AN INSIGHT INTO CHEESE....
Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:03 amThe different cheeses that are made all over the world and derive their names from the locality have been made for donkeys years.
The basic ingredient milk, whether it be cows or goats or sheeps or buffalo or anything that give milk even humans...is going to rely on the local flora and fauna that will give it it's character.
Also the conditions of the area such as temperature and humidity and where the cheese will be kept whilst it is maturing.
Lots of monastries made their own particulare cheeses and the monks taught the locals the art of cheesemaking as they did their winemaking skills.
So we may know how a cheese is made and what animal the milk came from how to go about making the cheese but what we cannot reproduce is the conditions under which it is made.
A hard cheese made in Canada with milk from Friesien cows and matured in special room and called Cheddar....is not going to compare with cheese made in Cheddar England from Jersey cows fed on the local grass and the cheese matured in the cheddar caves.
The same with Roqueforte this is made from milk of a closed sheep herd
that has fed on the same grass in the same valley for hundreds of years
The cheese is matured in the caves where the temperature and humidity has not changed for hundreds of years....you will never reproduce it elsewhere.
So even if cheeses are copied they will never be the originals.... it is quite possible they can be better.
So although we strive to make these cheese we will all make a different cheese where ever we are in the country and even though you follow a recipe to the "T" they are not going to come out the same.
My own version of a stilton is creamier that the real thing and I call mine Hertford Blue....
.
The basic ingredient milk, whether it be cows or goats or sheeps or buffalo or anything that give milk even humans...is going to rely on the local flora and fauna that will give it it's character.
Also the conditions of the area such as temperature and humidity and where the cheese will be kept whilst it is maturing.
Lots of monastries made their own particulare cheeses and the monks taught the locals the art of cheesemaking as they did their winemaking skills.
So we may know how a cheese is made and what animal the milk came from how to go about making the cheese but what we cannot reproduce is the conditions under which it is made.
A hard cheese made in Canada with milk from Friesien cows and matured in special room and called Cheddar....is not going to compare with cheese made in Cheddar England from Jersey cows fed on the local grass and the cheese matured in the cheddar caves.
The same with Roqueforte this is made from milk of a closed sheep herd
that has fed on the same grass in the same valley for hundreds of years
The cheese is matured in the caves where the temperature and humidity has not changed for hundreds of years....you will never reproduce it elsewhere.
So even if cheeses are copied they will never be the originals.... it is quite possible they can be better.
So although we strive to make these cheese we will all make a different cheese where ever we are in the country and even though you follow a recipe to the "T" they are not going to come out the same.
My own version of a stilton is creamier that the real thing and I call mine Hertford Blue....
.