So I’m not entirely sure how it started.  Or where.  Or when.  Maybe Rachael Ray shrieked about it on her show one day.

No. I will not use shredded cheese or tomatillos on anything.

Or was it on a previous cover of Food & Wine Magazine?  Maybe?  Last summer?  All I know is that right now, everyone’s favorite designer cheese is the Italian classic: Burrata.  It’s sort of like this season’s French Bulldog of the cheeseworld (and when did everyone get one of those smash faced, snub tailed snorters?  Damn, they’re cute but why did everyone have to go out and get out?)  Hoardes of people come waltzing into the shop, acting like Scarlett O’Hara, waving and blowing kisses to an adoring mass of fans and stop square in front of the case and demand the product.

So, I figured I’d give the reading online masses a little brief on the history of burrata so that when you sit at home in front of your A/C, pop in “Heathers,” crack open a bottle of something sparkling and alcoholic and go about mowing down on an entire ball of burrata, you’ll know what you’re getting into.

So what is this mysterious “burrata” that everyone in Williamsburg craves?

Burrata is basically a hollowed out ball of mozzarella that has been filled with mini-mozzarella shreds and cream.  It is then wrapped in asphodel leaves, which are distant relatives to the leek.  (Also in Greek legend, it’s believed that the asphodel has a strong connection to the underworld.  It was also thought to be a remedy for poisonous snake bites, against sorcery, and as food for poor Greeks!)  The leaves are an indicator as to how fresh the cheese is.  The greener the leaves, the fresher the burrata. It’s super rich and decadent and goes great with tomatoes, prosciutto, fresh cracked pepper, and light summer wines.

So onto the history.

Burrata dates back to the dawn of time.  We are thinking mid-Mesozoic era.

Ugh. This show totally ruled.

Just kidding.  Burrata is actually one of the few cheeses that we are able to pinpoint to a particular time and place on a specific Italian farm.  It’s also a relatively new cheese – which may explain it’s recent rocket launch to the top of cheese popularity.

Burrata was first made about 90 years ago in the Italian town of Andria, which is in the Murgia area, which is part of the the Southeastern region of Apulia (this is like some Lord of the Rings shit right here).  Originally made on the Bianchini family farm, burrata was at first  just a really good local cheese made from the milk of their most cuddly and cute water buffalo.  (JK.  Water buffalo are huge. And smelly and actually kind of terrifying.  God bless anyone who has to milk these jerks.)

The heel of Italy never tasted so good.

Today, you can find burrata made from both cow and buffalo milk (the one we carry at BCS is made of cow’s milk), but originally it came from water buffalo.  Water buffalo milk is usually richer and higher in protein than cow’s milk, yielding a fattier, richer, more delicious product.  Also, buffalo milk doesn’t have carotene in it, which is a yellow pigment often found in cow’s milk.  Therefore, fresh buffalo milk cheeses will always be PURE WHITE.  How’s that for supremacy?  But, the only problem is that buffalo milk cheeses tend to be twice as expensive as any others.  Mainly because of the white thing.  I can’t make this kind of thing up, people.

Anywho, back to the legend of Burrata from the Bianchini Farm in the town of Andria in the area of Murgia in the region of Apulia.  (I’m telling you.  Lord of the Rings.)  So it was just a humble farmstead cheese.  Then, in the post WW2 factory boom where food and everything went all factory on us, a couple of factories started making burrata.  It became popular in factories that also made mozzarella, because it meant that all of the scraps of the mozzarella could be used.  Nothing would go to waste!  So these factories would fill their hollow balls of mozzarella with “ritagli” (or “rags”) that were left over from earlier mozzarella production.  Talk about SuStAiNaBlE!!!!  But even then, it didn’t really leave the ethereal plains of Apulia because it was such a fresh product.  It needed to be refrigerated from start to finish.  So, burrata didn’t make it out of Italy until the invention of really good refrigerated shipping.  And didn’t make it to the U.S. until the cocaine boom in the 90’s when everyone craved things that were only PURE WHITE.

These days, fresh burrata is flown into the country one day a week.  Usually Wednesday night or Thursday morning.  So it is literally the party boy of the cheese world.  It only shows up for the weekend and then disappears until the following Friday evening.

Literally. Party boy.

