Speaker 1: Oh hi, just a quick note up top. So this
Speaker 1: episode is all about cheese, and of course we touch
Speaker 1: on the history and the making and the science of it.
Speaker 1: We don't go into a lot about the dairy industry itself,
Speaker 1: because that would be a series of episodes. We do
Speaker 1: talk about veganism, We do talk about plant based options.
Speaker 1: Especially in part two, we talk about some animal ethics
Speaker 1: and some more sustainable cheeses. So we do talk about that.
Speaker 1: But in general, if you are very, very opposed to
Speaker 1: anything that is animal product related, this one might not
Speaker 1: be your favorite episode, or you might learn some things
Speaker 1: that you can put in your toolkit if you were
Speaker 1: talking to people about a plant based diet. But I
Speaker 1: just wanted to give that heads up. I know dairies
Speaker 1: not for everyone, and I see you, I hear you.
Speaker 1: But for those that do like cheese, here we go.
Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's the monster who returns emails at four
Speaker 1: pm on a Friday. Sorry everyone, Ali Ward, this is cheese.
Speaker 1: This is a top that you have told me you've
Speaker 1: been craving for years. It's a hot, stinky delivery that
Speaker 1: will melt in your ears.
Speaker 2: Let's hit it.
Speaker 1: So I use the internet to do the equivalent of
Speaker 1: hiding behind a plant hoping to catch the eye of
Speaker 1: this ologist, who is at the top of Culture's hot
Speaker 1: list of nine cheese Stars to Watch and has been
Speaker 1: featured in Fogue and Seber magazines. They're also the founder
Speaker 1: of cheese advocacy group Own Your Funk. They've won awards
Speaker 1: at the International Cheesemonger Invitational single handedly quartering a fifty
Speaker 1: pound round of parmesan with a knife and her two hands,
Speaker 1: which is usually a four person job. And I slid
Speaker 1: into their DMS and when I got a return message,
Speaker 1: the heavens parted so excited. So let's talk cheese. But first,
Speaker 1: thank you to patrons. We have Patreon dot com slash
Speaker 1: ologies who for one dollar a month can submit questions
Speaker 1: ahead of time for theologists and wow, record number of questions.
Speaker 1: We had sixty four pages of questions for this ologists.
Speaker 1: So this will shock absolutely no one. But this will
Speaker 1: be a two parter because it was too large a
Speaker 1: cheese wheel for once serving, we had to halve it up.
Speaker 1: So thank you also to everyone for wearing your ologies
Speaker 1: merch out in the wild to find each other. You
Speaker 1: can get a debt Ologiesmarch dot com and for no dollars.
Speaker 1: Thank you for leaving us reviews, all of which I
Speaker 1: read and then is proof I highlight a fresh one,
Speaker 1: such as this one from Great Workout APO, who called
Speaker 1: Ologies the best podcast for the former curious child. Also,
Speaker 1: if you're not even a former child, but a current
Speaker 1: one and you need some g rated shorter classrooms, say
Speaker 1: versions of Ologies, we have them. They're called smologies smologies,
Speaker 1: and they're available wherever you et your podcasts. They're in
Speaker 1: their own feed that's linked to the show notes. Also,
Speaker 1: thank you to Sponsored to the show for making it
Speaker 1: possible to donate to not one, but two causes of
Speaker 1: the ologists choosing this time. Okay, onto Fromology. It comes
Speaker 1: from the French fromage for cheese. And in this two
Speaker 1: part episode you will hear about soft cheeses, hard ones,
Speaker 1: vegetarian ones, vegan ones, what exactly goes into cheese? How
Speaker 1: to set up a cheeseboard that will impress the most
Speaker 1: French of dinner guests if it's actually aged in caves.
Speaker 1: The ethics of dairy cheese history, different warm blooded animals
Speaker 1: whose milk is used for cheese, Some might not appetize you.
Speaker 1: American cheese side eye. The stinkiest cheeses, the orange versus
Speaker 1: the creamy white, shootyodorizers, crunchy cheese crystals, and how to
Speaker 1: chat up amonger And come back next week to learn
Speaker 1: how to properly store cheese, The grilled sandwich Debate, how
Speaker 1: to make cheese at home, cheese pricing, squeaky curds, The
Speaker 1: Moon's composition, How cheese changes your brain chemistry, the Ultimate
Speaker 1: Charcuteri board, plus holes, crystals and maggots. Oh my with
Speaker 1: this stunning two parter featuring professional food educator, certified cheese
Speaker 1: professional and phromologist Kira James, Kiera James she Her and okay, pharmologist,
Speaker 1: cheesemonger cheese expert. To me, they're all the same, but
Speaker 1: is there a distinction in the cheese world.
Speaker 3: There isn't so much a distinction in the cheese world.
Speaker 3: But it's such a small, nice little family that we
Speaker 3: all kind of work together and have interchanging roles. There
Speaker 3: are different levels in the industry of sort of your
Speaker 3: expertise over time. After doing anything for a period of time,
Speaker 3: you get better and better at it, and so there
Speaker 3: are various scholarly certifications you can take. You can become
Speaker 3: a certified cheese Professional, which is what I did.
Speaker 1: And now you have a master's in gastronomy. Did you
Speaker 1: have cheese elements within that or did you go into
Speaker 1: it as cheese or oriented or were you like in
Speaker 1: the world of gastronomy, studies like the cheese unit really resonated.
Speaker 3: There is a cheese category in the degree now, but
Speaker 3: at the time I didn't enter into the master's program
Speaker 3: with the goal of learning about cheese. There are mentions
Speaker 3: of it throughout, you know, the history class, so I'm
Speaker 3: sure there was some cheese sprinkled in throughout the degree,
Speaker 3: but it was more over our food degree with a
Speaker 3: lot of social sciences, anthropology things like that.
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't realize that there was so much history
Speaker 1: and anthropology in that kind of degree. I thought it
Speaker 1: would all just be like this boils at this temperature.
Speaker 1: But what do they cover in a master's of christronomy.
Speaker 3: So the core classes are history, food, and the senses.
Speaker 3: You learn about how to use your senses and how
Speaker 3: other people have used their senses to educate and to
Speaker 3: learn about food and to grow the world of food
Speaker 3: through the senses. There's lots of focuses like food market,
Speaker 3: the Anthropology of food is another one, so a lot
Speaker 3: of social sciences. Food and gender was another class that
Speaker 3: was really spoke to me a great deal. Food and
Speaker 3: wine is another sort of aspect of the degree. I
Speaker 3: took classes in the marketing in the business school. I
Speaker 3: took classes in the hospitality and tourism department. So you
Speaker 3: really can make it your own degree. But it's all
Speaker 3: center drama. Social sciences of food.
Speaker 1: I feel like you could do a whole degree on
Speaker 1: just when someone comes around and just like say, when
Speaker 1: on the parmesan, I feel like there's so much psychologically
Speaker 1: that happens in that moment.
Speaker 3: For sure, you're very empowered. It's a very empowering moment
Speaker 3: to say one.
Speaker 1: I'm always like, if I keep going, are they going
Speaker 1: to judge me?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: And if I say that's plenty too early? Am I
Speaker 1: gonna think? On the whole drive home I could have
Speaker 1: gotten more cheese at it. I don't know.
Speaker 2: You got to wait it out extra.
Speaker 1: So can you tell me a little bit about when
Speaker 1: your life became a cheese oriented? What was it that
Speaker 1: kind of was your entree? No pun intended on God.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I needed a job to finish paying for
Speaker 3: my master's degree I had, you know, saved some money,
Speaker 3: but I needed a job. So I applied for job
Speaker 3: on Craigslist at the time, and it was for a
Speaker 3: cheesemonger position at one of the oldest cheese shops in America.
