talk about cheese and not just politics. I'll tell you about the two cheeses that we brought to my friends' house the night of the Oscars. One was Selles-sur-Cher and the other was Beehive Barely Buzzed. Both had the intention of making people feel glamorous while watching the awards.

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Fondue Battles: Switzerland v USA

2010-03-09T06:44:00.001-08:00

To celebrate that I finished my first exam for the doctorate and thank some of the amazing people that helped me in the process, this past weekend we had a Foundue party. We hadn't had one since my boyfriend turned 30 and we started living in NYC.

My original idea was to have a cheese and a chocolate fondue. But after a lot of consideration, reading online about fondue recipes and following cheesemongers recommendations on Twitter, I decided to have two cheese fondues instead. The challenge was to choose cheeses that were sufficiently different, but still kept true to the idea of good melting cheese.

I must confess here that despite growing up eating fondue made from a premix that my mom bought from the fancy gourmet store in Mexico. I don't know much about the story of how this dish came to exist. I'm sure there are some genius anecdotes and probably some big politics on having cheese melted for a meal. I promise to investigate and blog about it soon (if you have any ideas please post them on the comments section).

For now let me go back to the ingredients part of the dish: cheese! So, at the end I decided that the best thing was to make a traditional Swiss fondue with a twist and an American artisan cheese pot to compare them.

I was not only looking to compare flavor, I was also trying to see if there was something in the cheese making technique that finally affected the way the cheese melts in the pot and taste of the mix. To pair I had steamed broccoli, cauliflower and roasted potatoes; plus the traditional crusty bread. I like red wine with fondue, my guests mention that white was recommended, but at the end we end up drinking all the wine in the house; white and red.

The Swiss pot (orange pot in the photos) had Emmental, Gruyere and Vacherin Friborgeois Alpage added complexity.

Landaff (NH) and Tarentaise (VT) were the American selections (yellow pot in the pictures).

While both were very good, I think the best mix was the Swiss one. Not only the texture was better, but also the cheese did not burn so much at the bottom. The American was good at the beginning but after a while the flavor was that of smoky cheese. The Swiss pot was a little sharp, and I think this was because the Vacherin was too pungent to begin with and I had too much of it in the mix.

Overall we had a great time, no cheese was left and I learn that I need to pay more attention to the quantities and ratios. I will continue to experiment with smaller batches and trying other American cheeses. Next time I will try those that are closer to the Alpine style and see if that changes the way the cheese melts and mixes.

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-03-02T05:48:00.000-08:00

Cheese selection @ Lucy's Whey - Chelsea Market (New York, NY)

I love their American artisanal selection, this time I got:

Fil-a-buster from Westboro, VT

Appalachian from Galax, VA

Prairie Breeze Cheddar from Milton, IA

Barely Buzzed from Uintah, UT (yeap, Utah makes a good cheese)

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-02-26T10:23:00.000-08:00

Cheese selection @ Market Cheese Store (Brooklyn, NY)

I got Halloumi, which is great to grill. Normally, I think of this cheese as a summer cheese, but I craved its saltiness.

We had it for breakfast on top of grips with a fried runny egg. We put slices of the cheese under the broiler and waited for it to get lightly crispy. The flavour of the cheese, egg and grits was amazing. Perfect to start a snow day with a long walk in Prospect Park and some vegan hot cocoa.

Cheese for the Soul

2010-02-18T07:06:00.000-08:00

… the mind and the body.

By now we have all heard of the miracle cheese compresses that helped sky champion Lindsey Vonn to get gold in Vancouver.

Cottage cheese was credited with being the magical cure that Vonn used to heal her bruised chin. The whey, which is full of nutrients, is often credited in helping people get better from bruises, undernourishment and headaches. In Ireland, it is feed to pregnant women to help them recover nutrients passed-on to the unborned babies. Along with a pint of Guinness a week, the cheese diet is credited for healthy Irish babies.

Tomorrow, I will be taking my first PhD exam, a four-day marathon that will test my knowledge of American politics. So, I been preparing for over five months and yesterday I went out to buy the cheeses that will nourish me over this weekend.

In thinking what cheeses will be able to help, I imagined the different moods that I will go through. I guess, I will be anxious, bored, tired and finally excited to be done.

The cheeses that I chose, I hope, will help me in each stage. For the anxiety before I get the exam, I got Cherry Glen – Monacacy Ash. This goaty drum will be great for snacking with crusty bread and pass the time. Once, I get the exam and after a couple of hours of intense writing I will be bored of the questions and the exam. For this stage I got a piece of Quesillo from Oaxaca to shred in thin pieces and think of the responses for the difficult questions. I also hope the chewiness of it, will distract me and give me the badly needed break from writing.

By day three of the marathon, I will be tired, so I’m guessing I will need something sharp to bring me back to life. This time I went for a Mahon Curado, which is super salty right now and I hope will do the trick. Finally, I will be done and with a little bit of luck I would have turn in a good exam. I will need nourishment and a celebration, so I got Winnimere. This beauty from Jasper Hill Farms is perfectly ripped right now. It is oozy and creamy at the center, the rind melts in your mouth and you get a feeling of completeness when eating it. I hope to pair this with bubble wine, maybe a light Lambrusco and toast to the rest of my academic career.

For now, back to the books and the studying. Wish me luck.

Did you know?

2010-02-08T09:01:00.000-08:00

Cheese is a source of vitamin B12, which helps you produce red blood cells.

I found this "Cheese Fondue Blend" at Murray's Cheese the other day, it has Gruyere and Emmentaler, and ask to "just add wine." (make sure is white wine)

I'm not an advocate of prepackage foods, but this is a good alternative to make a quick foundue. Just remember that a lot of moisture is lost when cheese is precut, making it dry and stale. The same applies to Parmeggiano Romano. If you can, buy a freshly cut piece from your local cheesemonger and consider about 200gms (7 ounces) per person.

Enjoy.

Cheese of the Week: Mimolette

2010-01-18T17:26:00.000-08:00

Normally when I think about Mimolette, I think of cheese mites. Those little insects that I used to brush off from hard mature cheeses with a big brush when I was doing my apprenticeship at the caves in Murray’s Cheese.

The mites normally are present in cave environments and they like to eat cheese. They are cultivated in the sense that they are allowed to exist in small quantities to help the cheese-rind of some cheeses develop, but are controlled to impede that they destroy whole wheels of cheese.

Mimolette is also famous for its orange color and its buttery taste. I bought a piece last week and have been nibbling on it everytime I’m craving for something salty. I like it cold as it is firm and so I leave it in the cheesedome in the fridge. The sharpness is nice and once the piece gets a little older I will put shavings of it on top food.

Lately, I been craving really salty food and eating a ton more. I blame the studying for the PhD exam that I have coming up, but I need to control this nibbling habit because my jeans are starting to be tight. This is also to say that I will be a little absent as the studying intensifies. But before, I go on a break; I wanted to write a more political cheese post. I know this has been less the case lately, but never worry cheese politics are still my driving force for this blog.

So, apparently those mites really have an effect on cheese beyond making the craters in Mimolette. Recently, I find out that Montgomery Cheddar is having a problem with mites, which is making a lot of its cheese blue inside. I know Jaime Montgomery from the WCA and I know he is working hard on fixing the problem, but in the meanwhile exports are on hold for this fine cheese.

The people in cheese blame a recent change in European health code, which required cheesemakers to change production methods impacting the way the cheeses mature and therefore the way it develops. Although, I am not sure of the precise changes this seems to be a case where standardization is affecting local products.

The European Union in its drive to make products acceptable across countries has been setting up standards on productions, products and techniques for cheesemaking. Many of them go against traditional ways of making cheese and affect the flavor of the end product.

A lot is said about the terroir of cheeses, highlighting the importance of maintaining ecosystems (grasses, air quality, insects and nutrients) to preserve the original taste of cheese. Terroir is often times credited for specific flavor profiles and used as a call to stop transformation of traditional agricultural lands into corporate fields where production yields are fostered by pesticides.

The recognition by wine and cheese makers of the importance of terroir, should now be followed by the idea of craftsmanship. This would not only encourage cheesemakers to maintain production methods, but would also foster traditional techniques for making cheese. This obviously would impede many cheesemakers to optimatize their cheese production by standardizing processes, which may translate into smaller production. However, the concept of craftsmanship then could also be marketed and we the educated consumer should start paying for it as well.

