Fromology (CHEESE) Part 2 with Kyra James

So just a heads up, as with part one, we're discussing dairy and we also make acknowledgements of animal rights concerns.

And this week we discuss a bunch of vegan options in more depth too.

And this wonderful cheese expert's focus isn't dairy farming as an industry, but rather the process of cheesemaking.

And also in the future, we have a plant-based diet episode coming up.

So enjoy.

Oh hey, it's once again the monster who returns emails at 4 p.m.

on a Friday.

Sorry, everyone, still.

Allie Ward, this is cheese.

This is part two.

So if you have come here first, you skip part one.

I just simply cannot abide because you will get to know our esteemed guest and you will know cheese from a foundational level.

So start there.

Start at part one.

That's the beginning.

That's how things go.

Now, in a moment, we're going to get to part two, which is just wall-to-wall listener questions and weirder and creepier, tastier, gorgeous facts about things like cows on boats and vegan options for cheese, the most violent way to enjoy cheese, the great grilled cheese sandwich debate, how to craft some curds at home.

We talk about cheese pricing, squeaky curds, the moon's composition, the ultimate charcuterie board.

We also talk holes, crystals, maggots.

Oh my.

But first, thank you to patrons via patreon.com/slash ologies, who for a dollar a month can submit questions ahead of time for the ologists.

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I read all of them.

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10 out of 10.

EKW004, thanks for that from me and from the rattlesnakes.

Enjoy the rattlesnakes episode if you haven't already.

It's so good.

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We have to say that.

Okay, on to phomology part two.

Illegal cheeses, the pasteurization conundrum, how to properly store cheese, orange versus white cheddar, why cheese changes your brain chemistry, and so much more.

And heads up, when you hear this guest say, great question, just feel free to do a tiny imperceptible dance where you can take a sip of whatever beverage you've got going on.

Celebrate it.

There are a lot of really stellar answers to great questions with this professional food educator, certified cheese professional and phromologist kira james

can i do a lightning round of listener questions.

Yeah, let's do it.

The most questions we've ever gotten on any episode.

That's awesome.

People have cheese.

They love cheese and they have questions.

My name is Roni.

I live in LA and I was wondering what the deal is with the cheese that has the bugs in it.

So if you could let me know why the cheese has bugs in it, that would be really great.

Thank you.

Roni, thank you.

You're not alone.

Because her ladyship Jen, Dr.

Lena Carpenter, TB33, Dory Baggett's husband, Seth, Digg, Haley Kirby, Ingve, Sylvia Treverio, Spencer Spencer Aldridge, and Mouse Paxton, who says, I'll try most things, but that's just too much for me.

So that's a cheese even a mouse won't fuck with.

So what is happening?

And Roni, not Ronnie, pardon.

So Ronnie and other folks want to know what's with the mite cheese, what's with the maggot cheese, what's happening?

Yeah, so maggot cheese is called katsu matsu.

It means putrid cheese and it's illegal.

It's from Sardinia.

And what they're basically doing, it's not sold anywhere.

They make the cheese, but it's no longer allowed to be sold.

But they're making the cheese the same way traditionally.

And what they do is they leave the cheese out.

So they go through the make process, they go through the aging process, and then the wheel of cheese is sit out on a counter and they basically allow a certain breed of flies to lay their eggs on the cheese.

And then the larvae

eat away at the cheese and excrete

afterwards.

Oh.

And so that sort of process process creates a certain texture and flavor profile that's very, very specific

and very, very unique, but very well known, also.

So, yes, I've never had it, but I've learned a lot about it just because people do often ask about it.

So, great question, yeah.

But it's the larvae that, so it's not necessarily maggots, but it's the larvae that are consuming the cheese and creating the super supple texture.

Does that leave holes in the cheese, like little burrows?

Yeah, there's holes in the exterior of the cheese because they're burrowing into the paste of the cheese.

So there are definitely holes on the outside, yeah.

So yes, this is a sheep's cheese.

It's a pecorino, if you remember from part one, and it's infested with pyophila casi or the cheese skipper, also known as a ham skipper.

And I'm going to let you guess why they also call it a ham skipper.

So it likes ham.

And some folks, they smear this cheese while it's still wriggling right on a piece of bread, and then the party just rages on down the hatch.

And apparently, if the maggots are not still alive, it's not safe to eat.

If the maggots are alive, it's also not safe to eat.

But that's not the point.

And I started with this cursory wiki search.

But what I found on Wikipedia was so simple and so delicious.

I'd like to serve you up some excerpts verbatim.

Okay.

Quote, some who eat the cheese prefer not to ingest the maggots.

Those who do not wish to eat them place the cheese in a sealed paper bag.

The maggots, starved for oxygen, writhe and jump in the bag, creating a pitter-patter sound.

When the sounds subside, the maggots are dead and the cheese can be eaten.

Wikipedia continues, because the larvae in the cheese can launch themselves distances of up to 15 centimeters or 6 inches when disturbed, diners hold their hands above the sandwich to prevent the maggots from leaping.

Now, additionally, the Guinness Book of World Records, which named Katsmartu as the most dangerous cheese in the world, notes that if you eat the maggots and they survive your teeth and your stomach, you could be rewarded with things like intestinal lesions and new wormy roommates down there.

You could also enjoy vomiting, itchy butt, and bloody diarrhea.

Is it worth it?

Apparently, it tastes intense, which is no surprise.

Also grassy, it's got a little spicy sting, and an aftertaste that I'm reading can last until the next day if you're lucky.

So that's a lot of bang for the buck.

Now, in a 2021 article in The Outline titled, The Secret Resistance Behind the World's Most Dangerous Cheese, this article notes that if you go to Sardinia and you ask about this cheese, people will likely be annoyed because one, it's illegal, even though people still make and eat it there, and two, because tourists ask about it all the time, probably like wanting to make a TikTok about it.

Well, several people want to know Jacobstock, Matthew Walker, Storm, Wickerbitch, Bonnie M.

Rutherford, and Hendrix want to know, in Jacob's words, how does Swiss cheese get its holes?

Like, girl, is it breathing?

Great question.

Thanks again, Jacob.

They're actually called eyes, and they're basically traps of gas.

So during the fermentation process, when the lactose is being turned into lactic acid in certain types of cheeses, there will be gas bubbles that are formed.

They pop pop inside the cheese, and that's what creates the holes inside the cheese.

So it's actually the process of making cheese.

Emmentaler is one of the most famous ones.

What we in America call Swiss cheese often is described as having holes in it, but that's the process of it.

And it does create a certain flavor profile as well.

It's not just random, it's very intentional.

Okay.

Emental is the proper way to address it, though.

Ementaler is one type of cheese.

It's becoming extinct in some ways.

We're trying to save the Ementaler from going extinct.

So it's definitely one that I call out very often, but it's just, it's one that sort of when you see an image of a piece of cheese with holes in it, that's what it looks like to me.

So there are many, many types of Swiss cheeses, but the holy, holy kind that you're imagining is, yes, called an Ementhaler.

And according to the 1917 paper on the formation of eyes in Ementhal cheese, there are three types of holes in this kind of Swiss cheese.

The smallest are called Nissler holes, the eyes, which are medium-sized, and then there's the largest ones called blow holes.

And this 1917 paper stated very confidently that a rapid gas production makes the Nissler holes, and slower gas production must be responsible for the larger holes.

Since the 1917 paper, scientists have known that the holes are caused by trapped gases.

However, however, a couple decades ago, the holes started disappearing.