Speaker 3: I didn't know at the time how prestigious it was,
Speaker 3: but I really very quickly learned of its prestige as
Speaker 3: I started working there. And then I had a Naha
Speaker 3: moment when I tried certain cheeses. So, you know, learning
Speaker 3: about cheese, you have to taste it, you learn about
Speaker 3: the stories and where it comes from, and all these
Speaker 3: really fun facts about cheese and all these things that
Speaker 3: I had never even knew were things that you can
Speaker 3: do with food, let alone a perishable food like cheese,
Speaker 3: so all the different ways you can create it. And
Speaker 3: so there was a cheese from Iowa that is a
Speaker 3: cheddar that when I had.
Speaker 2: It, it was like my Aha moment. It's called Prairie Breeze.
Speaker 3: It's very widely available now, but at the time it
Speaker 3: was a little bit smaller producer.
Speaker 2: Just it's a delicious cheese.
Speaker 3: It's made by Mennonite people in Iowa, and they don't
Speaker 3: use a lot of.
Speaker 2: Electricity to create the cheese. So it's a lot.
Speaker 3: Of old traditions and old school approach to cheese making,
Speaker 3: and they make these amazing cheddars, and so as I
Speaker 3: learned more about cheese, I just really became in love
Speaker 3: with the stories and the flavor, and sort of the
Speaker 3: rest is history from there.
Speaker 1: So I look this up and apparently there are twist on.
Speaker 1: An aged cheddar has a pasty, fodgy texture with crunchy
Speaker 1: crystals and a tangy but nutty umami flavor. And they
Speaker 1: call this cheese affordable enough for back of the house,
Speaker 1: yet sophisticated enough for front of the house. But also
Speaker 1: this particular creamery boasts that they source milk from small,
Speaker 1: high quality and hygienic local dairy farms within thirty miles
Speaker 1: of their cheese making creamery. And now I'm making up
Speaker 1: a whole backstory narrative about this pastoral dairy community and
Speaker 1: maybe how they all know each other and like hot
Speaker 1: tub together or give each other dating advice. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Is that kind of part of the allure of it,
Speaker 1: is learning all these different backstories.
Speaker 2: I think that's part of it.
Speaker 3: So from the outside, you think you know cheese is
Speaker 3: mass produced by a few really big companies and that's it.
Speaker 3: And yes they are producing the most cheese out here
Speaker 3: and serving the most people. But were diversity and all
Speaker 3: the fun sort of nuances of the industry come into
Speaker 3: play are with those small producers. And small doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be, you know, a mom and pop operation. It
Speaker 3: can be a family run or a little bit bigger.
Speaker 3: But the idea is it being something that you can
Speaker 3: point to and say, this is where this cheese comes from.
Speaker 3: This what the animals are eating, This is what the
Speaker 3: farmers are doing to take care of them, this is
Speaker 3: what they're doing to make the cheese. So the smaller
Speaker 3: producers are really where you can learn about who's making
Speaker 3: the biggest impact in their small, little environments.
Speaker 1: Just a side note up top here, I know so
Speaker 1: many listeners are plant based for environmental and ethical and
Speaker 1: animal cruelty reasons. I definitely encourage you to look deeper
Speaker 1: into that, and I'm more than happy to do a
Speaker 1: future episode on veganism. Actually we're cooking one up as
Speaker 1: we speak on that, so stay tuned. But if you're
Speaker 1: one of the many thousand listeners who really wanted to
Speaker 1: hear about the science and the history of cheese from
Speaker 1: an expert. Because you love cheese, this is a good
Speaker 1: incentive to consider the types of cheese that you consume
Speaker 1: and the practices of smaller creamries and just the origin
Speaker 1: of your food in general, and that good cheese may
Speaker 1: be pricier and we'll talk more about why in Part two,
Speaker 1: as well as cover some vegan cheese options. But strike
Speaker 1: up a convo with your creamery people at the neighborhood
Speaker 1: farmers market. Chat up a local manger. That's one thing
Speaker 1: I love about cheesemongers, especially the ones who are really passionate.
Speaker 1: I live near a place called Milk Farm, which is
Speaker 1: a great cheese shop and my favorite cheesemonger. They're rue.
Speaker 1: Whenever I go in to get cheeses. They always tell
Speaker 1: me the backstory of different ones and why I might
Speaker 1: like something, And I always feel like I leave there
Speaker 1: with like a history lesson, which is so cool. Like
Speaker 1: when I eat the cheese, I remember, well they told
Speaker 1: me about it. I feel like a lot of that
Speaker 1: passion really comes through when people are cheese people, you know.
Speaker 3: Yes, passion is definitely a big consistency throughout any cheesemonger
Speaker 3: cheese professional having passion for the industry is really important,
Speaker 3: and being a storyteller is another part of the job.
Speaker 3: So we're so excited about the stories that it's hard
Speaker 3: not to share them with everybody that comes into.
Speaker 2: Our world learning about cheese.
Speaker 3: It's hard to stop once you start talking about those things.
Speaker 3: And I love that Rude keeps it going for you.
Speaker 3: Every visit you get another experience that they can explain
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you feel like? Is the most common
Speaker 1: question people ask you about cheese.
Speaker 3: The most common question I'd say is can you eat
Speaker 3: the rind? Oh, that's a very big question. People get
Speaker 3: very hesitant about the rind and if they can eat it.
Speaker 3: People ask about pasteurization and raw milk pretty consistently, but overall,
Speaker 3: they just want to know where products are coming from.
Speaker 3: So the type of cheese that it is, who made it,
Speaker 3: how old is the cheese? And then another very common
Speaker 3: question is how to pair it?
Speaker 2: What do you eat with this cheese?
Speaker 3: Because everyone likes to know what a cheese professionals preferences
Speaker 3: are for paring cheese. So what beverage would you pay
Speaker 3: with this? So what accouture amount would you pay with this?
Speaker 1: It's not just meat that has charcotery anxiety. If like,
Speaker 1: do I have enough? Do I have a good balance
Speaker 1: on this charcuterie board? You know you want like a
Speaker 1: soft one and a hard one, maybe a smokey one,
Speaker 1: which is why a cheese munger is the best. If
Speaker 1: you're like, I got people coming over, they're French, help
Speaker 1: me out what do I put on this thing? But okay,
Speaker 1: let's start at the basics. What is cheese? Cheese comes
Speaker 1: from milk, but I don't know curds, way, what is it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so cheese is a fermented food. So you start
Speaker 3: with milk and you add only three ingredients to the
Speaker 3: milk to create cheese.
Speaker 2: Each of those.
Speaker 3: Ingredients has a very specific role that they play. Cultures, rented,
Speaker 3: and salt. They're added at different points in the process
Speaker 3: to the milk, and then through the power of science,
Speaker 3: the milk is turned into solids and liquid. Curds are
Speaker 3: the solids, the proteins and the fats, and whey is
Speaker 3: the liquid, the sugar and the water, and so you
Speaker 3: separate the two and then you drain out the liquid.
Speaker 3: The way is never wasted. On a quality farm, there's
Speaker 3: lots of nutrients in the liquid, so that's going to
Speaker 3: be used for some purpose, and then the curds are
Speaker 3: used for cheese making, and from there the options are
Speaker 3: pretty much endless. At the beginning of the process. You
Speaker 3: know what type of cheese you want to make. At
Speaker 3: the end and so you're going to take the steps
Speaker 3: to make that type of cheese.
Speaker 1: So to recap milk, cultures, rennet, salt, so.