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-01-14T20:57:00.000-08:00

Cheese selection @ Murray's Cheese / Bleecker St. (NYC, NY)

I got Caciocavallo, Crottin, St. Maure, Mimolette and Tomme Crayeuse.

Cheese of the Week: Jalapeño Jack

2010-01-10T16:25:00.001-08:00

For a while now I been really into Jalapeño Jack. Yes, there I said it. I however think there is no shame in writing this. It has a nice flavor and normally the stuff that I get is spicy enough that I don't have to add salsa to my nightly quesadilla.

Other cheese people turn their nose to added flavour cheeses, and while I certainly don't like or understand the idea behind truffles in cheese. I think there is something to be said about the everyday comfort-food cheese.

I think most of the objections againt added flavor cheeses are related to the idea of "fancy" that most people have about artisanal cheese. That concept is what allows pieces of imported cheese to be sold for US$ 36 dlls a pound.

The price matches our idea of quality, unlike in other places where prices pay for the craftsmanship. Yes, price many times can signal quality, but only if the product is actually produced in a special way and not just because it has a label on it.

My cheese budget is only second to my rent. I even pay more for cheese than internet and phone combined. However, in that budget I always save a little for the cheese that is consumed everyday at home. So normally along the pieces of Appenzeller (Will's favourite) and Grayson, there are always some slices of Jalapeño Jack and a quarter pound of Quesillo.

I get the Jalapeño Jack at my local Armenian deli and I only get enough to last for two days. After that the slices are dry and the flavor of the chilli has turned bitter. This probably is due to the cheesemaking process and not because the cheese is necessarily bad. After all cheese and chillis are not historical from the same place, but nonetheless they taste good together.

Here is my recommendation: only get the cheese that you are going to consume during the week. Cheese does not keep well in the fridge once it has been cut. If a week has passed and you still want to eat that cheese, no matter what it is, it is better to cook with it. Cooking with cheese gives a little extra to your dish and a second life to that piece of nice cheese.

For last week's recommendation of Point Reyes, I still have a piece in my fridge that is still nice to eat with a piece of crusty bread or over toast in the morning, but I am rather using it to make potato & leek soup with blue cheese to fight the cold winter nights of New York City. This way I'll enjoy the flavor of the cheese and give it another use, leaving me space to get another blue cheese for the week.

If you have an added flavor cheese that you would like to recommend, let me know. I hear that people really like the Havarti with dill and the Horseradish Cheddar.

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Cheese of the Week: Point Reyes Blue

2010-01-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

Point Reyes Blue is probably one of the most famous artisanal blue cheeses made in the US. Even before I got into cheese, I had heard of it and had tasted it. Because it is really famous the makers now commercialize small wedges individually wrapped perfect for display in super market shelves. This, however, is not a sign of poor quality associated with some mass produced/marketed cheeses.

I got one of this wedges while on vacation in San Francisco. The Cowgirl Creamery shop in the Ferry Plaza had them on display next to big pieces ready to cut to order. The really nice cheesemonger, gave me a taste of it and it was amazing.

It was sweet, little salty and you could really taste the milk. It had that characteristic mineral flavor that good blues have and it was so fresh that it melted in my mouth. I have had Point Reyes many times, and definetely it had never tasted so good as in California.

I attribute this to the shorter distance it had to travel from the farm, the less refrigeration and the less handling and movement it had to endure. Being so close to the source meant that the cheese was fresher and more like the cheesemaker intended to have it sold.

Most blue cheeses don't know how to travel well, they all lose moisture in their trip and become saltier in the process. Unlike hard cheeses, subtle temperature changes really change the way a blue cheese develops.

If you have the oportunity to travel to California seek Point Reyes, as well as any other local cheeses that you have had and are curious of their taste closer to the point of origin.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone.

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2010-01-06T19:28:00.000-08:00

Cheese selection @ Cowgirl Creamery (San Fransico, CA)

I got a Point Reyes Blue, and small pieces of Batch #16, San Andreas, and Capricorns

Adventures in Cheese-buying: New Year's Eve

2010-01-02T10:37:00.000-08:00

Cheese selection @ Whole Foods (Cambridge, Mass.)

Here are again some pictures from the cheese counter at Whole Foods. These ones are from the one in Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during my last minute run of 2009.

This time the guy behind the counter was super knowledgeable and was good at talking to me about some good NYE cheeses. He recommended Rogue River Blue and Tomme de Savoie, both were great. I also got some Brie de Nangis and a piece of Comte. A pity that the Irish cheeses they get from Neal's Yard Dairy (Durrus and Ardhrahan) are always too dry to buy. I know that the people at Neal's Yard, Whole Foods and even at Durrus are trying to have the cheese be in better condition once it arrives in the US. However, the problem is that these raw washed-rinded cheeses are too delicate to travel and need constant supervision by an affineur. Also because of the raw milk regulations they cannot be shipped earlier from Ireland, which means that by the time we get them in the US, they have already passed their prime.

You can also see in the corner of the picture on the right some of the Herve Mons camemberts. The NY Times published an interesting article on it (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/dining/30curi.html?_r=2).

Happy New Year 2010

2009-12-31T06:45:00.000-08:00

For the past three days, I been reading on the cheese blogs and news feeds about the best cheeses of 2009. I was surprise to read that so many people are recommending Mont d'Or, as I also like it a lot.

I first discovered Mont d'Or in Ireland while working at Sheridan's Cheesemongers. They sell the big wheel and so you can buy a slice of this creamy, pungent, luscious cheese. In the US and Canada you can only buy small wheels (retail price US$35).

Because of it's format, and because it does not keep well once opened, I recommend that you eat it all at once. You can eat it in spoon fulls over a nice crusty bread and pair it with bubbly wine for your NYE celebration.

While cleaning boxes that we have stored in Will's parents house, he found some of my first cheese notes from a class we took together. Funny enough I had written down "cheedar > Brie," for the amount of pressure used to make those cheeses. Little did I know that almost a decade later I would be writing a cheese blog.

2009 was by far my best cheese year, not just because I had the honor to be a supreme judge at the World Cheese Awards or because I traveled around tasting cheese. It was the best because after going to Chiapas twice, now I know that cheese makers there have a good chance of earning a decent livelihood with their product.

Cheese for me should not be considered an elite food, but the craftmanship should be regarded as high skill and honored as such.

Mont d'Or is a perfect example. While you can pair it with fancy Champagne, the most interesting thing about this cheese is that is made with the same milk as Comte. Cheesemakers change to the production of Mont d'Or in the middle of the fall when cows start producing less milk and the flavor changes too much to keep making Comte.

They use everything that is available and hold the cheese with a piece of bark that infuses the cheese with a very distinct forest flavour, imagine tasting some of the logs in the fire place.

I am guessing those cheesemakers like changing the cheese that they make to keep things interesting, but always within the thing they know: Cheese.

For 2010, I have big plans within the things I know best. I will be doing field work for my PhD and will be helping Mexican cheesemakers enter their cheeses for the World Cheese Awards.

I hope you all have a great beginning of the year and thank you for reading. Happy 2010.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone.

Cheese of the Week:Crystal Brook Farm Goat Chevre Log

2009-12-27T13:36:00.000-08:00

For New Year’s celebration, my sister instituted a family tradition a couple of years ago. At 12:01 on the first day of the new year, you have to go out of your house with a small bag in hand and run around the nearest pole seven times. She attributes the extensive amount of travelling that she does to this tradition. My mom, Will and I have also started following it and seems like we are travelling more. Most recently we ran in Guadalajara, Mexico on our 2008 New Year’s Eve trip. Will and I have ran in Boston and in New York, convincing friends to follow us in what always is a very fun and accelerating activity for an otherwise un-climatic moment.

I love to travel, having grew up in a pre-NAFTA Mexico I find the diversity of the world full of possibilities. The one thing that I love the most about travelling is eating and finding new foods. Recently, the quest to find new local cheeses in the places I visit has open up a world never tasted before. In my recent trip to Europe, I had a layover in Reykjavik from America and found nice cheeses in the duty free area of the airport (see pictures below in the blog). I bought two bloomy rinded cheeses, one with extra blue mold making it a very cheese. The cheeses had a mixture of cow’s and goat’s milk and they claimed that the milk of these animals is unique because they eat grasses watered with glacier water. My friend Peyman, who kindly enough hosted me in London with his wife Alpha, loved the cheese and claimed that he was able to taste the tundra. Talk about an interesting terroir.

