Posts Tagged ‘cheese’
WWSPE?
Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, probably ate fare similar to today’s pricey health foods such as cereal, fish and seaweed, according to a researcher who has studied the country’s 5th century diet.
Food historian Regina Sexton said records kept by monks showed that Patrick, who is credited with ridding Ireland of snakes and spreading the Christian message, most likely drew his sustenance from cereals and dairy produce such as sour milk, flavored curd mixtures and a variety of soft and hard cheeses.
“It is safe to say that obesity was not a problem in those days, and that the fare was seasonal, wholesome and modest by today’s standards,” said Sexton of University College Cork.
A corresponding factor in reduced obesity had to be the hard work. Field hands back then often ate 2 lbs. of cheese per day. But, they used up more than four thousand calories at work.
Having arrived in Ireland as a slave after what was probably a cold and hungry journey from Britain, the future saint most likely snacked on wet preparations like porridge, gruel and meal pastes.
Other culinary delights he could choose from included hen and goose eggs, honey, curds, seaweeds and apples, which he could garnish with a dash of wild garlic or watercress.
Fish like salmon, trout and eel or meats like hand-cured pork were also on 5th century Irish menus, while flat breads made from oats, barley, a little rye and some of the altogether more exclusive wheat, added some bulk.
“Ironically, much of the food available then is what we call ‘health food’ now, which comes of course, at a premium price,” Sexton said.
I’ll forgive him converting Ireland to Christianity.
As for the “health food” comparison – a great deal of what the article discusses is Ireland’s answer to a Mediterannean Diet. The only goodies that get expensive are some of the seafood if you live in the Southern Rockies as I do. Otherwise, I grew up with most of the same foodstuffs in New England. Maybe a bit more white bread and beef – my family back in the Outer Hebrides were cattle drovers for centuries. No doubt they got a bit of beef, once in a while.
Never say no to a panda
Space company’s rocket test flight had secret cargo
Call it one small step for a cheese, one giant leap fromage-kind.
A wheel of Le Brouere cheese was the secret cargo aboard the SpaceX Dragon, the first commercial spacecraft to be recovered from Earth orbit, the company revealed Thursday. SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk hinted at the cargo after the capsule’s successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday afternoon, suggesting it had something to do with the British comedy troupe Monty Python.
The block of fermented curd was a nod to one of the group’s best-known sketches, “Cheese Shop.” The wheel, described only as “very big,” was being towed back to California aboard a barge along with the spacecraft and “basking in the glow of being the first cheese to travel to orbit on a commercial spacecraft,” company spokeswoman Kirstin Brost told CNN…
The Dragon was launched into low-Earth orbit on Wednesday from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center and splashed down about 500 miles off the coast of Southern California about three hours later. It was the first flight under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, which aims to develop commercial supply services to the international space station.
Bravo! For the flight and the cheese both.
Grayheads should eat more cheese!
Scientists in Finland have discovered that cheese can help preserve and enhance the immune system of the elderly by acting as a carrier for probiotic bacteria. The research, published in FEMS Immunology & Medical Microbiology, reveals that daily consumption of probiotic cheese helps to tackle age-related changes in the immune system.
“The increase in the proportion of aged individuals in modern society makes finding innovative ways to thwart the deterioration of the immune system a priority,” said lead author Dr Fandi Ibrahim… “The intake of probiotic bacteria has been reported to enhance the immune response through other products and now we have discovered that cheese can be a carrier of the same bacteria.”
Dr Ibrahim’s team believe that the daily intake of probiotic cheese can tackle the age-related deterioration of the immune system known as immunosenescene. This deterioration means the body is unable to kill tumour cells and reduces the immune response to vaccinations and infections. Infectious diseases, chronic inflammation disorders and cancer are hallmarks of immunosenescene…
The results revealed a clear enhancement of natural and acquired immunity…
I’m really going to piss off my wife with yet another justification for keeping a slab of nice stinky Morbier in the fridge.
And now, a State Microbe
There it was, amid the long list of crucial bills that state legislators in Wisconsin were racing to vote on before their session ends next week: A bill to select the state’s official microbe. Yes, microbe.
Peculiar, perhaps, until one considers what appeared to be the extremely short list of contenders (one) for this state honor — none other than Lactococcus lactis, the bacterium used to make cheddar, Colby and Monterey Jack cheese, and an unsung hero in this, the nation’s No. 1 cheese-producing state.
“The first time I heard the idea, I thought, I’ve got more important things to do than spending my time honoring a microbe,” said Gary Hebl, a Democratic state representative who proposed the bill which, he says, would make Wisconsin the first state in the nation to grant such a designation. “But this microbe is really a very hard worker…”
The proposal in Wisconsin had faced only one detractor in committee – “the opponent was clearly lactose intolerant,” Mr. Hebl said.
The article mentions in passing that here in New Mexico we have a State Question: Red or Green. There is a third answer for those of you who can’t figure out which chile sauce you prefer. It is “Christmas.”
Breast milk cheese on the menu?
Take four cups of breast milk, add rennet, salt and yoghurt – yes, four cups of breast milk, according to a recipe created by New York chef and restaurateur Daniel Angerer, who posted his formula for maple caramelized pumpkin encrusted cheese on his blog, and offered “whoever wants to try it is welcome to try it as long as supply lasts”.