Ok, that’s all I can really say about burrata. I filled up a lot of space about this one cheese, but it has literally been on my BRAINZ for like 2 months now. Seriously people. Let’s ditch the burrata and let’s talk some Tomme de Bordeaux because OH MY GAWD that would be good with some sparkling rose. Ok. That is all.

I will miss you.

So a couple nights ago was the SERIES finale of Lost.  It will be no more.  Ever.  Never?What makes it more awkward is that now we aren’t going to have anything to talk about at the Shop since this one show has taken up a good chunk of our daily conversation.   But, because my mind is no longer occupied with the perils of the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815, I can calmly return to the world of blogging. (God, all of this sounds so terribly dorky.  ABC mini-dramas? Blogs? I promise we aren’t that nerdy.  Well….maybe.  Yeahhhhh….)

This week I thought I would add to the cheese-ipedia with some cheesemonger lingo that we throw around a lot.  Affineur, rennet, thermalized (although if you are a loyal blog fan you SHOULD know what that means), coagulate, hung over. So on and so forth. Sometimes people understand what we are talking about.  And sometimes, people have no clue what the words coming out our mouths mean.  But that’s another story.

I thought I would take a minute to explain what we are trying to say when we vocab word dump all over your cheese-loving face.  So let’s take a walk down dictionary lane with the word “Affineur.”

According to “Wiktionary.org,” the term “affineur” refers to “One who ages cheeses and purveys it.”  Wow.  Thanks wiki-whatever for being so broad and vague.  I mean, sure.  You gave me some tiny little basis to start on my quest for ultimate cheese knowledge.  But overall – NOT HELPFUL.

So what do we know about the word “affineur” already:

- It’s French (duh – those guys invented cheese and love to remind us of that every other minute of the day).

- They do something with aging cheeses and then “purvey” it.  (Purvey?  What century is this.  Where did we just go.)

Let’s venture further.  Together.  Cute.

The word “affiner” in French means “to refine or to make finer.”  And the word “affinage” means “ripening.”  So. If you add word A to word B…you get “affineur” – one who refines the ripening process to create perfect little wheels of cheese.

Look at this affineur. He has great hands. So big and strong....alright creep-o.

In other words, an affineur is an expert at aging cheese.  But why do you need an EXPERT to age cheese?  Don’t you just put a blob of crap in a mold and let it sit in the hot sun for three weeks, coagulating and getting all yummy and BUBBLY??!

No.  C’mon guys.  Why would you ever think it was that simple.

Coaxing milk into cheese is a tricky process.  Everything affects the cheese making process.  Humidity. Heat. Any sort of bacteria lurking around in the cheese cave.  (Oh yeah – that’s another thing.  Affineurs spend a lot of time in caves.  They are bats.  Yes.  They fly around the cheese with their little wings and fangs and flop around from wheel to wheel checking temperature.  But seriously – the cheese cave is simply a dark, temperature and humidity controlled room (usually around 5o to 55 degrees) designed to hold wheels of cheese that are aging.  Sometimes they are actually caves.  Sometimes basements.  Sometimes they aren’t even underground.  But that’s what we call these aging rooms – caves.)

Cheese producers are the ones who start the cheeses out – milk the cows, add the rennet, add the necessary secret blend of herbs and spices…and then they ship the cheeses off to the affineur to make sure it turns out the way they want it to be.  And good affineurs can age the cheeses in certain ways to make sure the product is totally dope and better than anything else out there.

The affineur makes sure that the humidity and temperature and bacteria present are perfect for each type of cheese.  They make sure that the rind forms in the right way.  They flip and rotate the wheels so that the butterfat in the milk gets evenly distributed.  They wash and brush certain wheels in brine or wine or beer or bat juice to give different cheeses different flavor profiles.  They decide how fast the cheese is going to age, where, on what kind of wooden plank (different types of wood draw unnecessary moisture out of cheeses) the cheese is going to sit on, and when the cheese can leave the cave and be lifted by millions of little bat wings and delicately smooshed into our cheese case.

If it wasn’t for the affineur, you could sum up the cheese making world in two words – shit show.

They are the guys who make sure that your Gruyere tastes like Gruyere and that Loire Valley goat cheeses taste so tangy and fresh and crumble just so on your palate!  They are like cheese artist ninjas who like to hang out in caves!  They are totally the Dungeon masters in D & D!

I actually have no idea who this little yoda thing is, but he pops up a million types if you Google search "dungeon master..."

