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Japanese Cheese

I sometimes get questions from alert Cheese Underground readers who are under the impression that I actually know something about cheese. While I really don’t know that much, I am lucky enough to know people who do.  So when reader YuFeing Sullivan sent me the following question this morning, my immediate response was: holy cats, I have no idea. Here was his question:

Greetings Jeanne,
 
I have stumbled on your cheeses blog site that you have created and I am wondering if you can help me with this.
 
For all these years, every Japanese bakery I go into, they ALL have this type of “Japanese French cheese” bread. They usually would either dice the cheese up and stuff it inside of breads or on top of any crusty breads. The cheese is pale yellow and it is wonderful. Until this day I can not figure out what type of cheese it is but I would like to find out and start making my own cheese bread that saves me trips to Japan just to have the breads that bring me back my childhood. I have attached a picture for your review and hopefully you can help me with this.
Since YuFeing was kind enough to send along a picture (posted above), I forwarded his email to a few cheesemakers and industry experts I know who have traveled the world in their quest to make cheese. And lo and behold by 10 p.m. this evening, one of those people knew somebody who knew the answer. 
Hi, YuFeing

This is Itsuki Tomiyama from USDEC Japan office. We would like to answer to your question for Jeanne.

Japanese bakers use many kinds of Processed Cheese produced by domestic cheese manufactures. One example is the show in your picture. When cheese is used in baking, they should be melted, but like in your picture these kinds of PC has heat-resistance characteristics. That is why they can hold the dice shapes. I assume they use cheddar to make most of PC, but how they make is their top secrets.

If you have any more question, please let us know.

Thank you, Itsuki Tomiyama/USDEC Japan

So there you go. Apparently it pays to know people who actually know something. Plus, it’s fun to be a conduit of information. Happy Japanese French Bread eating.
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Life is Short so Eat Good Cheese

Winter in Wisconsin means we don’t get out much.  Between the below freezing temperatures, six-foot snowdrifts and icy roads, we tend to hunker down and say, “See ya in the Spring.” 

I am reminded of this every year when one of our many neighbors seems to always have a baby in the late summer or fall.  We go to visit the new bundle of joy, take over the customary gift basket, wave to mom and dad every day as they walk by with the stroller, and generally feel good about life and its many blessings.
And then winter hits and we don’t see these people again for six months. In the spring, their babies are no longer pink and blue bundles — these little folks have transformed into walking, talking toddlers in what seems a blink of an eye. And I think, holy crap, where does the time go?
One of my friends sent me an email this week that said:

Five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.
I would add one more, with apologies to Michael Pollan, whom I am totally ripping this off from and making it my own: 
6. Eat good food. Not too much. Especially Cheese.
And for the love of god, please think spring. I really do want to see my neighbors again.
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Making Cheese With Marieke