Finding local cheeses has pushed me to venture to walk on the highway interconnector in St. Louis, MO and to practice my rusty Italian with an Albanian bus driver in Milan. However, during this holiday break finding good local cheeses was easy - Will’s parents took us to the Cheese Shop in Concord, MA (http://www.concordcheeseshop.com). This little store has a great selection of world cheeses, with all the families covered. Still, the real treat was to find Massachusetts chesses.

Of four that I tried, I bought two: Crystal Brook Farm Goat Chevre Log from Sterling and Great Hill Blue from Buzzard’s Bay (Marion). I choose them because they were the most complex in flavor and I knew people would enjoy them. Will’s family likes creamy full-fat cheeses. My family likes sharp cheeses and Will and I enjoy the rounded flavors best.

Crystal Brook Farm makes this goat chevre with the milk of their own animals. The chevre is fresh, milky (lactic), and a little bit sour. Making it a great chevre to mix with food. They have a version with locally grown cranberries and another one with ginger. I did like both flavored ones, but decided to buy the plain one, as I didn’t want people to be unable to taste the freshness of the milk.

Great Hill Blue was really nicely covered with blue mold all over. I am guessing they use penicillium roqueforti because the veins were green and blue. The cheese is made with raw milk, and it was very lightly salted. It was also very fresh and the smell was full of mineral notes. The fact that this cheese is made and aged near the ocean is unique and it has a definite impact on its flavor. I really liked that it smelled like wet rock, which made me think of the rocky beaches of Massachusetts.

The goat chevre was a success and we finished almost all of it. The remaining piece may go into a quinoa/cranberry salad that we are copying from a friend who brought it for our Thanksgiving potluck.

If you want to find out more about Massachusetts cheeses, I found this link (http://www.mass.gov/agr/massgrown/cheese.htm) while browsing for information on the cheeses that I got. It belongs to the Massachusetts Agricultural Department and has a nice list by county of cheese producers in the state.

Apart from being a great cheese, I am making goat chevre the selection of this week because any good cheese plate should start with a fresh cheese. Since this is the first choice of the year it is perfect that it starts with a cheese that is fresh, from Massachusetts (where I took my first cheese class at the Boston Center for Adult Education from the buyer at Formaggio’s) and one discovered during a trip. Come midnight of December 31st, 2009, I will be out of the door running with my suitcase to wish that 2010 brings a lot of trips to find new cheeses and interesting politics research.

Feliz Año Nuevo.

(In the picture Crystal Brook Farm Goat Chevre log is in the upper left hand corner, Great Hill Blue is in the upper right hand corner, at the bottom there is Bound for Glory Cheddar from Greensboro, VT on the left and Queso de Vaca Urgelia from Catalan Pyrenees, Spain)

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2009-12-26T13:51:00.000-08:00

Cheese selection @ The Cheese Store (Concord, Ma.)

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2009-12-26T13:49:00.000-08:00

Cheese selection @ Comercial Mexicana (Mexico, D.F., Mexico)

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2009-12-26T13:46:00.000-08:00

Cheese selection @ Whole Foods Supermarket (Cambridge, Mass)

Normally, Whole Foods has a very good selection of cheese, the problem is that their employees are not well-trained as cheesemongers and rather just know retail techniques, for this reason they let cheese dry up and get bad. I have been in Whole Foods in Canada and the US (West Coast) and always there is cheese that should not be for sale anymore.

It is a shame that Whole Foods do not train its employees to take care of their interesting selections and to teach consumers about cheese.

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2009-12-26T13:40:00.000-08:00

Cheese selection @ Keflavik Airport (Reykjavik, Iceland)

Adventures in Cheese-buying

2009-12-26T13:38:00.000-08:00

Cheese selection @ Palacio de Hierro - Gourmet (Mexico, D.F. Mexico)

Cheese pictures

2009-12-26T13:33:00.000-08:00

Queso de Bola de Ocosingo, Chiapas, Mexico.

Cheese of the Week: Cheese Traditions

2009-12-21T15:18:00.000-08:00

The Christian high holidays are here, and like most other religions the preferred way to celebrate them is with a big meal. Traditions are both easy to start and easy to forget, especially those that you only have to perform once a year. But traditions that come with food are always easy to remember even if recipes change a little every year.

In Mexico, most people cook a turkey for the dinner of the 24th. When growing up we were no exception, but it was the other dishes that I remember most.

The more Spanish side of my family used to make two turkeys. One had sweet stuffing (prunes, apples and raisins) and the other had a savory stuffing (pork and almonds). But, the highlight of the meal at my uncle's house was a dish called: Bacalao de Castilla. This dish is made with six ingredients (and I should say a lot of them). First is the salted cod, which needs to be soaked for three nights to get rid of the extra salt out and loosen the fish meat off the skin. Then there are tons of garlics, olive oil, tomatoes and almonds. The cod is cooked for over six hours until most of the oil and tomato sauce has cooked off. The final touch is jalapeño peppers and the dish is a bomb of flavor, spicy, fishy, oily, garlicky and above all full of memories.

The other side of my family, the more “Mexican” not indigenous but certainly earlier settlement in the country is known for Romeritos con tortitas de camaron.

This dish is made with a plan that resembles a young rosemary, but it is less aromatic and the leaves have more cellulose therefore they are more substantial. The plant is carefully cleaned and then cooked in a rich Mole sauce. Shrimp croquettes are made too and added to the final dish as garnish. Unfortunately, neither one of my Mexican families has a cheese dish.

However, at my boyfriend’s house, the tradition includes cheese straws. But these are no regular cheese straws they are serious-cheddar-cayenne-chilly-fluffy straws. They are just amazing! For that reason this week’s recommendation are cheese traditions. If your family has one, pass it along and help me and Will start a new cheese tradition of our own.

Happy holiday.

I'll bring the Cheese!

2009-12-14T19:50:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow I have a small dinner with my PhD advisor and I am in charge of bringing cheese. Talk about cheese politics!

She loves cheese and has heard me talk on cheese politics, cheese migration and cheese history (some of the classes I teach). However, to bring cheese to someone's house is always a challenge. Cheese changes everyday and with every batch and price is not always the best indicator of a good piece.

I normally take my time to think about the people that are going to be eating the cheese, and try to match their taste with the cheese. Yes, this is really involved, but I am a cheese geek.

Still, I don't expect everyone to pay this much attention or be so OC about it. So here are some crowd pleasers. This is a small list of American cheeses that will earn you the love and respect of your advisor... sorry of your friends and family.

VBC Coupole
Meadow Creek Grayson
Pleasant Ridge Reserve
Spring Bridge Tarentaise
Vermont Shepherd
Jasper Hill Farm - Bayley Hazen Blue
Beehive Cheese Co. - Barely Buzzed

Cheese of the Week: Stilton

2009-12-13T09:06:00.001-08:00

The winter arrived to New York this week in full force. After having unseasonaly warm days with 60 F in November, this week it was really cold. Still no snow on the ground.

This weather makes me change my entire eating patterns. While I normally go for light food, when it gets cold outside all I want is stews, soups, and vegetables instead of fruits and tacos. My cheese cravings also change. Instead of washed and bloomy rinds, I only want hardy and blue cheeses.

Cheeses in the blue family are always my favourites and I always find an excuse to buy a piece of blue cheese to eat. I love blue cheese and red wine and Roquefort in potato & leek soup. Gorgonzola is great on toast and Bayle Hazen Blue and Cashel Blue are great introductory blues for a cheese board.

This week for my class at Murray's, I choose Stilton for the cheese plate. I normally don't think of this cheese, as it can be really salty and it is expensive. However, Stilton made it to the last round at the World Cheese Awards and it was easy to get for my class. When I tasted it, I was surprise at how well balanced it was and because the paste was moist and had blue everywhere.

People in my class seemed to like it and worked well to close the class with a familiar cheese. The flavour was described by someone as chlorine, which I attribute to the mineral notes of this cheese and not to a fault in the cheesemaking process.

The politics of this cheese are particularly English. This is the only British cheese protected with a Denomination of Origin. The regulation calls for pasteurized milk, which is strange for a DO cheese. Most other cheese making guidelines require that the milk be raw. However, for Stilton, the particular history about the creation of a British milk board was key to have pasteurization as a requierement to be certified.

