Where Swiss Gets Holes and Other Cheesy Tidbits

Image Gallery Swiss iStockPhoto.com/Mykola Velychko

Part art and part science, cheese making integrates many variables into a product that reflects nuance of raw material, environment and process – not unlike the great wines of the world. In fact, regional influence on a cheese’s characteristics is important enough that the European Union has recognized about 160 cheeses with a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO). These cheeses (such as Roquefort) must be made in a certain place and with standard process to maintain their PDO status. No matter the care in its crafting, however, each batch of a specific PDO cheese will vary slightly from all other batches, but a blue cheese will always be recognizably different from cheddar. So what is it that separates Camembert from Stilton, and what makes cheddar so special?

First, the ingredients make the cheese, and milk is the primary ingredient – but not all milk is equal. Cheese-making milk comes from several different animal species; goat (chèvre), sheep (manchego), cow (Gouda) and even water buffalo (mozzarella) supply the raw material for several famous cheeses. Like wine, the environment where you obtain the milk can also make a big difference (see “Fine Farmstead Cheese,” Page 44). For example, Cantal and Salers cheese are made in exactly the same way, except one is made from the milk of Salers cattle while they winter in the barn and eat hay (Cantal), and the other is made in the spring and summer, while the same cattle are in the pasture eating grass (Salers). 

As a partially fermented food, which microbes you add to the cheese (and when you add them) also matters. Blue (or bleu) cheese has become a general classification for cheeses with Penicillium (fungi) cultures added (before or after curds form) to make it spotted or veined with blue or blue-green mold. These cheeses are generally sharp and a bit salty with pungent smell. The long list of blue cheeses includes Roquefort, Gorgonzola and Stilton.

Though originally made in rural Leicestershire, Stilton is named for the village of Stilton, England, because it was popularized at the Bell Inn there. To make Stilton, a starter, rennet and the mold Penicillium roqueforti are added to pasteurized milk. Wheels of milled, salted and unpressed curds are then aged (with regular turning) in a temperature-controlled cellar for 6 weeks, at which point it is pierced with stainless steel needles to help the mold form on the inside. It’s then aged for 3 to 9 more weeks. If eaten after 9 weeks, Stilton is a firm and crumbly, slightly acidic white cheese with veins of blue mold. As it ages toward 15 weeks, it becomes smoother and mellower. While definitely pungent and salty, Stilton is milder than other blue cheeses.