Today we are talking about Holey Cheese.
What are the holes? They are groovy but why are they there?
This cheese is commonly known as “Swiss Cheese”. Which is funny because, The Swiss don't make “Swiss Cheese”,
“Swiss cheese” is a North American, marketing term for any sweet, stretchy cheese with holes in it, regardless of where it’s made. In Switzerland they make cheeses like
- Appenzeller
- Raclette
- Gruyere
- Mont d’Or
- Emmental
- and about 400 other amazing cheeses
I mentioned Emmental! This is probably the most, stereo-typical Holey cheese. Emmental gets its name from the Emme Valley, where it’s made, and it’s 1 meter wide, weighs over 100kg and takes 1,000 litres of milk to make just one cheese. Can you imagine the alpine cheesemaker with his funny little hat, and a big 1,000 litre copper vat with a fire under it to warm the milk. He would work all day and end up with just ONE cheese, one whopping big cheese though. Actually it’s the largest cheese in the World! No wonder it's called the "King of cheeses”. But I'll tell you more about the King of cheeses a later episode.
We had the opportunity to buy 5kg of Emmental recently, and it honestly didn’t last long at all. Such a moorish cheese. Totally delicious.
The Holes,
…someone told me that the holes are the bits that the mice ate...
When I was a kid, someone told me that the holes are the bits that the mice ate, now of course that’s not true, but if it’s not mice, then what are the holes.
Well the holes are actually called Eyes, cool name hey. And they are gas bubbles formed by Special cultures called "Propionibacterium free den reachy subsp. shermanii” Very cool name, but let's just shorten it to… Propioni. All cheeses have cultures, for creating different characteristics, but the Propioni produce CO2, bubbles.
If you look at the shape of one of these cheeses, you’ll see that the sides are convex, when it was first made, it had straight sides, and a flat top, like a cylinder, but as the bubbles formed, it’s ballooned out the shape of the cheese.
In order to test the quality of the cheese, the affineur will take a special little hammer and tap tap tap on the cheese so they can listen for the hollow sound. Much like a dad choosing the best watermelon. Tap a few, “That’s the good one, right there”.
If a cheese doesn’t develop eyes is logically called a “Blind Cheese” and when it’s really good, the eyes develop little droplets of calcium called “Angel Tears”. Cute hey, Tears, Blind, Eyes…
Health Benefits.
These Propioni cultures might have a secret super power! Recent research has focused on possible benefits incurred from consuming Propioni, which is thought to cleanse the digestive system and possibly lead to a cure for colon cancer. Considering an estimated one billion of these living propioni cells are present in each gram of Emmental Cheese, that’s Gouda news for us cheese lovers.