In a push to industrialize and make the dairy industry more profitable, the British created a milk board that collected milk from various regions and then served as the sole national supplier. Eventually, the milk quality dropped and pasteurization was necessary to ensure nobody ot sick. This in turn created a national anxiety over raw milk and all cheesemaking techniques changed to use pasteurized milk.

Stilton is the pride of English cheesemakers, so it makes sense that a cheesemaker associated with Neal's Yard Dairy is trying to revive the original recipe made with raw milk. That cheese, however, cannot be called Stilton so it goes under the name of Stichleton. If you find it, buy it. It is amazing and really improves the flavour of the blue mold.

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Best of the Best

2009-12-07T21:17:00.000-08:00

Yes, a Canadian cheese won the 1st Prize at the 2009 World Cheese Awards. But most of us won't be able to taste this cheese unless you travel to Quebec. The demand for Le Cendrillion has sky-rocketed since winning the top prize this year in the Canary Islands. Still, unless you are terribly lucky is actually impossible to find this cheese due to the very small production by La Maison Alexis de Portneuf.

So, what is the point to awarding an obscure cheese such a great prize. This is the nature of the business, rarity comes attached to artisanal / farmstead cheeses. That, however, does not mean that the famous available cheeses are not worth our attention.

Taste is subjective. I say this not because I don't think that the 13 cheeses chosen by the supreme judge panel (myself included) are not amazing. But because you may love something that I detest like cucumbers or you may find impossible to eat/drink something that I have everyday, like beer.

In today's class at Murray's, the participants got to hear my stories about tasting cheese and "judged" with me six amazing cheeses. I chose these six cheese based on the final thirteen ones of the WCA. However, I had to substitute two cheeses that we cannot get here in the US yet.

The cheese plate tonight had: Sainte-Maure (replacing Le Cendrillion), Camembert, Taraintese (instead of Saint Giles), Manchego, Ossau-Iraty, and Stilton.

The winners tonigth were: Manchego and Ossau-Iraty.

People loved the sheep milk cheeses because they are more wholesome (fatty) and sweet.

I was surprised that at the bottom was Camembert, which is one of my favourite cheeses. I guess the smelliness of it really puts people off.

Cheese of the Week: Meadow Creek Grayson

2009-12-07T17:29:00.000-08:00

So the holiday parties are in full force. What a great excuse to eat more cheese. My idea for this year is to bring cheese for my hosts, rather than wine.

I am recommending Grayson because everyone always love it. It's creamy, stinky, meaty flavour goes great with any type of bread and with most red wines. It's square form reminds me of an Italian taleggio, but the flavor is unique. The only problem of this cheese is it's smelly nature. It is a washed rind cheese from Galax, Virginia. Last time I bought it people kept looking at me in the subway, so make sure to not buy it much in advance of you getting to your house.

The politics of this cheese are straight forward. The story is a common one of American artisanal cheeses and it is rapidly becoming a very sucessful and famous cheese. It won't take long before it becomes an export cheese.

It is made with raw milk and the family that makes it is using environmentally sustainable techniques to make their cheese. They also respect their animals and only produce cheese with milk from the normal periods of lactation, instead of injecting their cows with growth hormones to produce more milk. And only when the cows are on grass and not on silage, which makes the cheese more flavorful and there is less risk of infection from the unpasteurized milk.

Last year it won the 1st in it category at the American Cheese Society awards and it is set to become a staple of the new wave of American cheeses. When Virginia was red (Republican), I feature it in my American Cheese Politics: Blue state vs Red state class. Next year when I'm teaching again that class, I will be using it as a sample of blue state (Democratic).

On Wednesday (Dec. 9. 2009), I will be teaching a class at Murray's Cheese. I will be presenting six cheeses that made it to the supreme panel of the World Cheese Awards. The class will be about the politics of judging cheese and about the unique opportunity that we have to taste so many cheeses from such diverse traditions.

If you are interesting on what it entitles to be a cheese expert and didn't get a seat for my class, watch this video from the 2009 Caseus competition in France. (At Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvr19PsnO68)

This competition is known as the cheese Olympics. I have trained for it for many years, but I'm still looking for another Mexican national to go with me. If you know of anyone, please let me know.

Hope you enjoy Grayson and come back on Tuesday to find out on the cheeses that I will be teaching for my class.

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Cheese of the Week: Mozzarella di Buffala

2009-11-30T19:36:00.001-08:00

It seems like my iPhone lost the post and never published it online. This is a short reproduction.

Cow's, goat's, and ewe's milk are the most commonly used type of milk in cheesemaking. However, cheese is also produced from the milk of other animals. Camel, Mare, Yak and Water Buffalo are other types. The most famous of these other four in the 'west' is Water Buffalo and perhaps the most famous cheese made with this milk is Mozzarella di Buffala.

This cheese has an Italian DO and is mostly produced in Lazio and Campania. The cheese is in the pasta filata category and is always eaten fresh. A smoked version also exist, and it is the main ingredient in pizza made in Naples.

The story of this cheese is full of myths. The most famous involving the Second World War, the Nazis and new herds of Water Buffalos. According to the story, Mozzarella stopped being produced after the war because all water buffalos were killed by the withdrawing fascist troops.

Apparently, the troops got orders to destroy the livelihoods of the farmers and this meant the killing of all farm animals. Soon after the establishment of the new republic, a herd of water buffalos was brought from South East Asia and production restarted.

In North America, only one producer uses water buffalo milk. The Vermort di Buffala company used to produce an ok mozzarella out of their facility in Woodstock, Vermont. However, since they move to Quebec in Canada, I have not seen any of their cheeses.

In New York you can get cow's milk mozzarella in most delis. They are normally produced somewhere in Brooklyn or are hand pulled in the kitchen. However, it is possible to find the water buffalo version in a couple of places. They normally come in a little green plastic bag with some whey to conserve them fresh. But if you want to eat them really fresh and are willing to put up with the guilt of a heavy carbon foot-print product, the best option is the Mozzarella bar in midtown.

The place is Obika and they have fresh Mozzarella di Buffala imported weekly from Italy. The flavor is milky with a tangyness distinctive of this milk. They also have a nice selection of meats and salads. I will be taking my partner to celebrate his birthday, and I will be taking a lactaid to be able to consume so much lactose.

Cheese of the Week: Rogue River Blue

2009-11-24T07:49:00.001-08:00

For this week, I wanted to choose something that could be served for Thanksgiving dinner. Perhaps a blue cheese is not the best option after a meal of turkey, cranberry sauce, and pies. But I have chosen this chesse for its politics and story.

Rogue River Blue is made in Portland, Oregon - out of raw cows milk. After the cheese is pierced, it is covered with grape leaves that have been macerated with Brandy. The flavour is salty, creamy and boozy (this may help you when coming out to your family during dinner.)

The cheese is the first American raw milk cheese allowed to be exported to Europe. The cheesemakers behind it are strong advocates of raw milk and have designed a cave that mimics those in Roquefort. However the wrapping in grape leaves resambles more a Spanish cheese than a French one.

The great thing about American cheeses is the possibility to combine various cheesemaking techniques and come up with great new cheeses. The proccess of innovation in Europe has stopped and for the most part new cheeses there are only commercial inventions responding more to market forces than innovation.

Some cheesemakers blame this on the strict DO rules, while others attribute it to a saturation of the market. In North America there is more space to innovate because we still have huge markets to enter. Still, cheesemakers in Canada, the USA and Mexico are not just looking for market niches, they are trying to figure out the terroir of their regions and develop cheeses that will appeal to consumers in the same region.

For this reason a lot of the great new American cheeses can only be found in local farmer's markets and access is limited to where the cheesemakers can get without compromising their product.

The conjuction of old techniques, new terroirs and opportunities to young cheesemakers is the driving force behind the growth in artisanal cheesemakers in North America. For this reason, I think we should support them and help them find their own place in the cheese world.

Enjoy and happy thanksgiving.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone.

Food outlets

2009-11-21T13:08:00.000-08:00

New York property values are often to blame for the mark up in some of the products commercialized in the city. The amount of rent that retailers have to pay is directly passed on to the consumer. This often means that some of the best located outlets also have some of the highest prices in the city. For this reason I am in constant search for cheese stores in less desirable neighborhoods, so I can pay a lower price. However, this also means that those cheaper cheese stores have worst selection or cater to a market that is not interested in artisanal cheese.

Then artisanal cheese is categorized as a premium product and access is limited. This is not the case in Europe, where good quality cheese is available at many places and the price does not include real estate and transportation cost.