What is this?

Is this climate change?

Is this unhappy cows?

Did we go down the wrong path in a simulation?

Is there some dark magic wielded by a lactose-intolerant warlock?

What happened to the holes?

Well, in 2015, some fresh knowledge bubbled to the surface in a paper titled Mechanism and Control of the Eye Formation in Cheese.

And that reminded us that, yes, the eye formation in Swiss-type cheese is mainly the result of acid fermentation, which creates a few substances, including CO2 gas bubbles.

Now, usually, pharmologists do these cheese eye exams by, quote, listening to the type of sound made while tapping with a special hammer on the surface of the cheese loaf.

This study, however, this 2015 study used ultrasounds and other medical imaging equipment to find out what causes the quantity and the size of the bubbles.

And they found out it's trace amounts of hay in the milk.

So the eyes in Ementaler type cheeses were disappearing because the milk was being collected through more modern means, i.e., not someone in a sundress and braids with an open pail, which would get specks of hay kind of dancing amid the way.

So the paper concludes that it's likely that trace amounts of hay dust entering in raw milk have always been the natural source of the eye nuclei, which trigger the start of eye formation in the cheese.

And just recently, this just was decided.

There was all this fierce debate from traditionalists and industrialists, and Switzerland has decided to allow the addition of hay flour powder to its cheeses.

That way, they can keep harvesting the milk with modern equipment, but also add a little hay dust in there to get the bubbles back.

And it's also worth noting that the holes in this type of cheese for a long time were considered bad and unsightly.

They were a bug and not a feature.

But over the centuries, this holy look of Emental cheese became representative of all cheese itself.

So remember, when you see an Emmentaler cheese just serving with those stunning eyes, remember that that was once seen as bad and now it's iconic.

What's the emoji for cheese?

Yeah, bitch, the Emmentaler.

Okay, deadass.

Side note, we have a two-part episode all about how they decide on emojis, and it's called Curiology.

And July 17th is World Emoji Day because the little calendar emoji says July 17th.

We'll link that in the show notes.

But let's take a quick detour from dusty buckets to cheese that needs no cows.

Dozens and dozens of you wanted to know.

So many people, I don't even know if I can list all their names, asked about vegan cheese.

Jerry Brown, first-time question asker, wanted to know, does nut cheese use the same bacteria as dairy cheese?

And is that technically cheese?

Lauren Cooper, this is going to be a divisive question, want to know, why does vegan cheese suck so much?

Other people think

it's good.

I myself, a diet cheese, I think that melts great.

If you've got a vegan pizza with diet cheese, I'm all for it.

So I have lots of thoughts on vegan cheese.

It's a topic that we talk about in the industry in some way, shape, or form a lot.

But

to me, vegan cheese is not cheese.

Okay.

I think it's a vegan product.

I think vegan cheese product might be a better way to name it, but it's not the same as cheese.

There are vegan cheeses that use the same microorganisms to create the final product.

There are vegan cheeses that go through fermentation, or not fermentation exactly, but where you can actually have a rind on the cheese, where you have certain flavor profiles in the cheese, like they have blue vegan cheese, they have cheddar vegan cheeses.

They're adding certain things to those products that are the same exact ingredients that you'd add to cheese.

So, in that respect, they're very similar, but there's no milk.

And so for me, without having dairy milk included, it's not a fermented milk product.

So therefore, it's not cheese.

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I think that it's delicious.

I eat vegetarian often, and I've had many of the vegan cheeses on the market, and there are a few that I actually would eat again.

So I definitely have no shade.

to them.

To me, they're not considered cheese.

I would say that they're their own separate category and should be treated as such.

Do you think that nut milks and vegan cheese should go by something else like chez or milk?

Like, do you think that we need a distinguishing name for them?

I always think things should be able to stand on their own.

I think that having its own allows for

to create its own perceptions.

When you put the word milk or cheese within the name of the product, people are going to automatically associate the two together.

And so when you eat eat vegan cheese and it doesn't taste like cheese, people get upset because they're expecting it to taste like cheese.

Just like oat milk, when you have oat milk and it doesn't taste like regular milk, people are like, this is gross.

And it's like, well, it's not supposed to be the same thing.

It's its own product.

So, I think we kind of do a disservice by naming these things and putting them in the same categories because it doesn't allow that product to shine fully on its own.

It's like calling a bike a car.

They're different and they serve serve different functions.

That's a good point.

Like that, yes.

It's a bike.

Leave it alone.

Exactly.

So vegan cheeses tend to rely on starches and fats combined instead of protein and fats as animal dairy does.

But in the last few years, there have been more and more and more options for plant-based cheese.

So if you tried it years ago, give it another try.

Right now, someone in a lab coat out there, maybe you're listening, is making nachos that you will love in the future.

And that person is probably using the empirical Schreiber meltability test, which is an actual thing, which puts samples of cheese in an oven on a ringed petri dish to see just what kind of spread each cheese has.

And yeah, for me personally, I find Daya cheese, D-A-I-Y-A Daya cheese, those tend to be the stretchiest, meltiest, gooeyest.

I prefer them over regular shredded cheeses.

I think that they're better.

But Other favorite brands I've seen on plant-based forums are Chow Creamery and one called Miyokos mozzarella, which is like a liquid.

It comes in a bottle.

I guess just trust the process.

Violet is said to make a good feta cheese.

And for blue cheese crumbles, I've heard good things about follow your heart.

Now, if you have some plant-based friends, or maybe some vegan curious ones, or anyone, maybe you can have like a B-Y-O-V-C bring your own vegan cheese pizza party.

So everyone brings one and then you can sample a lot without spending too much on any one particular one.

But if you're like, take me back to the cows, this next topic was asked by Lisa Gorman and Taylor, among others.

Many people had cheddar questions.

Abby Grebe, Alice Rubin, Megan Walker, Rebecca, first-time question asker, and Rachel Glaza, first-time question asker, wanted to know.

Abby asked, I love sharp cheddar.

What makes it and other similar cheeses sharp?

And why is it so much better than mild cheeses?

And Megan Walker wanted to know, why is so much cheddar orange?

Great questions.

So,

the word sharp is a tough one.

Okay, we in the industry don't use the word sharp very often to describe things because it's it can mean so many different things.

But in America, we do brand cheddars using the word sharp and extra sharp, and there are actually rules behind it.

So, to be a sharp cheese in America, it's aged between six and eight months.

And then to be an extra sharp cheese, an extra sharp cheddar, it's aged at least 12 months.

So,

in thinking about it from a a cheesemonger perspective, the older the cheddar is, the stronger the flavor will be.

So, you have less moisture, more acidity.

So, oftentimes, sharpness is associated with being acidic or like you know, hitting the back of your throat kind of thing.

So, the older the cheddar is, the more sharpness or the more intensity you'll find

it has.

Now, cheddars,

if they're orange, they've been dyed

with um natural ingredient called annatto annatto is a seed it's similar to turmeric in some ways in that it provides a lot of color but not a lot of flavor to foods and so when you add a natto to cheese it creates the orange color without adding any flavor a lot of times annatto was throughout history added to create distinctions between cheese types so that you can identify it as a certain cheese like oh that's what you call it because it's it's orange

other cheeses are dyed orange naturally like a gouda will be a dark orange just because of time during the aging process um it'll actually get darker in color so a lot of times the darkness is is natural cheddars and goudas specifically have a lot of yellow tones in them and that comes from the what the animals are eating So the more grass an animal eats, the more yellow the cheese will be.

