The Cheese Whisperer

“You’ve got to let the milk tell you what it wants,” we were told. “When making cheese, you can’t speed it up, and you can’t slow it down.”

That’s what cheese expert Simone Jenkins explained to the twelve folks participating in the “Introduction to Cheese” class at Morgan & York on a recent cold Tuesday night. Only Simone wasn’t exactly whispering. Actually, she was talking rather loudly and animatedly in an adorable Australian accent. So imagine the Cheese Whisperer meets the Crocodile Hunter, and you'll have a better picture.
Morgan & York specializes in “farmhouse,” or “artisan,” cheeses and Simone was looking to spread the gospel. To start, we learned that the three most important elements in cheese making are the land, the animals, and the craft. I was intrigued by the animals. “Where are all the goats that produce the goat cheese we eat?” I asked, perplexed. We see cows everywhere, but it’s not like you drive down the road and see herds of goats that often. Simone explained that it doesn’t take many goats to produce the cheese, and that goat farming tends to occur more in the west. And the east part of the country is known for sheeps’s milk cheese.

We also spent quite a bit of time discussing the craft, particularly how cheese is made in the farmhouse (farmer makes the cheese from milk from his own cows) and cooperative (cheesemaker makes the product from milk delivered by farmers) traditions. But, it’s always the slightly gross stuff that’s most intriguing. For instance, “How do you know if it’s good mold or bad mold on the cheese?” a fellow student asked. Simone explained that molds in the green, blue, and slightly mauve shades are okay to eat, while pink and orange are bad. And, she added “if you see mold in the shape of a fingerprint, that’s bad news.” No kidding.
Basic background covered, we turned to the twelve little samples of cheese Simone had laid out for each of us. We started with fairly mild, soft cheeses and progressed until closing the evening with some fairly stinky (but yummy) examples of the cheesemakers’ craft. The fresh ricotta ($8/lb) from S Serra Cheese in Clinton Township was revelatory– sweet and buttery, it didn’t taste anything like the stuff I bought at the grocery the last time I made lasagna. The Jasper Hill Cabot Cheddar ($30/lb) had a wonderfully layered, full flavor. And we learned about that little crystally, crunchiness you sometimes encounter in such cheeses. I happen to like that texture, but I’ve never been sure if it’s in fact considered a good thing. It turns out that those little crunchies are crystallized amino acids, and they're an indication that the cheese has been aged for at least a year.

My favorite cheese of the evening was a Tomme de Savoie ($18/lb). It’s “semi-firm” which means new enough to still be slightly soft, but not quite as gooey as a brie. This cheese had the most fantastic mouthfeel! It was like biting into the perfect summer cantaloupe, only the flavors that sprang into your mouth were nutty, buttery, and earthy.

We wrapped up with the Colston Bassett Stilton ($28/lb) and the Roquefort Carles ($36/lb). Blue cheeses like these are created when the wheels of cheese are pierced with needles to allow the mold to grow inside. With the Roquefort, the mold is introduced from old rye bread. Simone told us that Monsieur Carles is the only cheese producer in France who still actually uses bread loaves to introduce the mold to his cheese, rather than a commercially produced, powdered mold product. I liked the Stilton well enough, easily imagining it gracing the top of a lovely strip steak. But, with apologies to M. Carles, the Roquefort was honestly just a bit too strong for my taste.

Speaking of mold, have you ever wondered if you’re supposed to eat the moldy rind on the outside of the cheese? According to Simone, in the cities of France they’d be quite distressed if you ate the rind. But for the most part, it’s okay. Particularly with soft cheeses like brie. With the harder cheeses, Simone pointed out that you really “get the taste of the farm” in the rind. To me, that sounds suspiciously like a euphemism for “tastes like cow poop.” So I’ll just take the Cheese Whisperer’s word for it.

For more information about farmhouse cheeses go to the American Cheese Society. Or contact Simone Jenkins, the Cheese Whisperer, directly at simone@morganandyork.com.