Marlene Parrish - What Einstein Told His Cook 2

Both the Listeria and the Brucella bacteria, along with other pathogenic villains such as Campylobacter jejuni , several species of Salmonella , and the ever-popular Escherichia coli O157:H7 can breed in the moist environments of dairies and cheese plants.

The cheese. For more than fifty-five years, the FDA has required that all cheeses sold in the United States, whether domestic or imported, meet any one of the following three conditions: (1) the milk it is made from has been pasteurized by being heated to 145ºF (63ºC) for 30 minutes or 161ºF (72ºC) for 15 seconds, (2) the cheese itself has been subjected to equivalent heating conditions, or (3) the cheese has been aged for at least sixty days at a temperature no lower than 35ºF (1.7ºC). Long aging to produce the harder cheeses such as Gruyere and Cheddar both increases the acidity of the curd and dries it out, and many bacteria cannot multiply under dry, acidic conditions. But soft cheeses, which are not aged as long, cannot be made with absolute safety from unpasteurized milk.

Over the past several years, the FDA has been making noises about lengthening or eliminating the sixty-day aging option, that is, forbidding the distribution of any cheese, aged or not, that was made from unpasteurized or “raw” milk, on the grounds that Listeria and E. coli bacteria have been known to survive a sixty-day aging period. (The second option, pasteurizing the finished cheese, is in most cases quite impractical.)

Vociferous objections to this trial balloon have been raised in many quarters, including European cheese makers and exporters, who use raw milk for many of the products they’re most proud of; American artisanal cheese makers; and just plain food lovers, many of whom believe that pasteurization damages flavor and that illness from Listeria contamination of cheese is very rare, anyway. (Of the few hundred annual listeriosis deaths in the United States, it is difficult to pin down how many may have been caused by cheese, because other foods, notably hot dogs, delicatessen meats, and chicken, are the major sources of Listeria contamination and many outbreaks have no identifiable source.)

So, can we still buy cheeses made from unpasteurized milk? Yes. As of this writing, they’re sold quite legally in many markets. The labels will say they’re made from “raw milk.” Do some producers cheat by aging their raw-milk cheeses for less than sixty days? Indubitably. Will the FDA ever ban all unpasteurized cheese? If they do, it will be over the figurative dead bodies of thousands of cheese lovers.

Tune in tomorrow for the next episode of “As the Cheese Wheel Turns.”

STRINGING ALONG

What gives string cheese its peculiar texture?

It pulls apart in strands.

String cheese is a novelty form of mozzarella, a soft, white, elastic cheese.

American mozzarella, made from cow’s milk, is a poor relation to the Italian mozzarella ( mozzarella di bufala ) from the region along the shinbone of the Italian boot. Mozzarella di bufala is made from milk of the Asian water buffalo, introduced into Italy in the seventh century—a totally different animal from the American plains “buffalo,” which isn’t a buffalo at all, but a bison. Italian mozzarella di bufala is infinitely more moist, creamy, and delicately flavored than the cow’s-milk product whose native habitat in the United States is on top of a pizza.

In making mozzarella, the milk is coagulated and separated into Little Miss Muffett’s proverbial curds (the protein and fat) and whey (the remaining watery liquid). The curds are then mixed with some hot whey and stretched and kneaded until the mixture becomes smooth and rubbery.

To make string cheese, the curd is melted and heated to 170°F (75°C), then pulled and stretched like taffy, but mainly in a single direction, so that the milk protein (casein) molecules line up and give the cheese a directional structure. The cheese is sold in the form of cigar-shaped rods that can be peeled like a banana into long, fibrous strands that look like, well, string.

Why on earth string cheese exists, I don’t know, except that kids like to play with it. And it can be consumed as a hand-held snack, like a vegetarian Slim Jim.

THE FOODIE’S FICTIONARY:Whey—a contrary response to “No way!”

CAN YOU SAY “PROCESS”?

I see many kinds of “process cheese” convenience foods in the supermarket. How are they related to traditional cheeses like Cheddar, Swiss, and so on? Do they all contain “real” cheese, and if so, how much?

In addition to the hundreds of classic cheeses developed over more than a thousand years in various parts of the world, we are blessed (?) today with many options for adding cheese flavor, be it natural or artificial, to our snacks and dishes. Dozens of cheesy (often in more ways than one) factory-produced concoctions beckon to us from the market’s refrigerated cases. Almost all of them contain “real” cheese, but their ties to reality can be rather thin.

The primary virtue of these so-called “process” (not “processed”) cheeses is that unlike many classic cheeses they are easily meltable and blendable. That’s because they often contain emulsifying agents and/or have been beaten into smooth submission long before they reach your kitchen.

Classifying them, as you can imagine, can be quite a chore, but the FDA is up to it. Here are the FDA-defined categories in order of diminishing faithfulness to the historic and revered concept of cheese.

Pasteurized process cheese:A mixture of two or more cheese varieties that have been heated and blended together with an emulsifier and optional ingredients such as water, salt, or coloring, into what the FDA appetizingly calls “a homogeneous plastic mass” with a minimum of 47 percent milk fat. These cheese products may contain added cream or fat, making them more easily meltable, but they must be at least 51 percent actual cheese. Example: Most American cheeses.

Pasteurized process cheese food (note: not a “cheese” but a “food”):A pasteurized process cheese containing enough added ingredients such as cream, milk, skim milk, buttermilk, or whey to reduce the percentage of actual cheese in the product to below 51. May contain emulsifiers such as phosphates, citrates, or tartrates, but must contain at least 23 percent milk fat. Example: Land O’Lakes American Singles.

Pasteurized process cheese spread:A pasteurized process cheese food that may contain a sweetener plus stabilizing and thickening gums such as xanthin or carrageenan. Must contain at least 20 percent milk fat. Example: Kraft Olive and Pimento Spread.

Pasteurized process cheese product:Any process cheese product that contains less than 20 percent milk fat. Examples: Kraft Singles, Velveeta.

Imitation cheese:Made from vegetable oil. Minimum milk fat: zero percent. In a glass by itself is Cheez Whiz Cheese Dip or Cheese Sauce. After whey, its most abundant ingredient is canola oil. Milk fat? Less than two percent.

Orange glop:Not an official FDA classification, but the name I give to the stuff they pour over nachos, French fries, and hot dogs in places I wouldn’t eat in.

…And consumers are supposed to think they’re all simply “cheese”?

AMAZING DEGLAZING

When I make a sauce by deglazing the pan with wine or stock after sautéing meat, the result is usually too thin for my taste, even after I reduce it. So in accordance with French culinary custom, I “finish” the sauce by adding a “nut” of butter and whisking it in lightly, whereupon the sauce magically thickens. Adding any other fat, such as olive oil, doesn’t do that. Why does butter do it?