Oh.

For cow and sheep smoke cheeses.

So oftentimes if you see a dark yellow cheese, you know that the animal has been eating grass.

So that's one another factor.

But yeah, they're dyed orange using annatto seed.

And so white cheddar is just that without the annatto?

Yes, exactly.

And that was something that really blew my mind when I learned it because when I was little, I only ate orange cheese.

I hated white cheese.

I thought it tasted different.

And so to hear it now, I'm like, oh,

got that wrong.

My dad was that way when they started labeling red licorice, like red vines, fat-free.

My dad was like, they don't taste the same, but they had always been fat-free, but they just started putting that on the label.

We're like, dad, that's awesome.

Like, I don't know, something's wrong with them.

And it's like, in your head.

But that sharp, sharp cheese, I thought this was a great question.

I'm sure you get this a lot.

Marcy and Maeve, Olivia Myers, Shirley Luz, and Ombo, first-time question asker, Maya Dosh, Kentley, Rachel Guthrie, Michael Newman, Kate Radford, Bradley Ludwig, and Jordan Irons wanted to know the crystals.

Rachel asked, what are the crystals in sharper and harder cheeses?

Yeah, how old does it have to be?

And Maya is a first-time question asker and a Wisconsin cheese head.

And they say they just had a delightful piece of aged gouda and wondered what makes those magical little crystals.

Why are they the most delicious?

Great question.

Yes.

Definitely get this one often.

So they're not actual crystals.

They're crystallized protein, oftentimes amino acid.

So the most common one that you'll see inside the cheeses will be called terrocine crystals.

So as the cheese ages and again loses that moisture, things begin to break down in a different way.

So it's actually a form of the proteins breaking down and separating into these crystallized pieces.

And so they become little crunchy bites in your cheese.

They often taste saltier, but that's just the concentrated flavor of the proteins.

There's also crystals sometimes on the exterior of cheeses like block cheddars will often have what we call calcium lactate, which is an amino acid that is formed on the outside of cheddars.

That has a little bit of a crystallized texture as well that some people love, some people don't like, but you can always just scrape it off.

for the calcium lactate.

But to get crystals, I mean, the cheese has to be aged, you know, six months or so.

If you're making an aged gouda, it probably will take a few more months to get to crystallized textures.

But cheddars, you might have some crystals in like six months to eight months.

So if you see little crunchy crystals in the cheese that you just bought, don't worry.

You are just blessed.

It's so interesting to think that your cheese could be older than like a baby that's walking, you know, or something like that.

That's nuts.

A lot of people, Claire Gebbin, Mallory Alby, Kayla, Rihanna Noumini, Alice Rubin, and Jordan wanted to know, in Claire's words, why do some cheeses melt and become liquid like mozzarella and some hold their shape like halloumi?

Great question.

So it has to do with the moisture and the acidity of the cheese.

So if it's higher in moisture and low in acidity,

that's sort of the sweet spot for melting cheese.

So in terms of what that means for you, the person who doesn't know what moisture or acidity levels are in cheese, look for things that are at that sort of malleable texture or sort of wiggly or you can like bendable or pliable.

Things that are super hard are not going to have a lot of moisture in them, so they're going to take a lot longer to melt.

And things with high acidity, like paneer or halloumi, that are on the other end of the spectrum, are not going to melt.

Their proteins are sort of set up in a different way.

So the proteins are a lot tighter together when they're high in acid.

And so that the proteins don't want to melt.

They're going to want to stick together and keep that strong bond they have.

So asking a cheesemonger is the best recommendation I can give.

But if you're at the store looking for cheeses that melt well, look for things that are sort of semi-firm or that you can bend or that you can sort of press your finger into.

Those cheeses will melt really well.

And in part one, you may remember that we covered sodium citrate added to American cheese to make it it meltier and to stabilize the proteins and fats.

And as long as we're here, did you know that parmesan cheese powder, I just found this out, you know, the kind that you shake over spaghetti leftovers, the one with like the green top, it's called parmesan because outside the EU, you can just call whatever whatever, even though it's not pure Parmesan.

Also, check the back of that cheese powder and you will probably see the ingredient cellulose fiber, which is just wood pulp.

They just add sawdust sawdust in there to prevent caking, but also they do it to sell you some sawdust because it's probably cheaper than cheese.

Now, if that is the only Parmesan cheese that you've ever had, you're me until my late 20s.

But it turns out that Parmesano-Reggiano is the actual cheese.

It's worth the crumble.

But back to those softer, meltier cheeses.

Hang on to your lactose tabs for a very contentious question here.

Ellis Rubin and Jason Frere wanted to know.

Jason asked, what cheese should I use for the best grilled cheese sandwich?

Hmm.

Or in your mind, if you had your perfect grilled cheese, this can be absolutely subjective from your perspective.

Best grilled cheese.

Is it a sourdough?

Is it a wheat bread?

Is it a rye?

What's your dream grilled cheese?

I do love sourdough.

I would probably say sourdough bread.

And I would go to the Alps, so I would probably get some

young Gruyere or a young comte.

Comté is made in France, similar recipe to Gruyere, but a little bit sweeter.

There's also Fontina is a great melter.

So it would be a mix of a few cheeses for sure.

I like to have diversity in my grilled cheese.

So a couple of different cheeses.

I use butter.

I know you can use like mayo or things for your exterior, but I just use butter on the outside of the bread.

And then, yeah, that would probably be my ideal cheese.

I like the nuttiness of alpine cheeses.

They're They're super nutty and they have some sweetness.

So those would be my choices.

Nice.

Just a side note.

So America's Test Kitchen did the legwork of making mayo and butter and for good measure, olive oil grilled cheeses.

And the results were essentially

Buttery, butter one tasted the most buttery, but it was harder to spread when the butter was cold.

Full fat mayo spread the easiest, but had an acidic tang from the lemon juice.

And olive oil tasted too much like olive oil.

So it seems that whatever you grill it with, it will taste like that.

So there's science.

Alice Rubin again and David wanted to know, Alice asked, why doesn't my homemade mac and cheese taste cheesy?

And David wanted to know they've made a cheese sauce that tasted very grainy.

Best way to make a good mac and cheese that tastes cheesy and not just milky?

Less milk or less cream.

I mean, just focus on the cheese, using that as your base instead instead of adding, like I know in my world, my mom adds a lot of milk to her mac and cheese instead of just making a cheese sauce of some kind and then adding that to the noodles.

That would be the,

I think, the best solution to making it cheesy and a nice cheese pull.

Having a mixture of cheeses also, having some that have more pungency, like things that might seem too strong for mac and cheese might be just the thing because when it melts the enzymes and proteins are breaking down so the flavor changes a bit so it might not be as pungent once you melt it into the cheese and then having something mild so having a something on the stronger side like an aged alpine style cheese and then having something softer you know like a a mozzarella or something on that you know super super creamy so something pungent like an alpine cheese plus something soft and creamy and milder so this is a two-pronged approach at least And use less milk.

Think of making a cheese sauce.

So your noodles don't soak in a bath.

Your noodles get a moisturizer of cheese.

But then you can also add parmesan.

I mean adding a little bit of parmesan.

Parmesan melts really well even though it's a hard cheese.

Adding a crust with more cheese on it is something else that I would recommend.

Always having some kind of like breadcrumb or cheesy crust.

For the grainy question, that's definitely to do with the type of cheese that you used.

If it wasn't that sort of high moisture, low acid that I mentioned, if it was a harder cheese, you might have a more granular texture once it melts.