Price obviously discourages people to try some of the best cheese. The main concern of people is that a cheese may be too expensive and unless you know what you like, it is a high risk to pay so much.

This is why I truly believe in cheese education. Classes are an easy way to try different cheeses at a lower cost and discover potential favourites.

Another way to get excellent cheeses is trying the local production, a great addition to the cheese retailers of New York is Lucy's Whey at the Chelsea Market. Lucy concentrates on American cheese and the staff behind the counter will be able to point you in the right direction.

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Queso de Bola

2009-11-20T20:56:00.001-08:00

Queso de Bola has already received its collective trademark and this particular one is going to be entered as one of the Mexican cheeses for the 2010 World Cheese Awards.

We hope to have the backing of the government of the state of Chiapas to send at least one producer to London next year.

Cheese class

2009-11-18T20:57:00.000-08:00

Just a short note to let people know about my upcoming class at Murray's Cheese in New York City.

Here is the info:

Best of the Best: World Class Cheese

Finally! An acceptable excuse to be judgmental! Learn the ins and outs of critiquing cheese from Carlos Yescas, judge at the 2009 World Cheese Championships in the Canary Islands. Let this international cheese enthusiast and New School Doctoral Candidate in Politics guide you in using your discerning palate for good, not evil, as he takes us behind the scenes in the politics and bartering behind cheese-judging.

When: 12.09.09
Time: 6:30 - 8:00 PM
Cost: $50.00
Status: 20 seats available

To purchase your ticket visit: http://www.murrayscheese.com/edu_class.asp?number=CHEESECOURSE12090901

I will be taking about cheese politics, judging and six of the twelve cheeses chosen at the last round of the World Cheese Awards.

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Cheese customs

2009-11-17T12:58:00.000-08:00

Coming back to the US is always a huge ordeal. Not just going thru immigration is a long process, with questions like "what were you doing away for so long?" "aren't you a student? - so how do you pay for all this traveling?" and my two personal favourites "what are you gonna do with a PhD in politics?" and "is the New School even a real university?"

On top of this, since I got into cheese and food, customs has also become a reason for anxiety. Not so much because I bring anyhing that is not allowed to enter the county, but because I am worried about the food ignorance of some of the customs officials.

This is particularly true if you are bringing cheese into the country. Even the pasteurized versions of camembert can cause concerns. The aroma of one of these cheeses can become overpowering after a long international flight with no refigeration, but that does not mean it has gone bad or should be incinerated.

I understand the reasoning behind the prohibition on the transportation of live cultures and some molds. But those present in cheese are innocous as their concentrations are small and would be consumed almost immediatedly upon arrival to the US.

I know of tons of stories when the officials have confiscated perfectly packed cheese, meat, chiles, and tortillas. While more harmful things like tobacco get special permission and are even allowed to be sold free of taxes. Last time I checked the most recent cheese related death was over five years ago in Canada from a pasteurized store-bought cheese. However, deaths related to pulmonary problems caused by cigarrettes happen everyday and the government still allows Big Tobacco to turn a profit.

Sadly cheese still has no powerful lobby in DC - yet maybe it is better this way as we should enjoy good cheese only in it's place of origin.

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Cheese knowledge

2009-11-15T23:12:00.001-08:00

The trade fair here in Chiapas included producers from all the states of Mexico.

Many states brought cheeses to showcase and some of them were excellent. After judging my share of Queso de Cuadro, I was asked by all the producers from the other states to taste their cheese and judge it too.

This was particularly difficult as I felt that I was expected to tell them that their cheese was excellent, so that they could use my endoresement to sale more. I, however, believe that they will benefit more from a honest assesment.

Bob Farrand during the briefing to the judges at the WCA asked us to do two things. 1) to not judge any cheese against another cheese, but to judge it against the best that cheese could be, and 2) to offer positive feedback on how to improve each cheese.

I tried to do the same here and explain to people that taste is subjective and that I was only tasting to offer advice on how to improve each cheese. Some producers took my recommendations really hard and replied that either I had no way to know about their cheese or that I was too young and from the "capital" (from Mexico City).

Both these arguments go to the core of cheese judging. This practice is to most people highly suspicious, even more when it is done by someone percieved as foreign. That was not just the case here, but also in the Canary Islands were some of the reporters from the local press questioned how someone like me or the judge from Japan or South Africa could know anything about European cheese.

I agree with the suspicion, but also think that most of these type of comments are not against our expetise or passion for cheese, but our position as non-cheesemakers.

Cheesemakers devote their lives to making wonderful products and some distrust non-cheesemakers. They are right to question judgements, as I too would like them to distrust recommendations that could cheapen their products. However, turning a blind eye to informed opinions also causes cheeses to stop developing and become the bland commercialized cheese that some DO cheeses have turned into.

I am writing this post as I leave Chiapas and hope to be here next year to judge the development of the cheeses that advice. I am humbled by the opportunity to be here and intend to keep learning on cheese, so that my recommendations are always more informed.

PS. The winners of this year taste will be announced soon. Once this has happen I will share the names and companies that presented excellent cheese so people can seek them when in Chiapas.

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Cheese of the Week: Queso de Cuadro

2009-11-15T18:06:00.000-08:00

After tasting 50 samples of this cheese. I had to make it the cheese of the week.

This cheese is produce only in Chiapas and it varies from region to region. The cheese is commonly made with raw cows milk and some producers make small batches with pasteurized milk for some specific markets.

I believe the best examples are from the Ocosingo and Costa regions of the state of Chiapas. Those cheese are creamier, more milky and fresh, and overall better in texture. This may be due to the better pasture in those regions and a smaller incidence of cows eating silage.

A recent issue with this cheese is the use of milk from cows eating the infamous "pollinaza" and "gallinaza." Basically chicken feces. The region around Tonala has one of the largest chicken processing plants in the state and therefore produces a lot of "feed."

The producers in this region had started using the feed until the government started monitoring and discourage the use of milk from cows on this diet for the making of raw cheeses. However, some cheesemakers are still using it for pasteurized versions. The Minister of Agriculture of the state promised me that by the end of the year they will have a total ban.

Still the issue of feed for cows is important and I will write about it soon. Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilema is a good read to learn about feed.

This style is commonly found in in the major cities of Mexico, in Guatemala and in Texas (only the pasteurized version).

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Salt, futures and health

2009-11-14T17:39:00.001-08:00

Salt is the hidden and often times forgotten third ingredient in cheese. Salt is used to heighten the complexities of the milk. Tasting over 50 cheeses this week, I have developed a taste for the salt used.

My biggest issue with salt is with the commercial industrially produced salt that has iodine. I find that type of salt can give sometimes a metallic taste to cheeses that have high ph levels.

The end result is normally a cheese that has good flavour, but the finish is unpleasant as the mouth overwaters to dissolve some of the excess salt.

When asked the producers about their choice of salt, most if them told me that is an economic decision. They choose the cheapest salt in the market the day that they need it. That price is normally set by the demand and supply forces around cheese and the futures market may also have to do something with the fluctuations in price. In Chiapas this is particularly problematic as all the salt is brought from far away regions and the final price includes the cost of transportation to this very remote and difficult access area of Mexico.

Salt with iodine is promoted in Mexico by the health inspectors, but so far I have gotten no clear answer of the benefits of iodine in salt. I guess I should go back to Mark Kurlaski's book Salt and try to learn more about this mystery ingredient.

Vegetarian Rennets

2009-11-13T19:46:00.000-08:00

This morning I tasted 25 cheeses of the Queso de Cuadro style. The tasting went well and I applied the same technique that we used during the World Cheese Awards. Tomorrow, I will be tasting another 25 cheeses. After that tasting I will talk to all the producers to tell them the way they can improve their cheese. At this moment, I can disclose that a big issue is the use of microbial rennet, which could give an off flavour to any cheese.

Mary Quick of Quick's cheddar, mentioned to me that these microbial rennets are responsible for much of the odd textures of new cheeses. I understand that these new rennets are being introduced as an alternative to the ancient animal rennet for the growing vegetarian market. Still, before I know more about rennet chemisty and how it interacts with milk, I will not push for a specific rennet for the collective trademark for the Queso de Cuadro.

My friend Tom, who is doing a PhD and is researching on Denominations of Origin says that we should leave many things open for the producers to decide on. While I think this is true, I think that rennet is one of those things that we should requiere everyone to use the same type.