It’s amazing how heavy cheese can be. Now I know why cheesemakers have so many muscles.
On Monday, I had the awesome opportunity to make cheese with Marieke Penterman at Hollands Family Farm in Thorp, Wis. From adding the rennet to washing and then pressing the curd, to cutting the curd and then finally heaving giant blocks of pressed curd into forms and then into the cheese presses — making cheese is a lot of work. It reminds me why I have so much respect for cheesemakers.
I left Madison at the insane hour of 5:20 a.m. (nothing like driving two hours in the dark to NOT wake you up) to get to Marieke’s place in time to add the rennet to the morning’s milk, which travels a whole distance of about 50 yards from the farm’s milking parlor to the cheesrie. Four days a week, Marieke and her small crew turn 1,000 gallons of milk into 800 pounds of different styles of Dutch Gouda.
Monday marked the inaugural make of Basil Pesto Gouda – Marieke promised us we could try it in 60 days, as all of her cheeses are raw milk cheeses and must be aged a minimum of 60 days to satisfy USDA rules. I did eat some of the raw curd right out of the vat, though, and not surprisingly, I am still alive. Raw curd tastes a lot like whole milk, by the way – yummy.
All of Marieke’s equipment, including her brand new double O cheese vat (it’s shaped like a snowman) comes from her home country of Holland. All the equipment, all the ingredients, even the wax coating is shipped from Holland. As Marieke says, “the only thing from America is the milk.”
In 2002, Rolf and Marieke moved to the United States to start a dairy farm and in 2006, Marieke built a cheese plant on the farm because she missed her Dutch Gouda so much. Since then, she’s won dozens of awards for her Fenugreek, Raw Milk, Aged, Cumin, Black Pepper and Smoked Goudas, and it’s easy to see why: she and her small staff are absolutely vigilant in their cheesemaking routine – every step is recorded, every batch is meticulously watched and sometimes even the “mistakes” taste good – such as the batch of green cheese she made a couple of months ago in honor of the Green Bay Packers, which actually turned teal. Whoops. It still tastes good, though.
I even had the honor of tasting the very first wheel she ever made in November of 2006 – she still has about a 2-pound wedge left – and wow, was it amazing. She’s working on keeping a few wheels from certain batches to age out longer, and I can’t wait. I bet an extra aged wheel of Marieke Gouda would taste like pure heaven.
Marieke doesn’t only make good cheese – she makes amazing meals and is one of the most patient mothers I’ve ever seen.  I can’t even fathom how she gets everything done. The woman has four children – four-year-old twin daughters, a two-year old son and 1-year-old daughter.  
And, she’s expecting another baby Penterman in May – yes do the math – she will have five children under the age of five. OMG. She also makes lunch and dinner every day from scratch — she made a special batch of homemade vegetable soup and rundulees scalada (Dutch potato salad with beef, pickles and onions) for us – of course all the staff takes turn breaking for lunch – who wouldn’t with food like that available? 
She’s also a great boss and it’s easy to tell that her staff adore her. Her husband, Rolf, is also an amazing guy – he manages the 800-cow dairy and also helps in the cheesrie. The pair make a great team. And I have a feeling the next generation will do just as well!
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Singing the Blues

People in southern France are unfortunately the recipients of one of former President George Bush’s parting gifts as he left office last week: a tripling to 300 percent in import duty on their world-famous Roquefort cheese.

On Jan. 15, U.S. Trade Representatives released a new list of tariffs on products from the European Union. Roquefort, a French blue cheese, is the only product on that list whose tariff will be raised to 300 percent when the changes go into effect in March.
France regulates the use of the name “Roquefort,” which is applied only to cheeses made near Roquefort sur Soulzon, a city in the south of France.

American cheesemakers can not make a Roquefort, as only certain approved producers using certain approved methods in a designated part of France can make true Roquefort.
So why is Roquefort so special? Dani Friedland, author of the blog French Toast, recently interviewed the man considered to be THE national expert on cheese production, who turns out to be none other than Wisconsin’s very own Dr. Mark Johnson, senior scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. 
Dr. Johnson describes the parts of Roquefort production that make it distinctive: “The cheese is made from raw sheep’s milk mixed with a mold called Penicillium roquefortii, which is also used to make other blue cheeses including Stilton. Cheesemakers poke holes in the cheese to distribute the oxygen needed for mold growth throughout the wheels.  The cheese is then ripened for at least three months in caves. This is the crucial step,” he says.
“The cheese can be made in the surrounding area, but it has to be ripened in those caves,” he says. “These caves are unique in that they have the right humidity and the right temperature that allows the mold to grow.”
I’ve never had the honor of visiting the caves in southern France that age Roquefort, but I can only imagine it to be an amazing place. It gives new meaning to the concept of terroir – in additional to reflecting the milk from the animals in the area, it also pertains to the very specific location and conditions in which the cheese is aged.
So, stock up on Roquefort between now and March, boys and girls. After that, it’s going to probably cost three times as much. Super.
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Fondue is Back

It’s official: I am turning into my mother. And it’s all because of fondue.

When I was a kid in the ’70s, my mother, a city girl who married a meat and potatoes farmer, tried desperately to get her family to join the fondue craze. I remember her having friends over around our old farm kitchen table, elegantly dipping pieces of bread into a big pot of warm cheese and thinking it was the most disgusting supper ever. 
Where were the meat and potatoes? Where were the vegetables? Where was the apple pie? C’mon people. Eventually, my father and I won our battle against fondue, and the fondue pot and silly long forks got shoved somewhere in the far reaches of the old wooden cupboards, never to be seen again.