So that could be the reason why if the cheese was too aged or not enough moisture, that can make your cheese, your mac and cheese grainy.

So use a softer cheese, less acid, less age, when you're whipping up a mac and cheese.

And then call me.

Invite me over, give me a bib and the casserole dish, and then leave me alone with it.

No looking at me, no talking.

What about, as long as on the topic of homemade, Brian Scott, Earl of Gramilkin, Zach Ever ate, Carol Young and Christie Adventure wanted to know, Carol asked, is there an easy way to make cheese at home and how can I start doing that?

So you can buy cheesemaking kits, which is what I would recommend to do, just searching cheese-making kits.

I think there's a few different companies that have high ratings.

And they give you all the instructions.

They give you all the ingredients that you'll need.

So you can just follow along and you can make mozzarella.

You can make ricotta using rennet.

But also to make a fresh cheese, like a farmer's cheese, just like at home, quick cheese, all you need is some lemon juice, like we mentioned in the beginning.

And you can make cheese.

So you'd heat the milk to a certain temperature.

You'd add the lemon juice to it.

And then it will separate.

It'll make a gel.

And then you have to cut the curds.

cut the solid mass that it's become and then you drain out the whey and you have fresh cheese.

Ha!

Done.

Yes.

And then add salt.

Of course.

Lunar crumpet and the one and only Arnie Schmitz and Sadie Vipan.

Sadie asks, moon is made of cheese opinions.

Do you get that question a lot?

Not too often.

I've heard it before

about the moon being made of cheese.

But from my knowledge, it is not made of cheese.

There you go.

So that's.

Thank you for answering that.

My expert opinion, yes.

We actually did interview a moon expert, a planetary geologist and a selenologist, the wonderful Raquel Nuno.

And I'm going to play you a clip from her episode because every time I see the moon, I freak out now because of her, because of this.

One of the cool things that I think when I think about the moon and the impact that caused it was there was so much energy that

collected from that original impact that formed the moon that

the entire moon was just a magma ocean.

So that's, yeah, just imagine the whole moon just

magma.

Yeah, so that's what?

That's the prevailing theory.

And we have evidence for that.

So

it's just lava.

The whole thing is just lava ocean.

Oh my God.

The moon was a lava ocean.

It was a lava ocean.

Here we are thinking it's cheese, but at one point it was habanero queso.

Becky, the sassy seagrass scientist and Hannah B.

and Sinclair want to know.

Becky asked any basic tips or guidelines for how to tell if a delicious cheese should be exorbitantly expensive or if Whole Foods is just fooling us all?

Like, bang for your buck, because cheese can get pricey.

Yes.

But especially if you don't know what to get.

Yes.

Tips?

There are certain cheeses that will be more expensive overall.

Sheep's milk cheeses are often more expensive.

Sheep produce less milk for a less period of time, and there are just less sheep on the planet.

So, when you just think about the availability of the milk and the process it takes to create the cheese, the labor and all those things, that can raise the price.

So, anything made of sheep's milk is oftentimes more expensive.

And then, things that are aged longer can be more expensive.

So, if they're over a year old, that means that for over a year, some human somewhere was taking care of this cheese, and that human needs to be paid for for the work and the storage of the cheese so all those things will add up over time smaller producers will also probably be some of the more expensive cheeses now if you don't know your producers you might not know that Blakesville Creamery is a small producer out of Wisconsin but it is and so therefore the cheeses might be a different price than sort of some other larger producers just because of how supply and demand works in that respect.

So educating yourself on where the cheese is coming from, you know, doing a quick Google search on your phone.

If you're like, whoa, this seems really expensive, check it out.

See if it's something that you're interested in learning more about and trying.

And then quantity.

Oftentimes people buy cheese with their eyes and not with the reality that you're, are you really going to eat all that cheese?

And so if you buy a big hunk of it, it's going to be more expensive than a small piece.

You might be nervous to talk to a monger, but if there's only a huge piece of cheese and you want half of it, just ask them to cut it in half for you and they should be able to do that for you.

See, then you get 50% off because you only bought half as much cheese.

Exactly.

I think also when you understand what goes into it, then you're like, this is worth the price because this person had to baby this cheese, which is great context for really appreciating something of quality.

Or maybe they only have like 50 animals and they have that small herd of animals and only make 20 wheels of cheese a week, and that's all they sell.

You know, that's going to add to it too.

Right.

And on that topic, Teresa Gleason wanted to know: so, all those different flavors that are in cheeses, where do they come from?

Is it something that cheesemakers add?

Is it wild yeasts?

Is it milk from different kinds of cows, goats, or sheep?

Do the animals lend a lot of that flavor profile?

Great question.

And the answer is 100% yes.

So, what the type of animal that it is, what they're eating, all will impact the flavor of the cheese.

There are certain breeds of cows that have more fat in their milk.

There are certain breeds of goats that have more protein.

You know, there's different characteristics in different breeds.

And so depending on what type of cheese you're looking to make, the breed will add to that experience if they're being conscious of that sort of attribute of the cheese.

And just a side note, the sweet-looking kind of tawny cows in the Alps that look way better in a flower crown than anyone at the Wren Fair.

They're most likely an older breed of a brown Swiss cow.

And they make a fair amount of milk.

It's high in fat and protein.

They're great for rich alpine cheeses.

Now, the patchy black and white dairy cow is a crossbreed, and it yielded way more milk than other types of cows.

And it really rose to popularity in the mid-1800s.

There was a guy named Winthrop Chenery from Massachusetts, and he heard that a ship had a cow on board so the sailors could have milk.

And Winthrop was like, whatever that is, I want one of them.

Give me one of them cows.

And now when you drive past black and white bovines, you point and say, cows.

And some people asked about ethics in cheese.

Stacey Dow, Sam, both first-time question askers, wanted to know.

Stacy asked, when they were in grad school, they took a dairy class.

They visited dairies around western Pennsylvania and they were shocked at the differences.

Some allowed calves to stay with mom.

Some were immediately taken away.

What's the best way in terms of an animal's experience to enjoy cheese?

Is it different animals?

Is it different producers?

That is a great question.

It goes into, again, the story behind the cheese and how it's being made.

There are positives and negatives to both situations where the animal stays with the mom or the animal leaves for cheesemaking.

And if you are a

artisan, specially produced cheesemaker, you know, looking to the environment, caring about your animals, then you're not removing the animal from the mom.

You're waiting till the animal is done nursing and then the mom's still lactating.

So cows specifically will lactate for a year, whereas the calves won't consume the milk for the entire year.

They're moved to grass.

And so then you have this excess milk that has nowhere to go.

And so since it's so nutritious,

you make cheese out of it.

And that's sort of the beginnings of cheesemaking in a nutshell.

They had too much milk.

So they started making cheese.

For more on the history of cheese, you can listen to part one of this episode.

That's the order they go in.

A more esoteric question, Marisa.

Scott Sheldon, Mallory A.B., and Pink Puppy wanted to know, in Scott's words, we got to talk about the cheese rolling down the hill thing.

Have you heard about this?

A double Gloucester cheese?

What is cheese rolling?

Yeah, there's one competition where they have one wheel of cheese and they roll it down the hill and people run after it.

And whoever gets to the cheese first,

people fall, people roll all the way down this hill.

Everyone's on their bum at first.

I've watched all the videos, everyone's on their bum, and you know, they're so scared at the top.

That's where they go wrong.

Yes, that is your moment to strike.