Of course the final decison will be of he producers with help from the chemists involved in this project. But I would like the rennet to be choosen based on the cheese final flavour and not just to please one or another market.

BTW: the hotel breakfast this morning included Queso de Cuadro, so that is good results from my pushiness.

Southern dispaches

2009-11-12T20:02:00.001-08:00

I'm in Chiapas, in Tuxtla Gtz for one of the biggest trade fairs in Mexico. There are about 300 producers, 31 international and 50 national buyers. Coffee, cheese, fruit, veggies and other food products are for sale.

I am here to taste about 50 cheeses, of the Queso de Cuadro style. Today, I'll be leading a private tasting for some government officials, where I will stress the importance to not push pasteurization on cheesemakers. I believe the milk used for these cheeses is of great quality and in chemical analysis experts from the University of Chiapas and Chapingo have found below average of harmful bacteria. So pasteurization at this point will only destroy the complexity of the milk flavor.

During breakfast this morning, I wanted to have some cheese from the buffet and to my dissapointment the options were the infamous slices of bland "American" cheese. I cannot believe that having so many wonderful producers meeting in the city, the platter did not included a single cheese made in Chiapas.

When I pressed the restaurant manager about it. The response was telling of the overall feeling in Mexico about our own products. He said to me - Cheese here is not good and I can get this from the general caterer.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Cheese of the Week: Cheddar

2009-11-08T21:32:00.000-08:00

This week, many things happened that made me think about the politics of Cheddar. Amongst them, I hosted a Sunday dinner at our place in Brooklyn for our friends in the building.

The menu included Aztec Lasagna, an invention from our time in Jersey City. The dish is a combination of sweet potatoes, tofu, plantains, poblano peppers, tomato sauce, tortillas, Mexican cream and cheddar. While, I normally get most of these ingredients in our neighborhood, either at the Mexican store or from the Korean-run 24-mini-mart. It is nearly impossible to get good cheese in K-town. I normally go to Murray’s Cheese once a week to get cheese for the week or for a specific recipe. However, this week I forgot to get the good-enough-to-melt Irish cheddar that they carry and only bought Morbier to put over potatoes and Fourme d’Ambert to stuff dates.

For tonight’s dinner, I had to go to the local Food Town to buy cheddar. I ended up getting Cabot (Extra Sharp) Cheddar, which is neither sharp nor complex as the clothbound version that the Cabot Co-op produces for the upscale market. Still, this cheddar is a fine cheese to melt over a dish that has many different flavors going on. But the politics around its availability in the super market are definitely more complex than the flavor.

Other two things that made me think this week about the politics of cheddar, were a conversation with Mateo Kehler of Jasper Hill Farms and a talk by Slow Money author – Woody Tasch that I attended on Friday night.

The Cellars at Jasper Hill Farms are currently being used as maturing rooms for the Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, and this partnership has been a major source of pride for both the Cellars and the Cabot Co-op. For this reason, Mateo and his family decided to open their caves to other cheeses. They were also concerned about becoming “cheddar bitches” as they realized the aging of cheddar could take over their business. Mateo used the expression to mean that unless they diversified, and quickly, their business would be overtaken by the amount of demand for Cabot’s upscale cheddar. This obviously has made me think a lot about investment, prestige and supply-demand dynamics.

Finally, on Friday after an engaging talk over the principles of Slow Money, I have been thinking a lot about the options for the likes of me, who do not have money to invest but still believe that we should support local productions. This year, for the first time, we were members of the local CSA. This opportunity lets us try a lot of new things, but also kept us fed in weeks when we had no time to go out to the store.

Unfortunately, cheese is not part of the bi-weekly bounty. The cheddar sold at the farmer’s market in Union Sq. is ok, but cannot really be melted and should not be called cheddar. So options are limited. This takes me back to my trip to Food Town and their cheese options.

The first thing I notice is that every single piece of pre-cut cheese is tiny, and therefore marketed as “grab and go” options. The small portions are meant to be cheap and easy to get in our hectic urban lives. But this means that packing is intensive and that those pieces of cheese are full of additives to stabilize the taste, prolong shelf life and mimic flavor that is normally developed by maturation and care.

The second thing was the consistency of styles. There were about 15 cheddars – orange, sharp, jalapeno, lite – from four different producers. Also they had 6 munsters, 5 smoked, 4 chevres, 3 red-wine washed, 4 “swiss,” and 7 “parmesan.” All from five to seven different producers, with ingredients list that went 18 items beyond milk, rennet, and salt normally found in artisanal cheeses.

Finally, all of the options felt like rubber to the touch and none had a discernible smell that resemble cheeses made in a dairy and not in a factory. Cheddar is probably the extreme case of this. Cheddaring means the process followed by cheesemakers, who stack slabs of curd on top of each other to spell whey and created the specific flavor of this cheese. The best versions are cloth bounded, covered in lard, and aged for about 8 to 16 months, depending on desired sharpness.

The cheddar found on supermarkets has none of the care that this style requires. The versions available are always the same, always with a metallic taste and an interesting but few times pleasurable chewiness. It is a great sandwich cheese and gets along with most foods, mostly because it is bland and unintrusive.

To wrap up, I think an artisanal version could gain from our support. The demand is there, we just need better options. And it will help dairies and cheesemakers.

If you are looking for good options try:

1) Cabot Clothbound from Vermont, 2) Montgomery from England, 3) Mt. Callan from Ireland, 4) Cows from Canada (even if this is more commercial that use a small herd and their technique is very close to the original cheesemaking process of this style.)

Why is Oka the only Canadian cheese you can find in New York?

2009-11-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

Canadian cheese doesn’t carry the same connotations as American Cheese – all Kraft Singles and curds in a can – so why don’t we see more of it around the world… As usual my response is: Cheese Politics!

“Quebec cheese is a hundred years ahead of us,” Cole Snell told me when talking about all the Quebecois cheeses offered at his store in Toronto. As proven recently in the 2009 World Cheese Awards, where a Canuck cheese took the top prize, Quebecois cheese is ready for the world stage. Still it is impossible to get the winning Le Cendrillon in the US or even cheeses that are more familiar in Canada like Le Baluchon or its mature cousin Reserve La Perade, or Fellowship or Grey Owl, or even the cryopacked-but-amazing Cows Cheddar.

Quebecois politics may have something to do with why good Canadian cheese can’t be sold to foreign markets. Also, there is the Canadian federal system that protects small local producers, but creates huge obstacles for small dairies to obtain federal permits to sell across provinces. This risks only helping big agri-business and food conglomerates with the resources to lobby parliament.

The transfer of knowledge from Quebecois cheesemakers to other farmers in the rest of Canada has been slow. A persistent perception that English-speaking Canadians only eat cheddar has hindered joint ventures that would train cheesemakers in British Columbia, Ontario or PEI. So most of the cheeses produced in the English-speaking provinces have developed by people who have gone “back to the farm,” much like in the US.

The US still limits imports of Canadian cheddar to protect American producers (mainly conglomerates producing block commercial cheddar). Many of the regulations in place are left-over from policies adopted by the government of the thirteen American colonies against the royalist Canadians who sided with England during the war for independence. Other regulations involve the inconsistent 60-day rule applying to raw milk cheeses, that bans the entrance of much amazing unpasteurized cheese from Canada.

If this weren’t enough, the Canadian government has been slow at supporting its own producers (artisanal, but also some farmstead) to get them off the ground and move into export. I know we are not meant to have some food products outside of our regions, following slow food principles, but when you think about it, Toronto is closer to New York, Quebec closer to Boston and Vancouver closer to Seattle, than many points within the States. “Think local, think Canadian” was my motto when I was beginning to develop a market for Canadian cheeses in New York.

While that project is on hold, now I just hope someone starts bringing these amazing cheeses from north of the border. Intermittently, Canadian cheeses can be found at Artisanal in New York. Their affineur Denis Cottin is from Quebec and manages to bring some interesting wheels. But if you have the chance to travel north, make sure to try one of the amazing Canadian cheeses made with raw milk.

BTW – if you are into the slow movement, Mr. Woody Tasch, author of Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered will be giving a talk at Murray’s cheese on Friday at 6:30 PM. For info contact: Taylor Cocalis at taylor@murrayscheese.com

Cheese of the Week: Queso de Bola de Ocosingo.