One popular example of an affineur is the snuggly and very French, Herve Mons.

Cheese experts love to sniff things.

Herve Mons is a third-generation cheese ager and basically a P.I.M.P. in the cheese aging game.  He has caves in the Rhone-Alps and does international distribution of French cheese!  He knows cheese better than anybody and because of him we get delicious Camembert, Gabietou, and Tommette des Alpes.  Here is a video about him that a national supermarket chain that I won’t name put out (but you can give yourself a pat on the back when you figure out who put it together.  And it features one of our favorite reps, Laure!  She’s da bomb and I’m jealous of her cheese knowledge.  And her job.  Give me a job, Herve….)

Ok. Well. I think I’ve successfully covered this topic. Pretty cool, right! So now, when someone at the shop mentions the word “affineur,” you can tell us to shut our snooty mouths up and just hand over the sample. And if you say it’s because of the blog I might love you. Because I think my mom reads the blog more than anyone (hi mom!) and I wonder if any strangers out there actually do.

So until next time loverz!

And Julia – I hear your request for RECIPES! We are working on it. We are perfecting our pictoral process and deciding on what exactly to make. But I promise it’ll be DELICIOUS. And you’ll probably get to eat it. Shweet.

Hey everybody!  I know it’s been a while since the Bedford Cheese Shop blog has been up and running.  Two whole weeks.  But don’t worry!  All of you fans out there who have turned into shriveled little prune like turds due to a lack of cheese information, Cheesepinions, and snark are now gong to be relieved.

This week, as promised, I thought I’d write something about a cheese term that I just noticed popping up all over the place - Thermalized Milk.

I have a feeling that this process has been around for a while, but I’m just noticing it as our store tries to sneak younger cheeses into the shop.  But what exactly is this process?  Is it actually cool?  Or is it yet another stupid restriction that the FDA imposes on cheese importation that prevents us from getting delicious dairy goodies into the country?  I set about one afternoon to do some research and figure out if thermalized milk is too kewl for school or is a total beta (fish).

Let’s do some back story first.

Imagine the world before 1865.  I’ll sum it up for you – everyone was a bunch of pussies.  That’s right.  Yeah, yeah – everyone was more polite, the world ran at a slower pace, art was a part of daily life and architecture, things were simpler…

Ugh. Gross. All these people have polio.

FALSE.

The world was terrible and people were dying left and right for absolutely no reason.  One day you wake up and have a runny nose? BAM. Tuberculosis.  Dead.  Your friend who lives next door discovers a funny spot on his arm?  KABLOOEY.  Leprosy.  Have fun losing body parts on a remote island until you are nothing but hair and nubs.  But then came along the Industrial Revolution and the dawning of an era of new scientific and social innovation.  Wheeeeee!

This is totally the world before Louis Pastuer.

During this time, Louis Pasteur, a hunky young French whippersnapper and microbiologist, set about trying to figure out a way to prevent milk from just up and killing everyone he knew.  Milk can hide a lot of bad bacteria and was just obliterating hoards of these lame nineteenth century wusses with no immune system.  So he figured out that if you bring milk up to the temperature of 161 degrees and keep it there for 15 to 20 seconds, you kill off much of the evil bacteria that lives within!

Oh, yeah, Louis. Give me those bedroom eyes.

Hence the dawning of Pasteurized Milk.  Sweet.  Count Chocula was never to be the same.

There are lots of really dope cheeses made with pasteurized milk.  Stilton. Humboldt Fog. Several types of Italian Gorgonzola.  So good!  Nomnomnom.  Finally!  Pregnant women fear not!  Your babies won’t catch listeria and you can rest well at night knowing that you can successfully binge on designer cheese.  Good for you.

But what’s that?  There are FOOLS out there that like to ignore the safety of pasteurization? What what?  Do they have a death wish?!

Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized, therefore allowing the natural flora and fauna you find in milk to die a slow and natural death.  Many gourmands think that raw milk cheese is superior to pasteurized milk cheese because the bacterias and mold weren’t cooked alive and killed way too fast (like Cannibal Holocaust! Has anyone seen that movie?  Totally insane.).  This means that the flavor of the cheese is going to be more complex and interesting for the palate.

So. Good.