There and then, you know, at the right top where everyone's at the most scared, that's when you need to stroke.

That was English, and I don't know what he was saying, but that's okay because I will never do this.

I thought this competition might be like a pastoral affair with a cheese wheel bounding bounding through alpine flowers, maybe scattering lazy bumblebees, but this shit is a bloodbath.

This is not okay.

So there's a place called Cooper's Hill in Gloucester, England, and it's a cliff.

Let's be so for real right now.

It is a cliff with grass.

It is a 200-yard off-ramp into hell at a 45-degree average angle, but some estimates have the initial drop 60 degrees.

That is so steep.

Nearly every year, for what's estimated may have been hundreds of years, people who have no amygdalas vault themselves down a death grade in pursuit of a single wheel of double Gloucester cheese.

And what I'm guessing is respect and lifelong orthopedic issues.

I don't know what they're after, but I think that cheese costs like 50 bucks.

So it's clearly not just the cheese.

But when the cheese falls, when it's released and it starts to roll, everyone's lined up waiting to chase it.

It looks like if you had a bunch of tiny people on a green bedspread and then you suddenly shook the bedspread and all of those tiny people somersaulted violently or simply tumbled skull over ankle for nearly two football fields until a line of rugby dudes at the bottom caught their charging bloodied injured bodies.

Whoever gets the wheel is not the spectacle.

Someone gets the wheel, nobody cares.

They are a footnote.

But what we are here to see is alive human bodies flying like ragdolls and getting their bones disjointed.

It would be impossible to calculate the number of concussions this event has produced.

One guy this year, 2025, caught so much air doing a triple front flip at what's been estimated at 60 miles per hour.

He landed with a bounce and I couldn't tell if he was one or two people because the limbs didn't make sense.

No one's wearing helmets.

At best, they might be wearing an inflatable dinosaur costume, which pops the instant the cheese wheel rolls.

Thousands of spectators catch this stuff from every angle, and it just simply does not feel real.

Evidently, it didn't feel real for that one guy this year because by some miracle of cheese, that man survived and he told people he was on mushrooms and he didn't feel a thing.

Now, the Wikipedia for this event, and again, another gem I just have to quote verbatim for you, whoever is updating Wikipedia pages for cheese is really at the top of their game.

But this says about this cheese competition that Canadian competitor Delaney Irving won the ladies' race in 2023 despite finishing unconscious and only learning of her victory in the medical enclosure.

So the neighborhood around Cooper's Hill, it gets jammed with tourists, cell phones strained for a glimpse, and ambulances are clogging the streets to take people away every year.

Well, the lucky ones that don't ride away in the medevac chopper that's standing by.

And this tells me two things, okay?

People love cheese and countries with nationalized healthcare systems produce braver individuals.

Now, if this is giving you the itch to fling yourself down a mountain for the glory of the wheel, please first listen to our episodes.

We have one on concussions and traumatic brain injury, as well as one about why your knees hurt and why you don't want to have to get surgery on them.

Whoever gets there first wins the wheel of cheese.

But there are also competitions where you're rolling the cheese like a bowling ball to see how far it rolls.

So there are all sorts of things.

And this has to do with the make process, right?

It can't be wobbly.

It can't be lopsided for these competitions.

So it does get pretty competitive.

Is it is it covered in wax or does it just pick?

Okay.

Yes, these are covered in wax.

Yes.

I wasn't sure if they were like grass-fed just by virtue of rolling down a lot.

I almost didn't finish this episode on time because I watched too many Gloucester cheese competition ragdoll people, even though it hurt me in the throat to even watch the videos.

Also, in part one, Kira and I chatted about American cheese, how it's not a cheese, and that it has the same anticoagulant, sodium citrate usually, as blood donations get to keep them from clumping.

So let's revisit that.

A lot of people had questions about American cheese.

Kira and H wanted to know your opinions on it.

TB33, let's settle this once and for all.

And I know we covered this a little bit in part one, but Sarah Burkhalter, I thought, had a great question.

First time ask her, why is American cheese so good on burgers, but so crappy everywhere else?

What is it about American cheese?

Like,

why is it?

Why is American cheese?

Like American cheese, like craft singles, we're talking here.

How did it pop up into the cheese scene to say, I'm sort of cheese, but not really cheese?

But it's also good on some stuff.

I mean, the history behind American cheese goes back to a time where there weren't refrigeration or there weren't ways to store artisan cheese.

People were making cheese and losing it.

And so scientists figured out a way to emulsify the cheese into this product and make it shelf-stable.

That was the first step to it.

And then from there, they began to create these other cheese products.

Again, like vegan cheese to me, it's not considered a cheese.

It's a cheese product.

It's its own thing.

I eat it on burgers.

I'll eat American cheese in certain situations because it tastes really good.

It melts really well.

It's great on a grilled cheese.

It's great anywhere it's melted.

But it's very different than artisan specially made cheeses that are similar in style to that make process.

I agree with you that it's great on a grilled cheese.

I think that vegan cheeses, too, melts in a way that is like, okay, it's really

bouncy in a way.

You know what I mean?

It's like taffy kind of kind of fluffy.

But speaking of American cheese and speaking of America, Sophie A.

said, can we please talk about Reagan's cheese caves?

Hope asked, please tell us about the cheese caves.

Nicole Campbell, first time question, ask her, is there really a vault of cheeses under the United States?

Have you heard of this?

I don't know where this story came from, but I was talking to my nail tech, Shelby, who I love.

And she was like, I said, I'm interviewing a cheese expert.

And she said, that is so exciting.

Are there cheese caves out in the United States?

And I was like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but I need to ask about this.

What's going on?

Yes, there is a cheese reserve.

It's part of the government's way to make sure that we don't run out of food.

So it's a reserve of cheeses that are used mostly for government-funded programs for food insecurity.

Oftentimes, cheese is used in that respect.

But it is a reserve.

It's in, I believe it's in Missouri.

Someone asked about Missouri, Missouri, yeah, the cheese caves in Missouri.

We're going to get to those in just a moment, but first, let's donate to a cause of the oligest choosing.

And this week, Kira chose two, one for each part of the Cheese Duo episode.

And they are the Cheese Culture Coalition, which works to create a more equitable and inclusive cheese industry for Black, Indigenous, and people of color through education and grant programs and via cheeseculturecoalition.org.

You can find out more about their programs.

You can donate or you can even fill out a form to volunteer on their committees or their fundraisers.

And the second donation is going to Team Up's Building Schools in Kenya, which Kira says is a great organization run by a dear friend of hers.

And they work to ensure that Kenyan children receive the education they need and provide communities with easily accessible, clean, and sustainable water resources.

And you can find out more about them or donate at goteamup.org.

So thank you to sponsors of the show for making those donations possible.

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Okay, so let's dig into government cave cheese as it was on the minds of patrons.

Mike, Earl of Gramilkin, Laura Fitzgerald, Annie Horable, Full Metal Neese, Sophia A., Caitlin Tyndale, Hope, Anna Elizabeth, Kayla, Nicole Campbell, London Noel, Brittany Schaffis, Timmy H, and Elta Sparks.

Yeah, and it's they're caves, they're man-made caves, and they have rows and rows of cheese.

They're not the most artisan-produced cheeses from the small producers, but they're they're large wheels that are there to serve the people who need it.

And so, yeah, it definitely exists.

Okay, so I had definitely heard of government cheese, and I had friends whose families had it a lot growing up.

It sustained food insecure people for decades.