Speaker 3: Cheese is just those four ingredients. You separate the curds
Speaker 3: from the way, and then you take those curds and
Speaker 3: you create your final cheese. You might serve it fresh.
Speaker 3: It might be your fresh cheese like mozzarella or ricata,
Speaker 3: or it might be something that has to be put
Speaker 3: into a form, put on a shelf for a year,
Speaker 3: and then consume, like parmesanicmagiano.
Speaker 1: I always wondered with like curds and curdle. If you
Speaker 1: add an acid to your latte, like let's say you
Speaker 1: try to make a lemon latte with the whole milk,
Speaker 1: it's gonna get chunky? Is that kind of what's happening
Speaker 1: with cheese, but on like a larger curd level.
Speaker 3: Sort of, Yeah, there's some interactions between the acid and
Speaker 3: the lemon and the dairy products, so you can create
Speaker 3: cheese using acids like lemon juice or vinegar at home.
Speaker 3: They're going to act as a natural what we call coagulant,
Speaker 3: so they're going to naturally separate the curds from the way.
Speaker 3: So when you add the lemon to the dairy and
Speaker 3: you see that happening, you're kind of corragulating your milk.
Speaker 3: So you're kind of creating those first few steps of
Speaker 3: the cheese making process without really trying to. It won't
Speaker 3: taste much like cheese, but the textures will begin to
Speaker 3: change just because of that acid and how it interacts
Speaker 3: with the proteins and the fats in the milk.
Speaker 1: But in the case of most cheeses, it's the enzymes
Speaker 1: in rennet, specifically one called chymesin, which cleaves a certain
Speaker 1: bond of caseine proteins in the milk. And we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about rennet in a minute, but if you want
Speaker 1: to get specific, chymesin breaks cappa casine into hydrophobic paracappa caaseine,
Speaker 1: meaning broadly that the liquids and the solids in milk
Speaker 1: separate because of that ensmatic action. Hence, curds and whey, which,
Speaker 1: if you remember from Miss Muffet her separated milkshake brings
Speaker 1: all the spiders to the art. I always wondered what
Speaker 1: happens to the way when you say that they don't
Speaker 1: waste it. Does it get fed back to goats or
Speaker 1: does it become protein powder? Like? What happens with.
Speaker 2: That great question? Yeah, all the aboves.
Speaker 3: So for a smaller farm, they may feed the way
Speaker 3: to other animals on the farm.
Speaker 2: They may make other cheeses from the way.
Speaker 3: So you can make ricotta from whey. There's still some
Speaker 3: proteins and fats in that liquid that you can coagulate
Speaker 3: and you know, extract from the way to create ricotta.
Speaker 3: For larger producers, that's definitely where the way is going
Speaker 3: is to weigh powder. So when people are protein powders
Speaker 3: for athletes or gym rats or people who want to
Speaker 3: get muscle mass, they might consume weigh protein in that form,
Speaker 3: but it's definitely something that is not wasted. They can
Speaker 3: use it on the grounds, like to help grow grass
Speaker 3: as a natural so there's lots of ways to use.
Speaker 3: There's so much nutrients in there that something's going to
Speaker 3: be done with it.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: Take me back in history. How long has planet Earth
Speaker 1: had cheese? Is there a consensus among the tight knit
Speaker 1: cheese community on this.
Speaker 3: The first traces of cheese go back to eight thousand BC,
Speaker 3: so about ten thousand years ago, and it really starts
Speaker 3: with the Neolithic people, when humans went from hunter and
Speaker 3: gatherers to agricultural communities where they actually planted foods, domesticated animals,
Speaker 3: and they were milking dairy animals, mostly sheep and goat.
Speaker 3: At the time, there weren't cows, and they would leave
Speaker 3: the milk out over a period of time in the
Speaker 3: sun because they were in the Fertile Crescent, So in
Speaker 3: that part of the world, it's very hot and warm,
Speaker 3: and so just by sitting the milk out in the
Speaker 3: field in the sun, it would naturally ferment the milk
Speaker 3: and create cheese. So there's traces of sort of that
Speaker 3: fresh cheese dating back to eight thousand DC.
Speaker 1: That's bonkers. I would have thought it was, like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, seventeen hundreds. Maybe the notion that the pastries
Speaker 1: really didn't pop off until like the seventeen Like, I
Speaker 1: would think that cheese is a relatively new invention. Super
Speaker 1: wrong here, super wrong as pastries have been around since
Speaker 1: at least ancient Egyptian times, and I should have known
Speaker 1: that because we have a stellar episode called Gastro Egyptology
Speaker 1: about resurrecting millennia old yeast from this ancient pottery to
Speaker 1: bake bread. But while people have been making pastries for
Speaker 1: thousands of years, I was semi correct that baked desserts
Speaker 1: did indeed pop off in the seventeen hundreds when this
Speaker 1: French guy named Antwine Kerramet absolutely began nailing pastry innovations.
Speaker 1: Why then, because colonization and the enslaved of humans on
Speaker 1: sugar cane plantations in places like the Caribbean and what
Speaker 1: would become the United States, which just exploded sugar consumption
Speaker 1: and demand in Europe. Now for more on the horrors
Speaker 1: of plantations and how that history continues to affect ecology now,
Speaker 1: and for more on the brilliant folks who coined the
Speaker 1: field of critical ecology, I'll link that episode with doctor
Speaker 1: Suzanne Pierre in the show notes, if you have ever
Speaker 1: eaten sugar, you should hear it now to further kill
Speaker 1: your boner. The majority of cane sugar refinement still relies
Speaker 1: on cattle bone jar making it questionably vegan at best.
Speaker 1: But if that's a concern, you can look for raw sugar,
Speaker 1: vegan sugar, or labels saying it's organic. That means it's
Speaker 1: made without couchar. Now, as for cattle, I was like,
Speaker 1: when when were cows invented? Human beings began domesticating cows
Speaker 1: about ten thousand years ago from this now extinct species
Speaker 1: of bovine of cow parts. I'm so glad you mentioned
Speaker 1: rennett because that is a mystery ingredient that I don't
Speaker 1: quite understand. So cheese is milk, salt, rennet and.
Speaker 2: Cultures or bacteria.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what's the rennet component?
Speaker 2: So that's the real coagulant.
Speaker 3: So that's the most powerful thing that you really need
Speaker 3: to get things moving. Renn It is a natural microorganism,
Speaker 3: mostly enzymes. There are different types of rennet, but the
Speaker 3: most traditional rennet is called animal rennet, and that has
Speaker 3: to be found in certain animals in their linings of
Speaker 3: their stomachs. When these mammals are born and they're consuming
Speaker 3: only milk, they need to be able to digest that.
Speaker 3: So the rennet enzymes in their stomach actually break down
Speaker 3: the milk when they're consuming it, and so we use
Speaker 3: those same enzymes to break down milk for cheesemaking in
Speaker 3: the natural form, so it can be animal rennit. You
Speaker 3: also can do vegetarian rennet, So for any vegetarians out
Speaker 3: there who do onlyed any animal byproducts at all. There
Speaker 3: are rennets that are not made from animals. Those are
Speaker 3: from thistle like artichoke, fig sap are a few of
Speaker 3: the more common ones. And then there's microbial rent where
Speaker 3: you can actually create it in labs now today using
Speaker 3: natural enzymes that are coming from the plants and coming
Speaker 3: from molds and yeasts. But the quagulant, the thing that
Speaker 3: separates the curves from the way is what rennet is.
Speaker 1: How is rennet harvested from animals? It seems like it
Speaker 1: would be cheaper to get it for micro organisms or
Speaker 1: artichoke or thistle.
Speaker 2: What do I know?