2009-11-01T19:09:00.000-08:00

For this the first blog post of Cheese of the Week, I present to you………….. Queso de Bola de Ocosingo. This cheese is manly produced by small co-ops in the towns around the city of Ocosingo, in the north-east part of the Mexican state of Chiapas. This cheese resembles an Italian Cacciocavallo in the type and form. It has an outer rind that hardens and forms a casing that is sometimes edible (however, I don’t like the chewy-ness of the rind). In the inside, the paste is a bright straw yellow (with the texture of cream cheese) and the flavour is lactic (milky), salty and fresh. The cheese is normally made with raw cows milk from small Holstein herds.

This cheese is almost impossible to get outside of Chiapas, but if you ever travel down there to see the Mayan ruins of Bonampak, the cheese will be available in most tienditas de abarrotes.

There are two cheeses produced in the state of Chiapas, 1) Queso de Cuadro and 2) Queso de Bola, both are fresh raw cows milk cheeses. Queso de Cuadro is fresher, salty and very lactic. Some people in Mexico City, like a matured Queso de Cuadro, four to five months old, until it has become dry and even saltier to sprinkle on top of enchiladas.

I chose this cheese because I got word this past week that I will be attending the 13th International Expo of Non-Traditional Products in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico. During this event, I will taste fifty samples of Queso de Cuadro (Doble Crema) de Chiapas. Since the summer of 2007, I have been working with a group of consultants for the Chiapas Ministry of Agriculture help local cheese producers to develop a single recipe for this cheese.

In 1994, the Zapatista movement entered a political conflict with the Mexican government. After the accords of San Andres, the government promised to support rural farmers. Many of them are indigenous peoples and these programs were intended to bring them out of poverty. The Ministry of Agriculture then became very interested in small cheesemaking co-ops that produced Queso de Bola and Queso de Cuadro and granted funds to develop newer cheesemaking facilities.

Most of these cheesemakers are family run outfits with no more than four to six employees, mostly family members. Fifty percent make farmstead cheese (made with your own cows milk), while the other half produce cheese with milk bought form local producers. At this moment there is only one farm that is certified organic and there are issues over pasteurization.

Now, the State of Chiapas and the Mexican Institute for Industrial Property (part of the Ministry of Economy) are trying to develop collective trademarks for cheese. This is the first step in the long process to get a Denomination of Origin in Mexico. Currently, there are no cheeses with this denomination, while other items like Tequila have been recognized for a long-time. The Queso de Bola de Ocosingo has already been granted a collective trademark and is now in the periodic review to be granted a full fledged Denomination of Origen.

Both cheeses have been produced in Chiapas since the time of the Porfiriato, and some believe that Queso de Bola was actually developed following a recipe for the Edam. However, in the techniques of cheesemaking employed and even in the flavor, they seem to have little in common. Still, the spherical shape of Queso de Bola may have had some inspiration from that Dutch cheese.

Edam was originally introduced to Mexico when the ports of the Yucatan peninsula were a common stop for transatlantic cargo ships. In fact Yucatan food often incorporates Edam, -- a great dish featuring this cheese is Relleno de Queso. This meat and cheese dish is made by stuffing a carved Edam with minced meat and spices.

Queso de Bola and Queso de Cuadro, are two of the ten distinct Mexican cheeses. As Steven Jenkins wrote in a recent email, “there are no new cheeses.” This is true, Mexico didn’t have cows before the conquista and almost all cheesemaking techniques were brought over by Franciscan monks evangelizing Christiantianity to the indios. For this reason, I think Queso de Bola and Queso de Cuadro produced by indigenous farmers shows exactly how cheese can be political.

Judging the World Cheese Awards 2009

2009-11-01T17:40:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on October 5th, 2009 in Facebook

Hello everyone, here is the promised update of the competition in the Canary Islands.

After a very long flight, the last 30 judges flying from London arrived in Las Palmas at 2:00AM. We were tired, but excited of being there. In Madrid, on the connection of our flight, we had bonded over the state of affairs of the British economy, the vote of Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty and the upcoming election of the host of the 2016 Olympics (Congrats Rio!!!) We had eaten some cheese, jamon and drank Rioja from the airport shops. We needed a good rest, as we knew the day ahead will be full of surprises.

The next morning after a very very light breakfast of coffee and toast, 130 judges took two buses to the Alfredo Kraus Auditorium. Upon arrival, we stepped out to the terrace and admired the gorgeous views and the clear ocean water. We were excited, almost giddy. Old acquaintances chatted and introduced the newcomers to experienced judges. Bob Farrand addressed the group and explained the rules. We were assembled in teams of 3 to 5 and given a selection of about 60 cheeses. All teams were to judge between 5 to 10 categories of cheese, ranging from spectacular hard mountain cheeses to cheese spreads. The task was to rate cheeses in an scale of 25, solely based on their flavour.

My team consisted of a British man, a German retailer, an Austrian wholesaler and me. We set up to the challenge ahead of us, dressed up in our white jackets, hat or aprons. We judged a selection of double gloucester, farmhouse cheddar, block cheddar, mountain cheeses, gruyeres, goat logs with spices, feta, cheese spreads and young washed rinds. No blue for me - my favorite family. We awarded 6 golds, 1 to a perfect farm house cheddar, two to excellent gruyeres, and three to the goat logs. We had few silvers and about 10 bronzes. I felt very happy with the selections and was excited to sign my name under each gold selection. We end up tasting 56 different cheeses.

The process took about three hours and gold selections kept pilling up in the tables at the back, I looked with anticipation at the great selection wishing I could try the winner cheese. At about 12PM John Farrand informed me that I had been selected to sit in the Supreme Judge Panel. I was perplex, as I couldn't believe that I was given the opportunity to sit along experienced judges and three members of the French Guilde des Fromarers.

I ran to grab a light lunch and chatted with my new friends and got some coaching from adorable Sarah Bates on judging the gold selections. After all, most of my knowledge I owe to her as my former manager in Sheridan's Cheesemongers in Galway, Ireland. I went back to the judging floor and was told of the new rules. I was going to taste 20 new cheeses and had to choose my favourite. I had 20 minutes to do this, before the cameras started rolling. The gold selection was overwhelming, there were great cheeses competing against awesome cheeses. I finally settled for an Appenzeller, that was nutty, lightly aged, perfectly washed and full in flavour. The paste was solid and as it had started to sweat the smell from it was decadent. (Appenzeller is Will's favourite cheese, and this one lived to its name)

The final judging started and I presented my cheese to the rest of the panel of Supreme Judges, it got high marks from my peers, but eventually only got fourth place after the Canadian winner, and two Spanish cheeses.

The winner is a Canadian cheese made in Quebec named Le Cendrillon. This cheese will most likely be available in cheese and food shops by the end of the year, but in the mean time you should try some of the other winner. Here is a link to the cheeses with highest ranks: http://www.finefoodworld.co.uk/downloads/wcawinner09.pdf

You can watch the video here.

Barack on Food Politics

2009-11-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on November 6th, 2008 on Facebook

As you know food politics are one of my biggest interests. After all, food-production intersects every issue of our lives.

This is why, I think Barack's presidency is truly a change in the view we are going to deal with the most important issues in a modern world - which to my opinion are: environmental change, food security, and energy use.

Here is a the Man on his own words.

----------------

President Elect B. Obama's interview with Joe Klein:

The biggest problem with our energy policy has been to lurch from crisis to trance. And what we need is a sustained, serious effort. Now, I actually think the biggest opportunity right now is not just gas prices at the pump but the fact that the engine for economic growth for the last 20 years is not going to be there for the next 20, and that was consumer spending. I mean, basically, we turbo-charged this economy based on cheap credit. Whatever else we think is going to happen over the next certainly 5 years, one thing we know, the days of easy credit are going to be over because there is just too much de-leveraging taking place, too much debt both at the government level, corporate level and consumer level. And what that means is that just from a purely economic perspective, finding the new driver of our economy is going to be critical. There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy.

I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That’s just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.

For us to say we are just going to completely revamp how we use energy in a way that deals with climate change, deals with national security and drives our economy, that’s going to be my number one priority when I get into office.

Cheeses of Chiapas- letter from fellow cheesemonger Carlos Yescas

2009-11-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on August 18th, 2008 in The Cheese Diary

Dear Cheese Aficionados.

How are you all?

I hope you are doing great and enjoying some nice summer cheeses during your many sunny picnics.

I'm here reporting on the cheese life in Mexico, as you have all wrote and asked.

I was in Chiapas last Monday and back on Tuesday after tasting 48 double-cream Quesos de Cuadro. It was a great experience, as I got to talk to all the producers, which included small family businesses and farm cooperatives. No cheese conglomerate there.