Angerer runs the Manhattan restaurant Klee, and the breast milk is supplied by his wife and restaurant co-owner Lori Mason after the couple found they had an excess supply in their freezer intended for their baby daughter Arabella. Angerer explained on his blog:
“My spouse is feeding our baby with breast milk. We are fortunate to have plenty of pumped mommy’s milk on hand and we even freeze a good amount of it – my spouse actually thinks of donating some to an infant milk bank which could help little babies in Haiti and such but for the meantime (the milk bank requires check-ups which takes a little while) our small freezer ran out of space. To throw it out would be like wasting gold…”
Angerer told the Toronto Star that customers at his restaurant have been asking to try the cheese and he has prepared some amuse-bouche – canapé of breast-milk cheese with figs and Hungarian pepper – but that he has no plans to sell it: “That weirds me out,” he said.
Of the two batches he’s made so far, the first tasted salty-sweet and the second was slightly spicy. “It depends on what my wife has eaten. That directs the flavour,” he told the Star…
City authorities have told the restaurant to keep its breast milk cheese away from customers. “The restaurant knows that cheese made from breast milk is not for public consumption, whether sold or given away,” a spokeswoman for the city’s department of health said.
No comment.
RTFA – the recipe is included.
Mouse Fitness: nutrition & exercise
Don’t be put off by the middle. Let it play through to the end – it’s worth it.
Thanks, Jägermeister
Britain outnumbers France and Italy with cheese
Britain has overtaken France and Italy in the number of cheeses it manufactures. According to Juliet Harbutt, a global authority on cheese who organises the British Cheese Awards, about 700 varieties now boast a “Made in Britain” label. This is 100 more varieties than France produces, and twice as many as Italy.
Britain’s cheese-making renaissance began 20 years ago when many of the nation’s 200 specialist cheese companies started operations. The big reduction, 15 years ago, in the powers of the Milk Marketing Board, which had bought up most milk from producers, and the introduction of European Union milk quotas in the 1980s, both proved the spur for dairy farmers to look for other ways of using their core product.
The most famous of British cheeses is perhaps Cheddar, and some specialist varieties can sell for as much as 15 pounds a kilo (24 U.S. dollars). There are 10 families of British cheese, amongst them Cheshire, Stilton and Double Gloucester. However, British manufacturers have shown a rare skill in devising new recipes. But like any bespoke product, they are mainly produced in small production runs of just a few tonnes a year…
France’s postwar leader, General Charles de Gaulle once famously said, “How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?” Gordon Brown may be pondering the same question as he tucks into some Stilton during the festive break.
This won’t make any headway with folks whose only association with food in the UK is figuring out who ate all the pies at a football match in Wigan.
Hard times for Parmigiano makers have Italy ponying up the lettuce
Daylife/AP Photo by Marco Vasini
The world is bailing out banks and car companies. Italy is coming to the rescue of parmigiano cheese. In an effort to help producers of the cheese commonly grated over spaghetti, fettuccine and other pastas, the Italian government is buying 100,000 wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano and donating them to charity.
Of course, in the U.S., we’d pour gasoline over them and set them alight.
Italian consumers seem to support the cheese bailout, which also includes a purchase of 100,000 wheels of another grating variety, Grana Padano. The operation will cost €50 million.
To pay for the parmigiano wheels, the Italian government is dipping into a special European Union fund meant to help feed needy people.
At the root of the parmigiano problem is that the industry is made up of about 430 small, family-owned businesses that dot the plains outside the northern city of Parma. One consortium of parmigiano makers, called ParmaReggio, is the biggest entity, with 18.5% of the Italian market. But most producers are like Mr. Iemmi, who runs a small business with seven employees.
There’s little parmigiano makers can do — partly because producers have to follow strict legal requirements for their cheese to obtain the official “Parmigiano Reggiano” seal of approval.
They could learn what a number of artisan Italian wine and olive oil producers have done already. Sell direct. Find a sole agent for an export market.
We buy olive oil by the case of quarter-liter bottles. Paying a case price from the sole agent for the U.S. – online – for a brand we enjoy, we pay a great deal less than through a brick-and-mortar retailer. The same producer sells only direct to families in back in Italy.
Thanks, Helen
Globalization battle – corporation vs. artisan – over French cheese
Philippe Alléosse’s cellar in Paris is an Aladdin’s cave for lovers of French cheese.
His temperature- and humidity-controlled subterranean storage rooms in the 17th Arrondissement are packed with carefully aged varieties, among them Brin d’Amour from Corsica, Bethmale from the Pyrénées and Bleu de Gex from Haut-Jura. He knows just when to add a dash of water or Chablis to the rind and when the product should finally be released to the public.
But Alléosse, premier maître artisan fromager affineur, or master cheese ager, fears that he is one of a dying breed.
He is worried that industrial processes – from sourcing through production and distribution – are squeezing small farmers and threatening to deny consumers the choice, complexity and quality of a product that is considered a luxury in many countries but a staple on French tables…
The debate seems to go to the heart of an acutely French dilemma: whether to embrace globalization, or to fight to preserve heritage. For now, the tussle is centered on the process of pasteurization and the effect that it is having on the product and the market.
“Raw milk is the battlefield,” said Pierre Boisard, a sociologist who is author of “Camembert: A National Myth.” One mass producer in particular, Lactalis, has altered the landscape through its production of traditional products using industrial methods, he said.
“It’s a problem,” he added. “It hurts the brands of the traditional producers” who have “legitimate grievances.”
Generally, this is an apples vs. oranges battle. The small artisan producers don’t have the contamination problems afflicting mass-producers, no need for pasteurization. The heavy hitters like Lactalis use the safety smear as a club to cut traditional producers out of the marketplace.
We went through this for years with prosciutto from Italy and still have problems trying to get traditional Jambon from Spain. Because of the same tricks played by American meatpackers – and their wonderful record of cleanliness and safety. Hah!
Read the whole article. Lots of info.