And government cheese also in American culture has become a little bit of a shorthand for having to make ends meet.

But I didn't know about the caves or the timeline.

So the long story less long is that in the 1970s, the Carter administration helped out the dairy farmers in a recession by buying up their milk when they made too much.

That way the market wouldn't be flooded with so much milk that the prices dropped and the farmers went broke.

So the government bought a bunch of the milk.

How do you store millions of dollars worth of milk?

You make processed, velvety, tasty cheese, and then you put it in temperature-controlled limestone quarries you have just sitting around.

Perfect for stashing a bunch of cheese.

So over the years, cheese has gone into storage in case of natural disasters or sudden food scarcity.

There's this big stock of cheese.

But then so much cheese started to pile up that in the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan said, let's give some of this cheese away.

And still there's this in and out of buying up excess dairy and keeping it as government cheese.

And the government cheese gets handed out to nonprofits and food banks and folks on welfare or food assistance and elderly populations.

For now, at least it has been.

And literally as I typed this up, as I'm about to put this episode out tonight, news broke that the Trump administration has been sitting on a store of 500 metric tons of food meant for starving children in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But instead of distributing it to the starving children, the Trump administration has been doing nothing with it.

And now it's about to expire this week and so they'll simply incinerate it.

I'm not sure if this is making America great again, as even Ronald Reagan, the guy who cut more than $22 billion from social welfare programs, was like, let's give out some free cheese to people who need it.

But no, we have now reached an era of we could feed starving children, but instead, let's just burn the food and the children.

Anyway, cheese.

So Daniel Schmaniel, Lizzie Martinez, Sarah, Dawn, and Eric Easton, Mike, Karen H., Wisconsin Night Debbie Powers, a softly boiled egg, Eileen Wong, and Chelsea and her dog Charlie, and Felipe Jimenez, in their words, asked, what's the weirdest but successful pairing you've tried with cheese?

Some people asked about cheese pairings.

Donnie Needham from New Zealand said, best things to eat with cheese or more unusual but yummy.

In New Zealand, we do a thing called mousetraps, which is bread grilled, spread with marmite, which is a yeast extract, topped with cheese and grilled again.

Brian Shenanigan said pineapple and feta together are epic pizza toppings, and you will thank me later for it.

Eileen Wang, Sam Weiss Cheese Puff both asked thoughts on cheese and apple pie.

Any cheese pairings that you are staunchly against or that you are an advocate for?

So I'm

into complementary or contrasting flavors.

So I often am drawn to adding sweetness to cheese.

Cheese is really salty and often acidic.

So something with a little bit of sweetness as contrasting.

So it kind of makes things exciting.

It makes the experience you're going back and forth between salty, sweet, salty, sweet.

So with that in mind, I look to things like honeys, jams.

fruits, the things that you see on chicuterie boards, they're not there by mistake.

They're there because they go really well with cheese.

So those are my go-to.

Like when I'm just snacking, oftentimes it's just honey and cheese.

I love honey and it goes with all types of cheese and there's all types of honey too.

Unusual pairings for me.

Chocolate isn't super unusual, but people haven't done it before.

But chocolate and cheese go really well together, specifically dark chocolate and blue cheese.

Oh, what?

Again, looking at the saltiness in the cheese and the sweetness in the dark chocolate, but then there's bitterness in the dark chocolate and salt mitigates the presence of bitterness in foods.

So when you add the saltiness to the bitterness, it makes the dark chocolate more fudgy and it just creates this really fun experience where you're having like a fudge and cheese situation.

What is that Norwegian?

It's almost like browned and sweetened cheese.

It's called like gaust or ghost.

Maybe that's it.

It's almost like a toast, like a gill toast or something.

My friend Celia is from Norway.

She's an amazing chef and she'll post pictures of it.

And I'm like, I don't know what that is or what it tastes tastes like what i want it it's like caramelized almost yeah i can't pronounce it but it's like jost

yeah

g-j-e-t-o-s-t it's like they actually caramelize the milk to create the cheese and so it tastes like caramel oh god of it that's so good so yeah hay toast is made with goat's milk but it can also be called brunost and ask a norwegian or a monger how you two can enjoy caramel breakfast cheese um fran said in switzerland they learned that you should always have either wine or tea with cheese so you don't get a cheese baby, i.e., a bloated tum.

Of course, I follow this as much as possible because I love both tea and wine.

But are there other beverages to pair?

I mean, we're doing a wine episode, and I know that you also advocate for like sober cheese tastings, which I think is awesome, but pairings for beverages and cheese?

Definitely.

So for wine and beer, the most traditional sort of way of thinking about pairings are light with light and bold with bold.

So, if you have a light, fresher cheese, then a lighter wine should pair well with it.

Looking to fresh cheeses or soft ripened cheeses, like a goat's milk cheese, and like a white wine, like from France, like a sanserre or a lighter grape.

And then looking to bolder cheeses with bolder wines or beer.

So, blue cheeses, goudas, aged cheddars, things that have more robust flavor profiles can handle bigger flavored beverages.

So you can do a dark beer or a red wine, something that has more going on because they can hold their own against one another.

Other beverages that go well with cheese, kombucha is one that I go to.

It's not your...

go-to beverage, but the vinegar and the subtle sweetness actually pairs really nicely with cheeses.

Oftentimes, ones that have more of a buttery texture to them could go really nicely with cheese.

But I love pairing cheese with tea.

I think that that is a great combination.

I don't, I don't do it enough, but that's definitely like a hot tea and a cheese is very nice, very, they go really well together.

And it probably melts in your mouth a little bit if your mouth is warm.

You know, warm, yes, exactly.

When you're eating like chocolate and a warm beverage, it just like melts, you taste it more.

And I can't believe I forgot to ask this before, but Joshua YYZ, first-time question asker, wanted to know if there's ever been a study to confirm confirm or disprove the effect of pasteurization on the texture, the taste of cheese.

Is it real or is it just potentially lethal hippie drech?

They asked.

So in part one, we did discuss that people say raw milk cheese has a highly superior curd texture by some accounts.

But many patrons, such as Fairy Jessa, Tracy Redard, Aaron Wood, Andy Pepper, and David wanted to know the scoop.

So let's jump into it.

Raw cheese.

Is it better or is it hype?

Great question.

There's been lots of discussions about pasteurization.

I don't know if there's like scientific evidence around the flavor profile, but there are, you'll get two different camps in the cheese world where people are

against pasteurization and just really focus on raw milk cheeses.

And then you have people who accept pasteurization as a way of being.

And the latter, where pasteurization is a way of being in some ways, it helps control the risks of bad

getting into our bodies.

So when you pasteurize milk, you heat it to a certain temperature for a certain period of time, and that kills off the bacteria, both the good bacteria and the bad bacteria.

So when you're looking at the camp of mongers and cheese professionals who

only go with raw milk, then they're looking at that from the perspective of it's killing off the good bacteria and therefore it's killing off the flavor.

So the natural flavors in the cheese are being pasteurized or removed.

And then when you pasteurize the the milk, you have to add everything back to it.

You can still have a full-flavored cheese when it's pasteurized.

You're just adding the cultures and the bacterias back to the curds after you've pasteurized the milk.

So I don't think that there's a right or wrong way to be, but I think having a full understanding of what pasteurization is is the best way forward.

Because in America, we can't have anything aged under 60 days.

That's raw milk.

Anything that's made with raw milk has to be aged more than 60 days for us to consume it in America.