Alas, today, I must add my aversion to fondue to the long list of things for which I need to apologize. Because here I am, about to buy my first real fondue set – an earthenware pot from Fromagination in Madison, which, by the way, thoroughly sucked me into the fondue craze with their signature fondue mix. (In fact, Fromagination is hosting a fondue lunch every Wednesday in February, with three seating times around the noon hour – call ahead for a reservation). 
Turns out I REALLY like fondue. Apparently it’s like a lot like wine — until you’ve had a really good version, you don’t realize the potential of the medium.
I first discovered exceptional fondue at Roth Kase cheese in Monroe. Roth Kase built a beautiful culinary center a couple of years ago, and I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to a few of their sit-down fondue lunches with groups of cheese buyers, retailers and media. Through Roth Kase, I’ve learned the secret to good fondue: quality Gruyere and emmenthaler cheeses, and exceptional kirsch – a clear, dry brandy.
In fact, The Melting Pot, a chain of fondue restaurants, uses Roth Kase cheeses almost exclusively for all of their fondues, but  my favorite one is an Alpine-style fondue made with Grand Cru Gruyere Reserve, Grand Cru Gruyere Surchoix, MezzaLuna Fontina, Pinot Grigio and lemon juice. Serve it with artisan bread, apples, grapes and pears, as well as a little nutmeg and black and white pepper, and voila – I introduce you to heaven.
And so the tradition carries on … I informed my daughter of our plans to host a fondue dinner with friends and her face contorted to resemble — I’m just guessing here — the same face mine must have looked like when I was a kid and my mother served fondue for the first time. Somewhere, my mother is smiling.
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America’s Dairyland?

When I was a kid, I used to be convinced that someday, the business world would be divided into two sections: those companies owned by Coca Cola and the rest owned by Pepsi. 

I remember the day my beloved independently-owned Dr. Pepper went belly up and was eventually scooped up by Coke – Dr Pepper still doesn’t have a dedicated bottler in the United States so actually finding it can some days be a challenge, but alas I digress — read the whole sad story on Dr Pepper here.