Speaker 1: But is it easier to obtain from animals? I have
Speaker 1: no idea. I am absolutely in the dark about this,
Speaker 1: so I don't know anything.
Speaker 3: So well, today, you know, in the modern times, you
Speaker 3: can buy rent it online and capsules. That's what I
Speaker 3: have in my freezer. They stay fresh longer in the freezer.
Speaker 3: But you can buy rent it online, but you also
Speaker 3: can purchase stomach linings like dried stomach lining to add
Speaker 3: to your cheese making process. So you know, thinking about
Speaker 3: the make process, you have to kind of focus on
Speaker 3: the positive in the make process. But they do come
Speaker 3: from the stomachs of.
Speaker 2: Animals, Okay.
Speaker 1: So some purists like to say that rennet comes only
Speaker 1: from the enzymes in the desiccated fourth stomach chamber of
Speaker 1: young ruminants, which can contain up to ninety five percent chymisin,
Speaker 1: but most cheesemakers use rennet. The term is just to
Speaker 1: catch all for any enzymes that curd the milk, and
Speaker 1: a lot of cheeses, including kosher and vegetarian cheese not
Speaker 1: vegan but vegetarian with no animal parts, use enzymes including chymosin,
Speaker 1: derived from either natural or in seventy percent of cheeses
Speaker 1: made worldwide using genetically modified micro organisms that spit chymasin out,
Speaker 1: according to the twenty twenty two textbook Value Edition in
Speaker 1: Food Products and Processing through Enzyme Technology, which you can
Speaker 1: read if you become deeply, deeply curious about cheesemaking. What
Speaker 1: about the salt Is that just for like yum yum
Speaker 1: factor or does that help with like osmotic reactions.
Speaker 3: Salt is mostly added for flavor. It's added to slow
Speaker 3: down the make process. It interacts with the curds to
Speaker 3: bring out more of the flavor, to extract more of
Speaker 3: the liquid when you're adding it to the curds. But
Speaker 3: it's mostly added for flavor. So you'd add it to
Speaker 3: most cheeses towards the end of the make process, either
Speaker 3: rubbing on the outside of the cheese wheel or adding
Speaker 3: it straight to the curds. For mozzarella, you're adding it
Speaker 3: to the liquid when you're stretching the curds. So it
Speaker 3: depends on what type of cheese you're making, but it's
Speaker 3: usually added towards the end of the make process, and
Speaker 3: it is added mostly for flavor or to help enhance flavor.
Speaker 1: Is the make process? Is that the right word make
Speaker 1: and mak e? Is that the forming of the curds,
Speaker 1: And then there's the aging process? Like are there different
Speaker 1: concrete steps that cheese makers know about?
Speaker 2: I think that's about right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's the make process that sort of gets you
Speaker 3: from liquid to solid, and then you need to put
Speaker 3: it into its final form, so you might have a
Speaker 3: plastic form that you're going to add these curds in
Speaker 3: curds can be large, curds can be the size of
Speaker 3: grains of rice. They're different sizes depending on what you're making.
Speaker 3: And then it goes into the final form. And then yes,
Speaker 3: it goes into the aging process. So there's the make
Speaker 3: process and then the aging process, because the aging process
Speaker 3: has its own intricate steps that you have to follow
Speaker 3: and basically babysit and nurture and care for the cheese
Speaker 3: until it's at its full ripeness.
Speaker 1: I've seen places with just like home depot, but all
Speaker 1: cheese just stacked like huge wheels of parmesan stacked to
Speaker 1: the ceiling. And I'm curious where has cheese taken you?
Speaker 1: Like do you go on business trips to Wisconsin? Like
Speaker 1: do you are there weird caves in Italy that you've
Speaker 1: got to go to?
Speaker 3: So I've been to all of the ends of this
Speaker 3: country to visit producers to learn about their products, just
Speaker 3: for fun, just to help educate myself on where these
Speaker 3: products come from.
Speaker 1: Okay, Wisconsin, does it have good cheese or does it
Speaker 1: have good pr great question?
Speaker 2: I would say both.
Speaker 3: Okay, Wisconsin makes the most cheese of any state. Wisconsin's
Speaker 3: been making cheese since Wisconsin was established as a state,
Speaker 3: so I mean they have come a long way. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of history. There, a lot of European history
Speaker 3: in Wisconsin, so the European traditions came over with the settlers,
Speaker 3: and those traditions have been passed down for generations to generations.
Speaker 3: So there's a reason why they make the most cheese
Speaker 3: and why it's the most consumed because it's good cheese.
Speaker 3: Now at that po when you think about how much
Speaker 3: they're making, they're also creating a lot of the mass
Speaker 3: produced cheeses, things that you can get at restaurants or
Speaker 3: in fast casual situations. But they also have artists and producers.
Speaker 3: But they also a really good pr and I think
Speaker 3: it's roughly a dollar pound of cheese that they will
Speaker 3: give for marketing. They have festivals, they do great marketing
Speaker 3: on social media, they do great marketing in stores. So yes,
Speaker 3: marketing is definitely a big part of Wisconsin's success.
Speaker 2: I think, hey, Sam, the cheeseheads.
Speaker 1: You and run me through the types of cheeses. We
Speaker 1: talked about the softest cheeses, and it just boggles me
Speaker 1: that there are goopy camel bears. And then there are cheeses,
Speaker 1: hard cheeses that like you need a sharp knife or
Speaker 1: a peeler for I have no idea how they get
Speaker 1: that way. Is it the cultures? Is it the amount
Speaker 1: of time they're sitting in a rind on a shelf?
Speaker 1: Can you break down how many we should know so
Speaker 1: that when we go to our cheesemonger we're not like
Speaker 1: a lost.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean there are over two thousand types of
Speaker 3: cheese created around the world, if not more than that.
Speaker 3: So to categorize it, you can do it in a
Speaker 3: few different ways. You can do it by texture so fresh, soft,
Speaker 3: semi firm, hard, process, or you can go into it
Speaker 3: more from a style perspective. Now, when you think about
Speaker 3: it from a style perspective, then you're getting into the
Speaker 3: make process. Because each style of cheese has a different
Speaker 3: make process. They use different cultures, they use different techniques
Speaker 3: for cutting the kurds, they use different techniques for aging.
Speaker 3: So when you're making a camember versus a gouda, you're
Speaker 3: doing something very very different in the beginning steps of
Speaker 3: your make process to get to the end result. So, yes,
Speaker 3: they all start as the same. For ingredients, but as
Speaker 3: they age, they become their different style of cheese. So
Speaker 3: there are seven to eight styles of cheese, depending on
Speaker 3: who you ask. So fresh is definitely so a fresh
Speaker 3: cheese is just as it describes, no rind, only a
Speaker 3: few days or minutes or hours old mozzarella or cota
Speaker 3: burrata those cheeses. Then you have soft ripened, which are
Speaker 3: things like brie, Camembert. Goat cheeses from France are often
Speaker 3: soft ripened. These are ones that have a white rind
Speaker 3: or a rime that looks sort of like a brain,
Speaker 3: those wrinkly rindes. Those are soft ripened cheeses. Then you
Speaker 3: have washed rine cheeses, which are the ones that smell
Speaker 3: like feet, the super stinky guys, the ones that they're
Speaker 3: washing to create those ascetics.
Speaker 1: And what are they washing them with?
Speaker 2: They could wash.
Speaker 3: Them with all sorts of things. The most common thing
Speaker 3: that you wash cheese with is a salt water solution,
Speaker 3: so like a brine solution, it helps certain bacterias thrive,
Speaker 3: and those bactiers are what create the smell and the
Speaker 3: color of these cheeses. So washed rine cheeses also are
Speaker 3: typically have an orange or peach hue to the rind,
Speaker 3: and you can smell them form a mile away. Those
Speaker 3: are all characteristics of the bacterias that are added or
Speaker 3: created when you.
