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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday February 14 2017, @09:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the moon-is-made-of-green-cheese dept.

If the right cheese curds from the right milk are at the right temperature, fungi become "the king of the mountain," says Dennis D'Amico, a food microbiologist at the University of Connecticut who studies cheese production. Under the correct conditions, mold spores thrive on proteins, fats, sugars and the remains of the original bacteria that turned the milk into cheese. As the mold spreads throughout the cheese and its exterior, it continues the transformation that the bacteria started.

So when human teeth finally sink in, they bite into a new set of even smaller active molecules. And if the cheese is blue cheese, where the bacteria P. roqueforti dwell deep inside, enjoying a slice means consuming living fungi in the middle of their own midday snack.

The flavors, smells and textures specific to each type of cheese are due to various combinations of fungi species. A Brie or Camembert, for example, requires at least four types of mold. One, G. candidum, produces a sulfur flavor and contributes to the creaminess of the cheese. Another, P. camemberti, blossoms into a distinct white rind. The symphony of mold makes the final texture and mushroomy, sweaty taste.

But while the concerto is beautiful, the identities of all the musicians remain mysterious.

Identifying all of the active fungi in a cheese is "an endless, endless rabbit hole," says [cheesemaker Benton] Brown. Most of the moldy cheeses we have today are happy accidents, D'Amico said, the details of which can only be understood with elaborate lab analyses.

Original Article at Scienceline.org


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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday February 15 2017, @03:41AM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Wednesday February 15 2017, @03:41AM (#467216) Journal

    I'm guessing you're at least partly joking, but I have to say that I've been most impressed over time with the varieties of blue cheeses when I've had an opportunity to sample them at restaurants. I know a few restaurants which have a very well-stocked "cheese cart," and on the rare occasions I splurge for a pricey meal there, I eventually took to requesting that they just give me several varieties of blue with a cheese plate, just because it's so interesting. (Well, a couple other cheeses are good just for contrast, but I once had a plate with six different blues that were all so amazing and so incredibly different....)

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @07:36PM (#467554)

    Utterly joking, actually. While I cannot stand any blue cheeses personally, I do understand their appeal. I literally cannot eat any blue cheese I've ever tried tasting and end up spitting it into a napkin. And I wish I did have a taste for them, as the variety seems exceptional and friends who enjoy them report the large variations in flavor as you do. As opposed to, "Oh, here's another hunk of [Cheddar, Colby, Whatever.]," cheeses I love. They have flavor variations too but I suspect less so than the blues. [Along with a very mild meta satirical appreciation that in many instances "fake news" refers to differing opinions of things as opposed to reporting actual false facts.]