I mean, yes.  Raw milk cheeses taste different.  But usually not noticeably.  If you were given a really good piece of pasteurized cheese you wouldn’t spit it out because it tastes like gasoline.  You’d probably munch on it and think of how nice it was that this stranger just gave you cheese.  I find that you can taste major differences when you have two types of the same cheese – one that is pasteurized and one that is raw (i.e., Stichelton and Stilton).  And when you are tasting them back to back.

But raw milk purists are snobs and annoying – so get off your dangerous milk soap box and eat some cheese with the rest of us.  If it’s good it’s good.

So, there’s one more thing to know before we even get into thermalized milk. After WW2, America went into this weird 1950’s OCD cleanliness obsession.  Germaphobes everywhere.  So, in 1949, the FDA restricted the selling of raw milk cheeses that are younger than 60 days.  Supposedly all the natural bacteria die by then.  Great.  Way to destroy American palates forever FDA.  This means that here in the good ol’ US of A we can’t import many of the delicious, young, gooey, delicate, creamy raw milk cheeses of Europe.   And they hoard them. Because Europeans are selfish.

OCD much? Just pop another pill, drink a wine spritzer and CHILL OUT.

Just kidding.  This just means we bring in young cheeses made out of pasteurized milk – and while super yummers, they are just not the same.

So this brings us to the whole point of this rant.  Thermalized milk. Ah yes.  It just sounds great, doesn’t it?  Like the Jetsons invented it and it all takes place in some sort of Willy Wonka influenced factory where small orange men sing songs of dairy and salmonella.

Basically, thermalized milk is in between raw and pasteurized.  The milk is heated up to between 100 to 160 degrees for 15 to 30 seconds.  So.  Lesser temperature for a longer period of time.  What this does is very, very, very slowly pasteurize the milk.  The bacteria within very slowly die, but not as slowly as raw milk so they are allowed to influence the flavor of the finished product more.  It’s then allowed to cool and is reheated again when the cheese is made (because all milk is usually heated during the cheese making process).  So….it’s raw milk cheese that’s pasteurized.  Right?

Nope.

According to the FDA, thermalized milk cheese is technically raw.  And according to the EU, thermalized milk cheese is technically pasteurized.  Come on guys.  Get it together.  This still means that thermalized milk cheeses have to be aged 60 days before coming into the country.  Lame.

The FDA does have a point; thermalization doesn’t kill off listeria – the biggest fear of raw milk.  (I mean, the symptoms of listeria basically sound like food poisoning.  Fever, body ache, SOMETIMES puking and pooping, and “confusion.” Which sucks.  Or sounds like bad drugs.  Except it can kill fetuses.  Which also sucks.  But women all over Europe eat raw milk cheese and are still having healthy babies.  Although that may explain why Europe is….Europe.)

Ugh, losers.

So – is thermalized milk that cool?  Not really.  But kind of – a better way to put it is: Thermalized milk COULD be cool.  Thermalized milk cheeses taste more like raw milk cheeses.  But, in the USA, we can’t import them unless they are 60 days or older.  So…..why not just make raw milk versions and import those?

This would all change if the FDA considered thermalized milk to be as safe as pasteurized milk.  That would mean we would be able to import thermalized milk cheeses that are super young because they are “pasteurized.”  This would open up a new world of young cheeses and tastiness for America!  Imagine – French goat cheeses that were 11 days old.  Or gooey Swiss cow’s milk cheeses that were aged for three weeks.  The flavor profiles that we could enjoy!  It would be like spring mountain air, touched with flavors of hay flowers and cool glacier streams.  You could basically taste the Von Trapps in every bite (minus the whole Nazi thing…).

So…come on FDA.  Ignore pregnant women for like 12 seconds and think about the rest of us that like to eat our feelings.  And let us eat our young thermalized cheeses.

At BCS, we carry a couple of thermalized Swiss cheeses (for example, the friendly and approachable Wolzen) so stop on by to taste them!  I tried to Google some of them but they are no where to be found on the internet…so you’ll just have to come in and try for yourselves.

Well that’s all from me….your favorite cheese ranter.  I promise I’ll be better at updating.  I’m all over this social media stuff now.  It’s my new “thing.”  I even went to a discussion group about it the other night – if you come in and ask me I’ll tell you all the hilarious details.  I’ll give you a hint: it involves Trader Joe’s Sauvignon Blanc and Yelp.

Great.  Ok.  BYE BYE!