And that's because the FDA thinks that on day 61,

everything is fixed.

So there's some,

you know, I hear the hippie and I hear the government interaction, but there is some safety measures that are included with it, but some things are just not super accurate.

And so the FDA is a little bit outdated in the pasteurization rules, and hopefully we'll get that changed soon.

But for now, just kind of learn to accept it and learn to appreciate the cheeses that are pasteurized for what they are.

What could be living in your lunch, you ask?

So, according to a 2024 piece in Scientific American titled, Is Raw Milk Cheese Safe to Eat?

Milk can become contaminated with harmful microbes like salmonella, listeria, and E.

coli that can survive the cheese production and aging process, which is why in pasteurization, they blast that milk up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit or just over 70 Celsius to kill it off.

But yeah, some of the tiny tasty organisms also perish.

And so you get a cheese that's safer, it's more reliable, but it's maybe lacking in some of the bacterial chaos that some fromageophiles really tend to prefer.

But from stinky to fresh, let's talk about the squeakiest cheese.

So patrons Don W., Sarah King, Canadian Alia Myers, all echoed Sean O'Shea's request to, quote, tell me something about cheese curds in their words.

I can't believe I didn't ask this sooner.

Lily, Megan Walker, Aaron, Danny Kirby, Lauren Cooper, Ashley doing, Aura Victor, and several other people need to know.

Lily asked, why are fresh cheese curds the best and what makes them squeak?

What's up with that?

Good question.

So to get to cheese curds, you're doing something very specific.

You're not just separating the curds from the whey and then cutting the curds into pieces, but then those pieces are allowed to sit and firm up and so they they squeak when you hold them sort of like move them around they'll make like squeaky like rubbery kind of noises and that tells you that they're fresh

the longer that they sit the less likely that they'll make that noise which is just a thing of freshness.

It doesn't mean that you can't eat the curds anymore if they're

not squeaking, but oftentimes people prefer squeaky curds over other curds.

And oftentimes that's because they're more fresh.

Oh, I've heard so many people from Wisconsin be like, if they don't squeak, I don't want it.

And if you've never had a squeaky curd, you have not had the best curds.

So it's like, I feel like I need to go to Wisconsin because I don't think I've had a squeaky curd.

I can also ask my cheesemonger if they can hook me up with the squeakiest curds.

Because Wisconsin, especially those producers, will make curds like the same day and sell them.

And so you get them super fresh, like right from the creamery.

And so they're, yeah, they're super squeaky.

Also, if that sound of the YouTube user MD Racer51 open-mouth squeaking cheese curds is making you want to find my location and harm me, please know I come in peace and you have what's called misophonia, which is a very strong aversion to the sound of chewing or other noises.

And yeah, we have a whole episode with a misophonia haver and expert, Dr.

Jane Gregory, about distracting sounds and noise rage.

And there are no chewing noises in that episode because I care and I promise.

So if you have that, congratulations, you're not alone.

But yeah, fresh cheese curds, they have protein and calcium structure and it rubs on your tooth enamel and it sounds like you're chewing on a bike tire.

Now, if you've never had that sensation and you need to, you can ask your cheese monger to try to hook you up with the freshest stuff or you can gather your family and all of your belongings and move to Wisconsin.

The choice is yours.

Also, speaking of your local manga, I spoke of my fave, Rue.

And if you ever pop in a milk farm in Eagle Rock in LA, you can tell them the oliga.

But speaking of roux, I asked them what their favorite cheese is, and they said, hmm, there are way too many beautiful cheeses in the world for me to pick a favorite.

But here's my overly wordy thoughts on a great cheese to enjoy with some cherries or pluats during stone fruit season.

So, Roux says, Osu arati is a style of firm sheep's milk cheese.

And don't worry about spelling that.

We linked it on our website.

It starts with an OSS.

Don't worry about it.

But it's made exclusively in the Pyrenees.

And they wish that it had way better name recognition in the States.

So again, we'll link it.

It's O S S A U dash I R A T Y.

Okay, so that's one reason it doesn't have name recognition because what are those letters?

Either way, Rue says that they usually try to recommend this one to people who know that they like menchego and they wanna try something a little different because it's so good.

And Rue says that osu arati tastes like brown butter and toasted hazelnuts, but some wheels are very floral on the nose.

Others have a really savory, meaty, umami thing going on.

And they said it's a good snacking cheese and it's great melted in a quesadilla or a burger.

And at Milk Farm in LA, Rue says that sometimes when they're really lucky, they'll get a wheel of asu erati estive.

And the estive or estive, I'm not sure, it means wheels are made in the summer months because the farmers take their herds up to the higher mountain pastures where they can kind of beat the heat and they can chow down on tasty summer flora, Rue says.

So the estive or estive wheels tend to be intensely herbal in a really fun way, but they're really rare to find.

And with that story, Rue also introduced me to the word estive, meaning summer.

And there's this rare derivative, estivation, which carries the same idea as summering.

And Rue provided me with the example, every year Elizabeth and I estivate in the Hamptons.

Said no one ever, Rue says.

So Rue, thank you for essentially emailing me back an aside for this episode that I didn't even have to write or research.

So now I know I want to get some stoned fruit and I want to try some cheese that tastes like brown butter and nuts and flowers.

And it's called Osu Erati.

And also great confirmation that cheesemongers have wonderful stories and everyone should have a friend who's a cheesemonger.

So yeah, ask your monger.

I got to ask my monger.

So many people, we're almost, we have two questions left from, is that okay?

I'm so sorry that this is the most

marathon.

Oh my God.

Okay.

So many people asked, I don't even know if I can list them all.

Lauren Allegra asked, is it true that there's an addictive chemical in cheese or do I just use that as an excuse to eat more cheese?

Another great question.

So there are connections between eating cheese and the release of dopamine.

So similarly to

other

activities, and you know,

some positive, some negative, but oftentimes people say things like cheese is addictive, like, you know,

drugs or something.

And that's because it really, you want to eat cheese, it actually releases dopamine, which makes you happier.

So,

that's why when people eat cheese, they're actually having a chemical reaction where their dopamine is released and they're feeling happier and more

go-lucky, if you will.

And yes, it's true.

In a 2021 paper titled Casomorphins and Leanderphins Have Diverse Systemic Effects Spanning Gut, Brain, and Internal Organs, explains that yes, the milk protein casein breaks down into casomorphins, and those can stimulate dopamine in the brain, just like anything that makes you feel good.

So now we just, we can just use it as a positive excuse for eating more cheese.

Like if you're in a bad mood, eat a piece of cheese.

If you're feeling depressed, eat a piece of cheese.

I think that technically makes you a psychiatrist.

Oh, yeah.

I think so.

Are you now Dr.

James?

I'm here to help you find your bliss through cheese.

Well, last listener question.

I think it's the one that's probably on everyone's minds.

Mike, Kieran H., Debbie Powers, first-time question asker, a softly boiled egg grass, Eileen Wang, Chelsea and her dog Charlie.

Debbie, first-time question asker, Wisconsinite.

cheese aficionado.

What are your best tips for a charcuterie board?

You're going to build a charcuterie board.

Maybe you've got in-laws coming over for the first time.

Maybe you've got a a date happening.

Maybe it's your birthday.

What are we going for?

Definitely.

So the big thing for me is diversity.

So having a mixture of all the things.

When I educate or give suggestions, because I'm always asked by family and friends this question.

So another great question.

Look for different types of cheese.

So look for those styles we talked about.

Look for something soft and something hard.