Now I’m thinking that we Americans should be so lucky as to ever think the world would eventually be owned by two American companies. Global competition has fully engulfed us, and with it, the foreign investment/ownership of just about everything in the U.S.
So with that said, it was with mixed emotions that I read this week of the sale of Roth Kase USA, in Monroe, Wis., to Emmi, the largest milk processor in Switzerland. Only 17 years old, Roth Kase is one of Wisconsin’s brightest success stories: a start-up specialty and artisan cheese plant that’s won more than 100 awards for its cheeses since 1991.
Roth Kase Marketing Manager Kirsten Jaeckle told Cap Times Food Editor Susan Troller today in a story appearing in 77 Square: “This is a growth related acquisition for both organizations. Our assortment of cheeses are only growing, and there are no plans to change the direction we’ve been heading.”
Roth Kase is a highly-regarded company that employs about 125 workers and has gotten rave reviews and many awards for its Swiss style cheeses, with Gruyere being a particular flagship cheese. And, although Roth Kase is one of the 100 largest milk processing plants in the United States, it is small in comparison to Emmi, which employs over 3,000 workers worldwide, and reported sales of over $1 billion in the first half of 2008.
Critics agree, and Troller says it best: “Roth Kase has been one of the catalysts for the explosion of interest in artisan cheese making and marketing in Wisconsin. It was one of two Wisconsin cheese companies that were honored Jan. 12 by the Dairy Business Innovation Center, a not-for-profit group that offers technical assistance and encouragement to Wisconsin dairy producers and processors. The DBIC award went to Roth Kase, and to Hidden Springs Creamery of Westby, a new Wisconsin creamery which has taken the cheese world by storm with its award-winning sheep’s milk cheeses.”
So I’m very glad to hear Roth Kase USA is going to continue making cheese in Wisconsin. It’s too valuable of a company for us to lose. But, it joins a growing list of Wisconsin cheese plants now owned by foreign companies including: 
  • Arla Foods: This world-wide dairy products corporation based in Denmark, purchased White Clover Dairy in Holland, Wis., in January 2006. The sale has been very good for the company, with Arla pumping in money, renovating the old Holland plant, and retaining hundreds of jobs for the local economy.
  • Saputo: Canada’s largest dairy firm purchased Wisconsin’s largest farmer-owned cooperative, Alto Dairy, in April 2008. Alto was just in the beginning stages of converting itself from a commodity cheddar company to a specialty aged cheddar house, and had launched its highly-acclaimed Black Creek Classic Cheddar about a year before the sale. I see the Black Creek product is still in stores, so I’m very hopeful Saputo will continue the line.
  • Agropur: This Canadian dairy cooperative bought Trega Foods, a cheese company that was formed by combining three of Northeast Wisconsin’s oldest cheese plants. The sale was announced at about the same time as the Alto Dairy sale, causing many to worry if perhaps Canadians were taking over Wisconsin. True to its word, Agropur has kept all three cheese plants up and running and the company appears as strong as ever.
  • Woolwich Dairy: One of North America’s largest goat dairy processors, purchased land two years ago in Lancaster, Wis., and is now running a highly successful goat cheese plant with local workers in this small community. Word on the street is that the company is getting ready to expand the Lancaster facility due to high demand of its product in the U.S.
So as far as I can tell, the largest cheese companies left in Wisconsin that are privately owned by a U.S. citizen are: 
  • Sartori Foods, based in Plymouth, Wis. and run by third-generation Sartori family member Jim Sartori. This company purchased Antigo Cheese in 2006 and has rapidly expanded its line of American Originals.
  • BelGioioso, based in Denmark, Wis., is run by Errico Auricchio, who in 1979, moved his family from Italy to America to start his own cheese company. His children, Francesa and Gaetano, are both heavily involved in the company.
  • Sargento, owned by the Gentine family, is a Wisconsin-based dairy company that purchases cheese and crafts it into shredded blends, sliced products, “potato finishers” and cheese snacks.
  • Grassland Dairy, with 300 employees, is family-owned and currently operated by the third and fourth generations of the Wuethrich family, based in Greenwood Wis. The company just got a grant to develop and roll out a new artisan butter.
  • Klondike Cheese, owned by the Buholzer family, has a fifth generation coming up to take over the reins of this Monroe, Wis., cheese plant that makes feta, brick and muenster.
The good news is that Wisconsin still makes more cheese than any other state in the country, and we have more small, specialty and artisan cheesemakers coming online all the time. But the question remains: will we continue to be America’s Dairyland? I would say yes. Will we be owned by Americans? Time will tell.
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Cesar Cheese

Three years ago, a man named Cesar called me saying he wanted to be a cheesemaker. I must say this happens a lot. People get it in their heads that being a cheesemaker is a romantic way of life full of fortune and fame, and then they call me, only to have me burst their bubble by telling them it’s a lot of work for often little pay.

So that’s what I told Cesar and his wife when I met them three years ago. Having recently immigrated from Mexico, Cesar had a passion to make cheese like he’d eaten in his own country. I remember telling him he would have to go to school, get his cheesemaker’s license, and then intern with someone for 240 hours if he wanted to make cheese. 
It seemed like a long shot.
And then last week, Cesar called me again. “Do you remember me?” he said to me on the phone and right away, I knew it was Cesar. It turns out he did go back to school, he is working with a licensed cheesemaker, and he’s now selling his own cheese under his own label: Cesar Cheese.
“Remember you told me to go back to school? Remember you said it would be a lot of work? Well, here I am,” Cesar told me. “I am making cheese.”
And he’s making REALLY good cheese. Every Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Cesar travels from his home in Random Lake, Wis. to Roelli Cheese near Shullsburg and makes cheese. It’s for sale at the Roelli Cheese store, as well as the Piggly Wiggly in Cedarburg, and a few other little cheese shops in the area.
My favorite is his Hand Stretched String Oaxaca Style Cheese — it’s string cheese the way string cheese was meant to be. Yum. Cesar is also making Queso Fresco and Quesadilla Con Chile Rojo (with red peppers). The Queso Fresco is good on salads, tacos and tostadas.
I asked Cesar if being a cheesemaker was everything he hoped it would be, and he said emphatically answered yes, except for one thing — when he gives and sells cheese to his friends and co-workers at his day job in Random Lake, nobody believes he actually crafts it. 
“I take the cheese home and nobody believes that I make it,” Cesar says. “I need you to write about me and put a picture of me stretching my cheese on your blog – that way people will know for sure it’s really me.”
No problem, Cesar. Here you go. I wish you well in your future of cheesemaking!!
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Top 10 Cheese Moments of 2008

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyful Kwanza, insert holiday greeting here, to all of the readers of Cheese Underground! This being near the end of the year, it seems to be ’tis the season to start making Top 10 lists. So here you go, faithful readers — I’m going back through my list of 69 blog postings of the past year and picking out my favorites, mostly based on the clever comments left by all of you. Enjoy!