Speaker 2: Wash the cheese.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, and then you can get into the cheddars.
Speaker 3: You have gouda, you have blue cheese. And then you
Speaker 3: can still talk about ferm cheeses. I still have a
Speaker 3: category called ferm because some cheese don't fit into a category.
Speaker 2: They're just a firm cheese.
Speaker 3: A lot of the American originals that we create here
Speaker 3: don't have a specific name for the type of cheese
Speaker 3: that it is. It's just what the cheesemaker made. So
Speaker 3: you can also just have a firm cheese, like we say,
Speaker 3: Tom style cheese. Oftentimes, where it's a certain shape.
Speaker 1: Some makers will just do their own thing and it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily fit the proverbial cheese mold.
Speaker 2: So those are the basic styles of cheese.
Speaker 3: I mean, those are the ones that I would use
Speaker 3: to talk to my cheesemonger. If you like a hard cheese,
Speaker 3: then go with or soft cheese or semi soft cheese.
Speaker 3: Those are perfectly good ways to describe cheese to a
Speaker 3: manger as well. You don't have to know the styles
Speaker 3: of cheese to you know, to categorize.
Speaker 1: Them, is processed cheese and cheese.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, process cheese is not a cheese, Okay,
Speaker 3: it's a processed food product because of how I define
Speaker 3: cheese in terms of those four ingredients in the fermentation process.
Speaker 3: A cheese product like American cheese craft singles have even
Speaker 3: more ingredients. They have emulsifiers. They're made of a cheese blend,
Speaker 3: so you're actually blending cheeses together to make American craft cheese,
Speaker 3: so that in itself makes it not a real cheese.
Speaker 1: It's a cheese product, So American cheese. It can be
Speaker 1: a chimera of at least two cheeses, usually a Cheddar
Speaker 1: and a Colby cheese, Colby being named after Colby, Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: population two thousand, which on July eighteenth host its annual
Speaker 1: three day coldb Chees Days festival, which involves a bench
Speaker 1: press contest, banngo tractor pulls, foodstalls, and a quote real
Speaker 1: Cheese parade, which is as American eisikits but yes. American
Speaker 1: cheese is a combo of a few varieties plus one
Speaker 1: of three salts derived from citric acid, effectually known as
Speaker 1: E number E three three. One fun fact, sodium citrate
Speaker 1: is also added to blood donations as an anticoagulant because
Speaker 1: it tends to befriend and bind with calcium ions, which
Speaker 1: prevents the calcium from staying too cozy with the proteins
Speaker 1: that love to clump, especially in the case of cheeses,
Speaker 1: the more aged cheeses. And we'll get to more on
Speaker 1: cheese and digesting it in a moment, but first let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break to talk about sponsors of oologies
Speaker 1: who make it possible to donate to a cause of
Speaker 1: the ologist choosing. And this week Kira shows two, one
Speaker 1: for each part of this cheese duo episode, and they
Speaker 1: are the Cheese Culture Coalition, which works to create a
Speaker 1: more equitable and inclusive cheese industry for Black, Indigenous, and
Speaker 1: people of color through education and grant programs and via
Speaker 1: Cheese Culture Coalition dot org you can find out more
Speaker 1: about their programs, you can donate, or you can fill
Speaker 1: out a form to volunteer on their committees and fundraisers.
Speaker 1: And the second donation is going to Team Ups building
Speaker 1: Schools in Kenya, which Kira says is a great organization
Speaker 1: run by a dear friend of hers. And they work
Speaker 1: to ensure that Kenyan children receive the education they need
Speaker 1: and provide communities with easily accessible, clean and sustainable water sources.
Speaker 1: You can find out more or donate at go team
Speaker 1: up dot org. We'll link those in the show notes
Speaker 1: and thank you to sponsors for making those donations possible. Okay,
Speaker 1: so next week we're going to tackle your heap of questions, patrons.
Speaker 1: But since this is a mega episode, let's keep this
Speaker 1: cheese wheel rolling through the basics. Perhaps the thought of
Speaker 1: cheese is making your stomach rumble and it's not good.
Speaker 1: Let's say lactose is an issue. Which cheeses are more
Speaker 1: friendly to your guts?
Speaker 3: Another very popular question. So I'm glad you asked so
Speaker 3: to start, most cheeses have little.
Speaker 2: To no lactose.
Speaker 3: Who So that is a misconception that we will, we
Speaker 3: as mongers, will forever be fighting against because so many
Speaker 3: people think that they're lactose intolerant because they have stomach
Speaker 3: issues when they eat cheese. But it's not always the
Speaker 3: type of cheese, but the amount of it. It's still
Speaker 3: a fermented product, it's still dairy where our bodies are
Speaker 3: not fully able to digest, no matter how much intolerant
Speaker 3: or tolerant you are, there's still a threshold of how
Speaker 3: much you can eat before it begins to upset your stomach.
Speaker 3: When you melt cheese, also that changes the dynamic of it,
Speaker 3: So you could be more sensitive to melted cheese than
Speaker 3: you are too hard cheese. So that's something else think about.
Speaker 3: But most cheeses have no lactose, and so to avoid
Speaker 3: lactose you want to look to harder cheeses. So the
Speaker 3: cheeses that have lactose will be softer because I mentioned
Speaker 3: that the lactose are the sugars in the cheese, and
Speaker 3: the sugars are found in the moisture in the liquid.
Speaker 3: So the less liquid or less moisture you have in
Speaker 3: your cheese, the less lactose you have in your cheese.
Speaker 2: So fresh cheese will have the most.
Speaker 1: So maybe avoid a young, spongy cheddar or havardi or
Speaker 1: pizza with mozzarella or ricotta in lasagna. Those younger ones
Speaker 1: will have less of their lactose broken down into lactic acid.
Speaker 1: So harder cheeses have less lactose because it's been broken down.
Speaker 1: And according to the Cheese and Death website article how
Speaker 1: to eat cheese when you're lactose intolerant. Yes, you can
Speaker 1: eat cheese without destroying your insides. Even if ice cream
Speaker 1: destroys you. Cheese can be your friend. And any cheese
Speaker 1: aged two months or more is virtually lactose free. So
Speaker 1: go sharper, go home to the toilet.
Speaker 3: And then also goat's milk. Goats milk has the least
Speaker 3: amount of lactose in terms of the main milk types
Speaker 3: that are used to make cheese. Goat smoke cheeses are
Speaker 3: the ones that I would suggest for people with very
Speaker 3: sensitive lactose issues.
Speaker 1: Are there any animal cheeses that have surprised you that
Speaker 1: you've had? Like, have you ever had like horse milk?
Speaker 1: What animals do we make cheese from their milk?
Speaker 3: So the most common and the ones that are legal
Speaker 3: in America are cow, sheep, and goat. But then there
Speaker 3: are also cheeses made from camels. Donkeys are the other
Speaker 3: two most popular. There's also water buffalo what that we
Speaker 3: have here in America? So buffalo mozzarella. When you hear
Speaker 3: that that's made from water buffalo?
Speaker 1: Oh it's not bison? Yes, I no, I always pictured
Speaker 1: a bison like in Yellowstone pulling over and like someone
Speaker 1: with a pail just being like thanks, go on your way.
Speaker 2: I mean they look sort of similar. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So we have a whole bisonology episode with several guests,
Speaker 1: including some bovine scholars and a few indigenous bison ranchers
Speaker 1: on Northern Montana's Blackfoot Confederacy Reservation who also are my cousins.