If it's for a small gathering, just two cheeses is fine, one soft, one hard.

If it's for a bigger gathering and you get, you know, four to five cheeses, then look for different textures, different colors, maybe one that has flavor or smoke added to it.

And then from there, look to how you'd pair it.

So, what do you want to eat with the cheese and put that on the board?

You can't really mess it up, but the rules of thumb are something crunchy, something sweet, something savory,

something pickled.

Oh,

crunchy, sweet, savory, pickled.

Crunchy, sweet, savory, pickled.

So, having like olives, jam, crackers, and salami, you know, and you're good to go.

Those are like the things that I look to.

I don't have like set rules.

I think that it can be whatever you want it to be.

If it's for dessert, add some dessert items to the board.

If it's for an appetizer, you know, have less than if it's for dinner.

But you can't mess it up.

And the biggest thing I would always recommend is ask your cheesemonger.

If you don't have a cheese shop near you, Whole Foods, they have certified cheese professionals.

They're actually one of the biggest supporters of the certification program that is offered.

So, a lot of their employees become certified.

So, if you don't see them back there, there's someone there that can help you.

So, definitely just ask for support in that way or reach out to me.

You're at Own Your Funk as well, right?

People can follow you and see when you're doing events.

Yes, Own Your Funk is my business name.

Is there a hard thing about cheese?

What is the hardest part of your job?

And I will ask you your favorite, but your least favorite thing about cheesemongering or your least favorite cheese?

I don't have a least favorite cheese.

I never, never could do that to a cheese.

I think just the sanitization and the cleaning aspects of the industry, you know, cheese is alive and so it's very vulnerable and it needs a lot of TLC, especially if it's in your home refrigerator.

You know, you have to take care of your cheeses, people.

If you don't, you'll see mold on them.

The same thing goes when you work in a cheese shop.

You have to take care of these cheeses every day and clean them and make sure every surface is always clean.

And in between your cheeses, you have to clean your surfaces, clean your knives.

So there's lots of sanitation that goes into cheese as a profession.

So that's probably the least favorite thing that I have to do.

Is it true that you should store your cheeses in the paper they came in and not a Ziploc?

Is it better to let your cheese breathe so it doesn't get too moist?

Definitely leave the cheese in the paper that it comes in and re-wrap it if you can.

If you get a piece of cheese that comes in plastic,

then you might want to find new wrapping for that, in which case you can wrap it in.

What I would suggest is wrapping it in parchment paper and then putting that piece of cheese into a plastic bag.

You don't have to seal the bag.

You can just leave the bag opened.

That just gives it a little bit extra protection, but you still want to have some airflow just so because again, the cheese cheese is alive, you don't want to suffocate it.

When things are wrapped in plastic, they're actually being suffocated.

So we do it for aesthetic reasons more than the health of the cheese.

So definitely want to get rid of the plastic if you can.

And then number one will always be cheese paper.

So if you want to buy cheese paper, you can buy it online.

Formaticum is a great company that you can buy cheese paper from.

There's other companies as well that you can find.

Or beeswax is another one.

So beeswax, the lines of beeswax that you can buy are great for cheeses as well.

Oh, like cloths that are almost impregnated with trees.

Oh,

and also, great host gift.

Definitely.

If you got to go to someone's house, you bring them some cheeses and some of those.

Perfect.

Yes.

I always am like, dude, what should I bring?

And in some parts of the country, it's like, of course, you bring a host gift.

And in others, like in California, people are like, what?

You know, I brought some beer.

You know, like, we're sweet, sweet idiots over here.

But

favorite thing about being a certified cheese professional and a hermologist?

I think the network of people.

I think my favorite thing is that I get to be and work with some amazing people and some amazing animals and farms.

And I'm really passionate about the land and the agricultural aspects of the industry.

So to be able to know that my contributions are going towards the betterment of farms and animals and people make it all worth it.

And then I get to know them as as my family and friends.

And so that just intensifies the feeling of joy and the happiness I get to feel when I'm selling the cheeses or when I'm tasting cheese with people for the first time.

And they're like, wow, this is amazing.

That just

puts me over the moon.

Nothing makes me more happy than just sharing the love of cheese with others.

That puts you over the cheese moon.

Huh?

Yeah.

The cheese moon.

This has been a dream come true.

Oh, dream come true.

Best phromologist in the biz.

Thank you.

And this couldn't not be a two-parter.

I mean, it's rare that I go into it being like, do you have several hours to talk to me about something?

That's what I do.

Talk about cheese-like day.

So this was just a regular day in the office for me.

I loved it.

Okay, so we asked a salt of the earth person two episodes worth of cheesy questions.

And thank you so much, Kira, for being here, not only this week, but last as well.

Thank you for letting me interview you for nearly two hours.

You can follow Kira and learn more about her work linked in the show notes or at our website, alleyward.com slash ologies slash from ology, or you can follow her via ownyourfunk.com.

And donations went to the Cheese Culture Coalition and Team Ups Building Schools in Kenya.

And we've got those linked in the show notes as well.

We are at Ologies on Instagram and Blue Sky.

I'm at Alley Ward on both.

If you need any kid-friendly episodes, you can check out SmallGies.

Anywhere you get podcasts, Ologies Merch is available at ologiesmerch.com.

Thank you, patrons of the show, for all of your great questions questions that you submitted via patreon.com/slash ologies.

Aaron Talbert admins our ologies podcast Facebook group.

Avelyn Malik makes our professional transcripts.

Noel Dilworth arranges time as a scheduling producer.

Susan Hale is our managing monger and director of all things ologies.

Editors are Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio, and lead editor of this one with a sharp brain but a mild manner is Jake Chafee.

Nick Thorburn made the theme music.

And if you stick around to the very, very end of the episode, I tell you a secret and I will make this one short because I feel like my sides were long, but I this is only, you're only going to hear about this if you maybe live in LA.

But there was a bar called Shim Sham.

My friend Aubrey had her birthday party there and I went there and number one, they have some sort of slushy situation with a beverage, which is tasty, but the part that surprised me is Shim Sham has a photo booth.

And it is some of the best lighting I have ever seen anyone in.

I don't know what kind of magic their photo booth has.

I don't know how their ring light is set up.

I don't understand what's going on.

But we were like, How does everyone look so glowing and flawless in this?

And sure enough, I looked it up, and people are like, if you get yourself to shim sham, make sure to take some glam shots in that photo booth.

I don't know how they do it.

Shim Sham, if you're listening, email me.

What do you have going on?

Okay, bye-bye.

Pachodermatology, homology, cryptozoology, litology, nanotechnology, meteorology, old factology, mapology, seriology, selenology.

Fold in the cheese.

What does that mean?

What does fold in the cheese mean?

Okay, one more secret for you.

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If you're like, impossible.

And why are you bragging?

It's not me.

It's because I have a mill food recycler.

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It always reminds me of that scene at the end of Back to the Future where Doc is just putting stuff in the car.

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You can fill it for weeks and it doesn't smell.

And it also keeps leftovers out of my garbage so that my garbage doesn't smell or get juicy, which is what you don't want your garbage to be.

So it transforms your scraps into these nutrient-rich grounds.

They look like coffee grounds.

You can put them in the garden, you can put them in your compost.

Mill can even get them to a farm for you.

There's no mess, there's no stress, and it keeps food waste out of the landfills so it can't create a ton of methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas.

So, Mill makes it easy to do something good, and you can get $75 off at mill.com/slash ologies.

That's mill.com/slash ologies.

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