SC - Re: Hard Cheese Stefan

[Philip & Susan Troy]

RANDALL DIAMOND wrote:
> 
> Brie is certainly period, first mentioned
> in the court of Champagne in 1217.  Henry IV and
> Louis XII both loved Brie cheeses.  It was Camembert
> to which I was specifically referring.  There is a statue
> in Vimoutiers to Marie Harel who allegedly first made
> Camembert cheese in 1791.  Actually this is an inaccurate
> legend as what we know as Camembert was described
> by the name "Livarot" in a 17th century dictionary.  Actually
> the cheese was made in the Pays d'Auge as "Augelot" in
> the time of William the Conquerer.   In truth, Marie Harel
> is the inventor of modern Camembert as she was the first
> cheesemaker to develop the pure white cheese flora of
> today's Camembert.  Period Camembert had red or blue
> rinds as ripening was natural.  In the 19th century, the
> factory production inoculates the cheeses with Penicillium
> candidum.  Likewise, Brie also originally had a red rind, which
> cheese gourmets insist was the best part of the cheese.
> I tend to agree as I think even the white mold is delicious.

I've heard it alleged that Brie once had a blue rind, and that
artificial steps to introduce pennicilium into the center of the cheese
weren't taken until fairly recently, so while blue cheeses did exist,
they weren't what English dairy folk would call "vinny" (veiny?).

Part of the problem is that a lot of the documentation for cheeses is
based on the name of the market town they were traditionally sold from.
Cheeses from Brie, from Roquefort, from Chesire, and from Cheddar (not
to mention Rouen) all existed in period, but it is sometimes unclear as
to exactly what these cheeses were like.

Last year I had a wonderful opportunity to taste a cheese made in the
area around the town of Cheddar, called, appropriately, by that name,
made by a family that had been making farmhouse cheeses in the area
since the mid-fifteenth century (or so they claim). It was Cheddar. It
was [allegedly] in a period style. It just wasn't a whole lot like the
Cheddar most people are familiar with. It was neither white nor orange,
just the medium yellow often associated with old Parmagianno, which it
also resembled in flavor. (Hints of real Gouda, too!) It also was, I
believe, uncooked, so discussions of Cheddaring or the periodicity
thereof wouldn't be relevant.

Good stuff, though.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com