Speaker 1: Hello to the Evinces. So to learn all about bison,
Speaker 1: you can check that one which is linked in the
Speaker 1: show notes. But yes, a water buffalo. They're native to
Speaker 1: parts of Asia and Africa, and you will recognize a
Speaker 1: water buffalo. It has these long curved horns. They look
Speaker 1: like robust curtain bangs on either side of its face.
Speaker 1: By water buffalo milk, they seem hard to milk. Well,
Speaker 1: to those of Hindu faith, a cow is sacred, so
Speaker 1: hands off cow utters. But kind of like how the
Speaker 1: Vatican says that kapy baras are fish. We have an
Speaker 1: episode on that. The water buffalo is like, it's okay
Speaker 1: to milk now. Water buffalo milk also lower in cholesterol
Speaker 1: but higher in fat, so it is creamy as hell.
Speaker 1: Now on some menu, should you be lucky enough to
Speaker 1: see them, is human milk cheese like that made by
Speaker 1: New York based artist Maria and Simon, who accepts or
Speaker 1: accepted in the past milk donations from in one case,
Speaker 1: a woman who made too much, but she didn't want
Speaker 1: to donate it because there are a lot of dietary
Speaker 1: restrictions she would have to adhere to in order to
Speaker 1: give it to others infants, so she's like, sure, I'll
Speaker 1: give you some boob milk. And on Miriam's website she
Speaker 1: has video art titled Making Human Cheese twenty eleven HD
Speaker 1: video with audio four ten. It shows the process in
Speaker 1: this beautifully shot but stark and clinical studio setting.
Speaker 4: But I think of it more as like a like
Speaker 4: a labor rather than a commodity, and having been in
Speaker 4: a labor industry like cooking, I feel like it's not
Speaker 4: all that different. I feel like it's kind of the
Speaker 4: same as me sort of spending an hour making someone
Speaker 4: a pasta or something.
Speaker 1: Like that, and I understand the texture is creamy, it's
Speaker 1: not unlike a provolone. I often work in cafes, and
Speaker 1: today I'm grateful to have watched this high definition video
Speaker 1: of a woman with dripping nipples full out while a
Speaker 1: cheesemaker stands by wearing gloves not in public. Happen to
Speaker 1: be home when I watch that. Now, some detractors say
Speaker 1: that this is just a breath away from cannibalism eating
Speaker 1: human milk cheese. But animal rights activists have gone so
Speaker 1: far as to urge Ben and Jerry's to just swap
Speaker 1: out all ruminant milk with people milk to make a point,
Speaker 1: maybe getting it from a woman named Sheila or Heather.
Speaker 1: And if all of this grosses you out, just take
Speaker 1: a seat in a rocking chair, stare into the horizon
Speaker 1: and ponder why the teats of a cow or a
Speaker 1: sheep you've never even met gives less of a nick.
Speaker 1: I have no answers. I only have questions.
Speaker 3: I've had camel milk in caramel form, but I haven't
Speaker 3: had any cheeses outside of them those four. So I've
Speaker 3: had water, buffalo, cow, sheep, and goat. Some of a
Speaker 3: weirder unusual types of cheese that I have are often
Speaker 3: mixed milk, so you can mix the milks together to
Speaker 3: create another style of cheese, another flavor profile. By mixing
Speaker 3: cow's milk with goat's milk, you get one flavor by
Speaker 3: mixing sheep's milk with cow's milk, you get another flavor.
Speaker 3: So those are some of the more unusual types of
Speaker 3: cheeses that I've had your mind.
Speaker 1: Sign. When I think of goats milk cheese, I always
Speaker 1: think of it as a soft cheese. But are there
Speaker 1: like parmesan goat cheeses.
Speaker 2: Definitely, yeah.
Speaker 3: So you can make any type of cheese with any
Speaker 3: style of milk. There are classifications and what we call
Speaker 3: rules to some of the cheese making process, especially when
Speaker 3: you go to Europe. There are certain cheeses that are
Speaker 3: only made with cow's milk, only made with sheep's milk,
Speaker 3: only made with goat's milk.
Speaker 1: So in France chv is goat's milk cheese. It has
Speaker 1: an R in there. I'm not sure how to say
Speaker 1: it now. Grecian feta is sheep or a mix of
Speaker 1: sheep and goat milk, although in America you can just
Speaker 1: get cow's milk feta, and apparently grease just has to
Speaker 1: live with American's decision to take the name. Now Pecorino
Speaker 1: just means sheep's milk and it comes from the Italian
Speaker 1: word for sheep. Now, both goat and sheep milk have
Speaker 1: more fat than cow milk, and those with a dairy
Speaker 1: allergy can sometimes more easily digest goat milk because its
Speaker 1: proteins are similar to that made by the animal your mom.
Speaker 1: According to a chapter titled the Nutritional Value and Health
Speaker 1: Benefits of Goat Milk Components from the textbook Nutrients and
Speaker 1: Dairy and Their Implications on Health and Disease, Also, goat
Speaker 1: milk is more commonly consumed globally than cow milk. What Yes,
Speaker 1: goats are easier to keep and people tend to prefer
Speaker 1: the taste. How many people, about seventy five percent of
Speaker 1: the world consumes goat milk? I should say chevla. Why
Speaker 1: does France have such a good cheese reputation.
Speaker 3: Similar to other parts of Europe. They've been making cheese
Speaker 3: for a long period of time for sensory, they've been
Speaker 3: making cheese and they've perfected the craft of it. They
Speaker 3: also invest in the quality of the milk and the animals.
Speaker 3: They know that they make high quality cheeses, so they invest.
Speaker 3: So the government and the people invest a lot of
Speaker 3: money into those manufacturers.
Speaker 2: So there are rules that you.
Speaker 3: Need to follow in parts of France to make certain cheeses.
Speaker 3: They've been crafting these cheeses for so long that they've
Speaker 3: just gotten better and better over time.
Speaker 1: They have a good cheese culture.
Speaker 2: Yes, they have a great cheese culture.
Speaker 1: Speaking of cultures, I read once that stinky cheeses have
Speaker 1: the same bacteria that stinky feet do. And I'm curious, like,
Speaker 1: the cultures now are probably handed down and handed down,
Speaker 1: but how much of the culture is just like wild
Speaker 1: caught bacteria or yeasts, or like where is it coming from?
Speaker 1: How do people know, like this is going to make
Speaker 1: a really goodzola and this is going to make a
Speaker 1: really good gouda? Are they in secret jars where someone
Speaker 1: protects them? Like where are they coming from?
Speaker 2: In some cases?
Speaker 3: Yet, the idea of cultures to some cheesemakers are their
Speaker 3: bread and butter. It's the secret sauce to make their
Speaker 3: cheese special and different because they're natural microbes that are
Speaker 3: found in the environment naturally, so you can harvest them.
Speaker 3: Now today we harvest cultures, and so now you can
Speaker 3: basically pick out just like buying rennet. You can pick
Speaker 3: up with the cultures that you want to add to
Speaker 3: your cheese, just like a recipe, and you can buy
Speaker 3: them online. But in some cases, like raw milk cheesemakers,
Speaker 3: they're actually cultivating their own cultures, and so they're in
Speaker 3: house and they're creating them through fermenting the milk. They
Speaker 3: create a clabber or some kind of substance that they
Speaker 3: then add to the next batch of milk to help
Speaker 3: start the fermentation process, which is what the cheese cultures
Speaker 3: are doing. They're really helping transform the milk and also
Speaker 3: adding flavor.
Speaker 1: Did I know what a clabber was? Of course not.