The experience started with my first trip to Chiapas. As you know, Chiapas is a very important place for me as is the only Mexican state with a sizable indigenous population that has not produced international indigenous migrants. There is still a lot of internal displacement of people due to the military intervention from back in the 1990s and the push from the para-military group. This, however, has made both the federal and state government to pay more attention to living conditions of Chiapanecos. For cheese producers this has meant an infusion of cash to modernize their facilities and ultimately to decide to grant a Denomination of Origin to the Queso de Cuadro.

Among Mexicans the yellow-foil wrapped cheese called "doble crema" is well known for its acidic taste. This cheese is used mostly in the south of the country to cook with, in Mexico city is known as a great way to stuff enchiladas, but little or nothing is known of its history, making, or of the producers involved in making it. Its real name is Queso de Cuadro and is produced by different cooperatives, farms and small family businesses.

Along "quesillo," "panela," "menonita," and "requeson" - Queso de Cuadro is among one of the most famous Mexican cheeses. Other mexican cheeses exist, such as "añejo," "de bola de ococingo," "enchilado,"

"fresco," and "cotija." But these are only eaten locally or found in Mexico city in one of the big Mercados like Sonora or Medellin. For the most part all Mexican cheeses are variations of well-tested European recipes, with some modifications for fat content and salt availability. Maybe the big exception is enchilado, which may resemble those cheeses from Portugal or the Balkans rubbed with paprika, but in the Mexican version it is rubbed with chilli powder.

The government of the state of Chiapas is now trying to better regulate the production of one of its best products, by granting a Collective Trademark to the Queso de Cuadro. This is the first step in the long process of awarding a Denomination of Origin (DO) to any product in Mexico. Currently, only Queso de Bola de Ocosingo has this distinction and the producers of Cotija are in a legal battle to be recognized as well.

Queso de Cuadro has many varieties, changing size, fat content, salt and acidity. However, amongst the various options all maintain a nice acidity, a very lactic smell and a sharp salty end. It is real nice cheese that can be eaten fresh (2 –3 days) during breakfast or matured (45 days) grated over enchiladas. It is mostly made with unpasteurized milk and turned with microbial rennet.

Tradition calls for unpasturized milk and the producers want to keep it this way. The Secretaria del Campo (Ministry of Agriculture) – my employer – also wants it this way, but the Ministry of Health and Walt-Mart wants it to be pasteurized. The debate is now on whether it’s possible to sell fresh cheese from unpasturized milk and the lawyers are saying no. Advocates are trying to change this rule and keep Queso de Cuadro as an unpasturized cheese.

On Tuesday, I was given the chance to talk to the producers and I addressed the issue of pasteurization. I obviously, want this cheese remain unpasturized, as it will open the way for other cheeses to enter the country in its original way. The Deputy Minister of Agriculture wasn’t happy with me taking a position but I had nothing to lose. Afterwards, during an interview with the local TV, I repeated my position and the Minister recognized that economic pressures were behind the push to pasteurize this cheese. I hope that this battle is well fought by others here in Mexico and I will continue speaking up about it.

The tasting was great. My approach was to not judge any cheese against each other, or even against a memory I had of this style of cheese. I instead tried every one with an open palate and made recommendations on how to improve each individual recipe. My biggest problem was the use of commercial salt, which gives most cheeses a metallic taste. I suggested changing salts to a better quality and in some cases adjusting recipes according to the amount of water expelled from the curd. The producers were receptive to my opinions, but some left angry because they felt I was being too harsh on their product. Others assured me that this would improve the overall quality of cheese produced in the state and only the best producers will remain. I also had issues with acidity and with those cheeses made with different milkings I found 8 excellent cheeses and will be recommending two as the standard for the others.

I plan to go back to Chiapas next summer and taste again all of the producers. But in the mean time, we will be approving guidelines based on the two I will be recommending.

Now, that I am back in DF, I am finishing the set up for my two cheese classes. I will be teaching at Endicott College / Mexico on Thursday, August 7 and Friday, August 8.

The classes will feature one Mexican goat cheese (that my mom has been selling for about a year), four imported cheeses (Brie, Raclette, Comte and Roquefort), two pates, Jamon Serrano and three wines. The classes are almost sold out, and I hope to start a real following for good cheese in Mexico.

Best, Carlos.

For Earth Day, Lets Go Back to the Caves.

2009-11-01T12:54:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on April 22nd, 2007 in Cooking Fire

During the last three months, I have spent a lot of time underground, washing, patting, brushing, and doing a lot of heavy lifting. I spent two days out of every week damp and cold, breathing spores, with no natural light. My job was to clean, but not disinfect. I “grew” mold, swept away mites, and farmed yeast. I was training to be a cheese-affineur.

My days were divided between tending over forty cheeses in the four caves that Murray’s keeps under the streets of Greenwich Village, and unloading, unpacking and arranging about a thousand pounds of cheeses that pass monthly through these caves.

Murray’s Cheese in New York City has an incredible (and highly competitive) training program to learn the art of cheese affinage. I was lucky enough to be allowed into the caves and learn about new American treasures, as well as good old French, Spanish and Swiss staples.

I learned the optimal temperatures, humidity levels necessary to prevent cheeses from breaking; I grew to sense the moment for turning cheeses and the smell of a well-ventilated cave. This all helps me now to better choose from the counters and appreciate the hard work behind a $16/lbs Appenzeller. It also helps me to appreciate the flavor developed through meticulous care from the cheesemaker and affineur, as opposed to the chemical punch of plasticky orange cheddar. Without sounding like a snob–and to encourage people to try more cheeses, different pairings, and consume it all the time–I’ll tell you something about my interest in cheese.

My interest in cheese started back in Boston. Since then, this passion has taken me to a rural goat farm off the interstate in Queretaro, Mexico — and to the once dangerous border of counties Cavan and Fermanagh in Ireland.

Cheese making, affinage, and mongering were once as important trades, as were curing meats, oyster pickling, or making marmalade. All now seem like elite food fabrication methods, in an era of Kraft singles, Smuckers and Oscar Meyer baloney. Cheese at its most basic principle started as a way to save excess milk from the spring and summer months, for consumption during the fall and winter. As conservation of food products, it helped ensure survival of families during the cold months, and could even be used as a kind of currency to trade for other services and products.

The increasing demand for food products in the industrialized world has lead into the commoditization of production methods to yield the greatest amount of product in the smallest amount of time, all in factories with high-energy usage. All this sacrifices flavor and obscures the hardships of those involved in the production process. Further distancing urbanites from rural places, the process is now starting to seem unsustainable.

It is now believed that due to climate change the Swiss Alpine glaciers will disappear in the next 20 to 30 years. This in turn affects the lush pastures of the Schachen region, threatening the future production of Emmentaler. So, eat cheese, make bread, and at the same time, you’ll care more for our shared environment.

Starter of this blog

2009-11-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

Lactography

lac-to-gra-phy - [lak-to-ruh-fee]

-noun, plural –phies.

1. the science dealing with cheese.

2. the study of this science.

Origin:

L lact- (s. of lac milk) + -o-

Gk -graphia. See -graph, -y-

lac-to'gra-pher n.

1. a person who specializes in the study of this science.

Origin:

gráphos a writer; See -graph + -er-

This is probably the third attempt to start this blog. I have had a lot of encouragement from friends, family and colleagues to write about cheese politics. For a very long time I decided to not do this as it would consume a lot of time and didn’t have a clear goal.

Also, I didn’t have a good name for the site and there are other more talented people writing blogs already. Amongst the most impressive are Cheese Underground, Cheese a Day, and the posts by Nora Singley at The Kitchn. Other good sites, that have sporadic entries or haven’t had any entries in a while are: CurdNerds, 365 Cheeses, Cheese Dairy, and the Murray’s blog series.

My aim is not to write the ultimate cheese blog, but rather to share with people my passion for cheese and politics. I hope to keep you entertained and practice my writing. I also want to remind people about the stuff we all take for granted when eating. Like the decisions of producers, farmers, and politicians in marketing, harvesting or legislating the food that we eat. While this could be super boring, I hope to do it with some irony, as my subject of inquiry is cheese and anything serious about cheese can easily turn fromagesque (cheesy).

Cheese,

Carlos Yescas

Lactographer

PS. Thanks to Matthew Hicks for the perfect term.