Top 10 Moments of Cheese Underground in 2008
10. Running for President: Turns out that responding to a request from the Cheese Underground Lady on your favorite type of cheese does not bode well in your run for the presidency. After being the only candidate to reply to my “Wisconsin Primary – It’s About Cheese” questionnaire, Mike Huckabee goes down in flames in the Feb. 19 vote. Alert Cheese Underground reader Rena contributes this news: “It’s not Wisconsin, but there is a “Barick Obama” cheese made by Lady Lazy Farm in Vermont. Never tried it, but I think this makes Barack the only presidential candidate with a namesake cheese.” Outstanding.
9. Sheepish Grin: In my post on the new Ocooch Mountain cheese crafted by Brenda Jensen of Hidden Springs Creamery, alert Cheese Underground reader WineBibber picks up on my line of: “The Jensens milk 140 ewes and ‘have lost count’ of how many other sheep they raise, Brenda says with a grin.” WineBibber asks: “Did she say this with a sheepish grin?” Excellent. I’ve never met a pun I didn’t like. Keep em’ coming.
8. Best Cheese Shop in the UK: It’s always good to know that often times, readers don’t even need to actually read my posts to start their own conversations and arguments. My favorite case of this was my Sassy Cow Creamery post, in which I delightfully describe a new milk bottling operation, only to have the comments descend into an argument of what cheese shop the readers like best in England. What???? Something got lost in the translation on this one.
7. Cheese People: You have to give persistent people credit where credit is due, and my 2008 “Your persistence just paid off” award goes to the dude who created the “Cheese People” website, where every cheese is made into a personality. This fellow has been emailing me all year, with updates on his “cheese people,” and was very dutiful in randomly posting poems on my posts, such as his ode to “Spring by Charlie Cheshire,” which I guess somehow corresponds with my post on Red Barn Family Farms. Big sigh.
6. Better Butter: Turns out several of you share my fetish with butter, which is always a good thing. It’s never fun to be a freak by yourself. So a big thank you to alert Cheese Underground readers Cristie and Resident Cheesemonger, who rallied to my call for Better Butter. In good news, my new fridge has a secret drawer, all the better to hide the $8.75 pound/butter from my husband. 🙂
5. Swiss Mafia: I unwittingly unleashed a wave of fear amongst the cheese-eating world with my off-the-cuff reference to the Swiss Mafia of Green County in my English Hollow post. This one generated lots of emails asking if such an organization really exists (it does not – at least, I don’t think so), but my favorite comment was again by Resident Cheesemonger, who noted: “I’m a sucker for a good quality cheddar, so I’ll have to keep my eyes open for that one (assuming it ever makes it to my neck of the woods- Boston). Of course, if I’m buying this English Hollow cheese, should I be worried about the Swiss cheese mafia coming after me? ;-)” Be afraid, be very afraid.
4. Everyone Wants My Job: It’s good to be reminded every now and then that my job is awesome. Especially on those days when my non-cheese friends openly mock me for writing about cheese for a living. Many thanks to all alert Cheese Underground readers who shared their love on my Big Ed’s post. Feel free to mail any monetary donations my way. Just kidding. Not really.
3. Incubator Cheesemaker Bob Wills: Many thanks to all the cheesemakers who make my job really fun, especially my post on Bob Wills, which led to my first story assignment in the new Culture Magazine. Check out page 24 of the premier issue of Culture – now on newsstands – for a feature story on Mr. Bob. Better yet, if you’re still looking for last minute Christmas gifts, I’d highly recommend giving a subscription. The only thing better than eating cheese is reading about it, right? Wink, wink.
2. Cheese Wars: Only in Wisconsin, would a pound of artisan cheese be bet on a basketball game. Larry’s Market co-owner Steve Ehlers, got the last laugh, however, when Marquette beat UW-Madison, and Ken Monteleone of Fromagination shipped him a pound of Dunbarton Blue. Larry even sent me a photo of his sister, their friend Sara Hill, and the big man himself enjoying the new American Original crafted by Chris Roelli of Shullsburg. Watch this cheese, boys and girls … it’s going to be big. 
Insert virtual drum roll … and my favorite moment of 2008 was:
1. Hearing From Alert Readers Everywhere: During the past 12 months, I’ve gotten emails from everywhere between Dubai and the UK, giving me advice on cheese and asking for advice on where to get cheese. I dutifully try and respond to all requests for information and am continually flattered that you all think I may actually know what I’m talking about. Keep up the comments and I’ll keep up the writing. 
See you all in 2009!! Happy New Year!!!
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Dunbarton Blue