Speaker 1: I thought it was some sort of wooden paddle, But
Speaker 1: evidently it's a type of fermented sour milk that's curd like.
Speaker 1: But the way hasn't yet separated. So if you have
Speaker 1: ever dusted off a canister of clabber girl baking powder
Speaker 1: in your pantry, that's because clabber milk was a leavening
Speaker 1: agent before you could just buy powder in a can
Speaker 1: which is not made of dairy. Also, what is with
Speaker 1: raw milk cheese, Well, some folks say that the curd
Speaker 1: structure is far superior in milk that hasn't been pasteurized
Speaker 1: or heated to kill pathogens. And the absolutely bogglingly appointed
Speaker 1: US Health and Human Service and Secretary. RFK Junior prefers
Speaker 1: raw milk, although his favorite brand was recalled for containing
Speaker 1: bird flu, which is perhaps why his strategy for the
Speaker 1: bird flu epidemic is to just letter rip. But from
Speaker 1: my curled lips to your scrunched nose, what's the sting cheese?
Speaker 3: The stinkiest cheeses are probably from France. Okay, they have
Speaker 3: a few popular cheeses. Apoos is one that's very stinky.
Speaker 3: It's a smaller format cheese.
Speaker 1: These are just little cheeses.
Speaker 3: It's actually banned on the train rails in France.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's the whole country, but I
Speaker 3: know in parts you can't have apoos on the train
Speaker 3: because of the smell of it and the stink of it.
Speaker 1: And while some Parisians say they have never been sighted
Speaker 1: for this offense, epois is said to have a soft, pungent,
Speaker 1: and unapologetically meaty scent and flavor, according to the New
Speaker 1: York City purveyor Maurice Cheese. Hence, there you go the
Speaker 1: origin of the euphemism to cut the cheese.
Speaker 3: There's also from Italy. There's wash on cheeses like telegio.
Speaker 3: It's not super pungent in flavor like aplas. Aplas has
Speaker 3: a pretty robust flavor, but Telegio actually has a more
Speaker 3: milky and subtle flavor overall. But the stink is still there,
Speaker 3: so you're right, you definitely read that correctly. The bacteria
Speaker 3: called brevy Bacteria linens or B linens for short, are
Speaker 3: the bacteria that are close relatives to the bacteria that
Speaker 3: grow between your toes.
Speaker 2: So that's that's where the stinky feet reference comes from.
Speaker 3: So we try to embrace this in the cheese world
Speaker 3: and not look at it as a negative. We try
Speaker 3: to embrace it as a positive. These are just natural organisms,
Speaker 3: you know, around us, and we know to clean ourselves
Speaker 3: if we smell our feet, and so that's fine, but
Speaker 3: when it comes to cheese, the stinkier the better for
Speaker 3: some people.
Speaker 2: So heads up.
Speaker 1: Feet stink is technically called bromodosis, And if you are
Speaker 1: a victim of it from the foot or the nose perspective,
Speaker 1: it's coming from you and overgrowth of bacteria or maybe
Speaker 1: a bonus fungus thrown in there, And it could be
Speaker 1: because you're blessed with feet sweat glands that are work
Speaker 1: in overtime, or you could have a hormonal issue. Either way,
Speaker 1: pediatrists recommend washing the feet and letting them dry totally
Speaker 1: before socking them up. And you can alternate between a
Speaker 1: few pairs of shoes so that they can fully dry
Speaker 1: out between wears. Also, you can pull an at home
Speaker 1: bowling alley move and las all your shoes down between wears.
Speaker 1: There are UV light shoe sterilizers you can tuck in
Speaker 1: there overnight. You can also add some vinegar to your
Speaker 1: sock laundry. And just for you, I went deep into
Speaker 1: forums on foot stink and I read one story about
Speaker 1: someone who developed absolutely rancid footw and it turned out
Speaker 1: their shower drain was sluggish from build up and like
Speaker 1: rather than snake it because they just slashed around in
Speaker 1: the water during their showers, not realizing that all the
Speaker 1: stuff they washed off their dirty body mingled with whatever
Speaker 1: demon was clogging the bathtub drain. And can I tell
Speaker 1: you that if you live in a house, any house
Speaker 1: that has a shower or a bathtub, get yourself something
Speaker 1: called a drain weasel. It's a sort of barbed implement.
Speaker 1: You shove down your drain and it brings up ungodly horrors.
Speaker 1: They look like a greased dead rat and they smell
Speaker 1: even worse. And if you like poor extraction videos, you
Speaker 1: will love using a drain weasel. I'm one of you.
Speaker 1: If you're asking me why why why, you can see
Speaker 1: our disgustology episode about what grosses out whom and why. Also,
Speaker 1: some people swear by in a persperent deoterants on their
Speaker 1: feet or even a salt crystal, the hippie kind that
Speaker 1: works to kill jermys. I hope I have saved some
Speaker 1: friendships or healed some marriages. Let love bloom. Are there
Speaker 1: any conversations between cheese people about why we might not
Speaker 1: want like a roommate's feet to smell that way, but
Speaker 1: why we want our charcuterie board like that unctuousness that
Speaker 1: like animal quality, Like do we know why the brain
Speaker 1: says no in some cases and yes and others.
Speaker 3: That's a great question. I mean, I know it's a
Speaker 3: lot of personal preference.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 3: I didn't love a lot of the cheeses that I
Speaker 3: love now when I first started tasting cheese. I think
Speaker 3: working in the industry you gain respect for all categories
Speaker 3: of cheese and you try them all with no judgment,
Speaker 3: and then over time you begin to advance your palate
Speaker 3: and make decisions on preference. So I don't think that
Speaker 3: there are scientific reasonings behind it, but I know that
Speaker 3: it takes a lot of time to sort of work
Speaker 3: your way there. Some people just like stinky cheese because
Speaker 3: they like robust flavors. They like to be surprised. Other
Speaker 3: people like more mellow flavors they don't want to be surprised.
Speaker 2: So I think it really just comes down the preference.
Speaker 1: Sharp cheddar all the way. Why sharper cheese is just
Speaker 1: aged longer, lactose breaks down further into lactic acid, giving
Speaker 1: that kind of like vinegary punch that is no contest
Speaker 1: better than mild cheese. Do you get so many cheese gifts? Like?
Speaker 1: Do people constantly give you cheese fridge magnets and cheeseboards?
Speaker 2: I definitely yes.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely the cheese lady in my community, so everything
Speaker 3: cheese related, I'll get mugs, I'll get bags, all the
Speaker 3: cheese gifts. Yes, definitely something that I am familiar with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you have a cheeseboard at home, how many
Speaker 1: knives do you really need? Because sometimes the cheesebird set,
Speaker 1: I'll be like, I don't know what this teardrop shaped
Speaker 1: knife does, and how come some have a fork and
Speaker 1: some don't. Like how many cheese knives do you need?
Speaker 3: I mean each one has a purpose. Each shape of
Speaker 3: cheese knife is designed for a certain style of cheese
Speaker 3: or to be used in a certain way. I think
Speaker 3: four to six is the right amount. I mean there
Speaker 3: are most sets come with one of each type of knife,
Speaker 3: which doesn't always work because you might need the soft
Speaker 3: knife because you have chwo soft cheeses, and so you
Speaker 3: have to nagle it and find a different knife or
Speaker 3: just use this knife for this cheese. So I'll look
Speaker 3: for sets that also give me some instructions too. If
Speaker 3: I was looking for some knives.