It’s embarrassing to say, but about three weeks ago, I was getting cheesed out. Too many tastings and too many mediocre cheeses had crossed my path and I was just about to think maybe I should go on a cheese hiatus until the new year to cleanse out my taste buds.

And then Chris Roelli gave me a call.
Thank god for Wisconsin cheesemakers. Leave it to an up-and-comer to bring me out of my December cheese doldrums (it doesn’t help that as I write this it is six degrees BELOW freaking zero, 25 mph winds and three feet of snow outside — the wind is actually driving snow through my window cracks, but alas, I digress …).
So last week I headed to southwest Wisconsin to see Chris and find out what was so important that I must visit him in person. Turns out he is unveiling his new Dunbarton Blue — the cheese wagered by Ken Montelone of Fromagination earlier this month — and Chris wanted my advice on how to describe it to buyers.
Here’s one word for ya: yummy.
But if you’d like a technical review, here you go: Dunbarton Blue is an earthy cheddared-blue, open air cured, giving it the feel of an English cheddar, but spiked with the delicate, subtle flavor of a fine blue. 
Plus, it’s really pretty.
Currently available only at Fromagination in Madison at upwards of $20/pound, I predict once buyers from around the country start tasting this cheese, it will be in high demand. Chris only has eight 7-pound wheels ready right now, but in about four weeks, he’ll have another 30 wheels ready for sale. 
Chris named the Dunbarton Blue after a neighboring township and has been tinkering with the recipe for more than a year. He makes the cheese by hand in a small, 300-gallon artisan cheese vat in his small creamery between Shullsburg and Darlington. He aged the first few wheels at Willi Lehner’s cave in Blue Mounds, but is almost done with building his own affinage facility. Chris is renovating the original cave used by the cheese plant – surrounded by earthen walls on three sides with a rock wall foundation — and plans to age the next batch on his own turf.
Chris is also redesigning his website so that anyone and everyone can buy his cheeses directly. It’s not quite finished, but once it’s live (around February) you should be able to go here and order Dunbarton Blue online. Whoo-hoo!
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Brie in a Log

President Brie – made in my hometown of Belmont, Wis. — seems to get a bad rap. Just last week, Murray’s Cheese’s weekly newsletter promoted its “Recession Diet” class by proclaiming that it is still possible to “stick to a budget without resorting to box wine and Presidenté brie.”

Ouch. 
I have to admit that I haven’t had President Brie since I was a teenager. My dad and I used to eat it with crackers at the local club in the winter before playing our weekly tournament game of Smear (it’s a card game) on Wednesday nights. It was a big treat. As a household that usually had nothing but Velveeta in its fridge, eating local brie was a big deal.
So it was with fond memories of my childhood that I picked up the new President Brie Log currently being touted in supermarkets everywhere. It’s a new shape “perfect for crackers” and comes ready to slice with a “thin edible rind.”
I took the Brie log, along with a box of Carr’s Crackers and a jar of local Black Cherry jam to — guess what — my monthly outing with girlfriends where we play dice in a tournament (it doesn’t seem like anyone plays cards anymore, much less the old standby game of Smear). 
I sliced the brie onto the crackers, dropped a small dollop of jam on top and voila – instant appetizer that looked classy and actually tasted really good. So, if you’re looking for an easy hors d’œuvre that takes about three minutes to prepare, the new Sliceable Log of President Brie is your cheese. 
And if anybody out there still plays Smear, let me know. I’m always looking for a card game.