Speaker 1: I never know. I just set them out and I
Speaker 1: hope whoever's eating the cheeseboard. Yeah, okay, let's break this
Speaker 1: down for you. So in real basic terms, if the
Speaker 1: knife has holes in it, that's for soft cheeses, so
Speaker 1: there's less surface area for the cheese to stick to.
Speaker 1: The knife with the fork at the tip is for
Speaker 1: any kind of cheese that you can slice off. But
Speaker 1: you don't want to use your dirty little fingers to
Speaker 1: pick it up off the board in front of people.
Speaker 1: And the square or wedged shaped cheese knife is for
Speaker 1: harder cheeses, so you can kind of chisel a slice off,
Speaker 1: and then the tear drop shaped cheese knife is the
Speaker 1: one for the drier, hard cheeses like palm, so you
Speaker 1: can cut a little divot and then poke at the
Speaker 1: but with the tip and then break a chunk off. Now,
Speaker 1: another handy rule of thumb when it comes to what
Speaker 1: cheese knife you should use is so fucking what, We're
Speaker 1: all gonna die, nothing matters. Do you have a kind
Speaker 1: of cheese where when you see it, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: hell yeah.
Speaker 3: I like things from the mountains, So we call them
Speaker 3: Alpine cheeses. So the Alps are a mountain range that
Speaker 3: run in Switzerland and France, and so cheeses are made
Speaker 3: high up on these mountains and they're made in a
Speaker 3: very specific way. Grier is one of them. So if
Speaker 3: you've had Grier, that's what we call an Alpine style cheese.
Speaker 3: And so I look for those types of cheese in
Speaker 3: the stores, especially more rare, hard to find cheeses from
Speaker 3: that part of the world or domestically, there are a
Speaker 3: lot of small producers that I don't get to try
Speaker 3: because they're more regional based. So when I travel, there
Speaker 3: are cheeses that I'm going to look for that are
Speaker 3: local to that area that I can't find anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about aging a little bit, because the long
Speaker 1: you aged, the harder the cheese. Is that right or no?
Speaker 3: It depends on the style. So yes for the majority
Speaker 3: of styles of cheese. So anything like a cheddar, a gouda,
Speaker 3: the Alpine style that I talked about, those styles and
Speaker 3: anything firm will definitely get.
Speaker 2: Harder as they age.
Speaker 3: As they age, they're losing more moisture, and so when
Speaker 3: you lose more moisture, it's getting more dry, and therefore
Speaker 3: the texture is going to be firmer. But there are
Speaker 3: styles like the soft ripened cheese that I mentioned and
Speaker 3: washed rind. Those two styles of cheese could age backwards.
Speaker 3: So like a Brie or Camembert style cheese. Brie are
Speaker 3: the soft cheese with the white rind. As those cheeses age,
Speaker 3: the proteins actually break down in a different way than
Speaker 3: the hard cheeses do, and so they actually will get
Speaker 3: softer over time. Oh so when we say a cheese
Speaker 3: is ripe. Oftentimes you hear someone say, oh, this is ripe,
Speaker 3: this is a ripe cheese. They're usually talking about these
Speaker 3: softer cheeses are that are more runny and spreadable. Bree
Speaker 3: can be firm when you slice it, but over time
Speaker 3: it'll actually get softer and more creamy. You smell particularly
Speaker 3: ripe this evening.
Speaker 1: What is the rind on those soft cheeses? Because it
Speaker 1: looks papery and then I'm like, is this just mold?
Speaker 1: And can I eat it?
Speaker 3: Yes, So those cheeses specifically, you definitely can eat it.
Speaker 2: Oh, the.
Speaker 3: Rind is mold. We call them soft ripened, but specifically
Speaker 3: for bri and Camembert, we'll say bloomy rind. So a
Speaker 3: bloomy rine cheese is one where the molds that were
Speaker 3: added and the cultures that were added to the cheese
Speaker 3: actually begin to form on the exterior. Mold needs oxygen
Speaker 3: to thrive, so the molds and the microorganisms are going
Speaker 3: to seek out the oxygen and that's gonna be on
Speaker 3: the xterior of the cheese. So, just like any thing,
Speaker 3: you'll see mold growth on the outside, just like your
Speaker 3: bread when you leave it too long. But in this case,
Speaker 3: these are good molds that bring a lot of flavor,
Speaker 3: and so what the cheesemaker will do is they're actually
Speaker 3: watch the molds bloom and then pat them down over time,
Speaker 3: and then watch it bloom some more and pat that
Speaker 3: down over time. And then as you pat it down,
Speaker 3: it creates a dense sort of crust, if you will,
Speaker 3: that's perfectly edible, and actually is part of the reason
Speaker 3: why the cheeses break down in the opposite way that
Speaker 3: the heart cheeses do is partly because of the rind itself.
Speaker 3: The rind breaks down the paste of the cheese and
Speaker 3: makes everything softer.
Speaker 1: I've always wondered that on a cheeseboard when people are
Speaker 1: scooping around the rind, I'm always like, I feel like
Speaker 1: you can eat that, but I don't know. Like I've
Speaker 1: heard people who have been on dates and like their
Speaker 1: date eight the entire at amami, including the shell, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh no, like what is happening here? And
Speaker 1: I was like, is that the same for a rind?
Speaker 1: Is it like sitting down to eat crab and then
Speaker 1: just like eating the shell all so, but no, you
Speaker 1: don't have to scoop around it. You can eat that thing, right,
Speaker 1: I mean right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's totally edible and you can totally
Speaker 3: eat it. And what I say is that if it
Speaker 3: doesn't add to your experience, then leave it behind.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: If it doesn't make things taste better, then it's okay
Speaker 3: to leave it behind. For me, the bloomy rind cheeses,
Speaker 3: I leave those rindes behind. So I would be one
Speaker 3: of those people that you're talking about that would scoop
Speaker 3: out the cheese. So that's my confession that would that
Speaker 3: would be the one. But you know, then I would
Speaker 3: just try to find a friend to eat the rind. Okay,
Speaker 3: I would definitely, yes, not leave it behind totally.
Speaker 1: You could pass it on to me, Okay, I'd put
Speaker 1: it on a cracker. I'm also like a everyone's pizza crust.
Speaker 1: I'm always eyeing them, like the crust is my favorite part,
Speaker 1: Like you canna eat that? So okay, that's good. I'll
Speaker 1: take care of it for you.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I would say that when you eat any rind,
Speaker 3: don't save it to the end like a like a
Speaker 3: like a treat. Eat the rind with the taste, eat
Speaker 3: the rind with the cheese itself, because that's where you're
Speaker 3: gonna really understand the full flavor of it. But oftentimes
Speaker 3: people will eat the cheese and then like pop the
Speaker 3: riine in their mouth at the end. I'm just like,
Speaker 3: that's not gonna be a good experience for you because
Speaker 3: it's gonna be a very specific flavor profile that isn't
Speaker 3: gonna be the same as the cheese itself.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's my tip for that.
Speaker 1: So, yes, that bloomy rind, which is usually mostly a
Speaker 1: species of penicillin, actually breaks down fat into a much
Speaker 1: creamier and kind of goopy, spreadable texture. And yes, you
Speaker 1: can eat the rind, and you may want to if
Speaker 1: you like umami or mushroomy tastes. Also, if you've ever
Speaker 1: had a bloomed soft cheese that tasted like ammonia, which
Speaker 1: I have, that means it overaged. So don't save that
Speaker 1: bree in your cheese drawer for a rainy day. Just
Speaker 1: eat the thing. Try the rind. Well, you mentioned Alpine
Speaker 1: cheeses in care Air, and we're talking about cammeber and
Speaker 1: soft cheeses right now. Is it the same as champagne? Like?
Speaker 1: Can you call something a grier if it's made in
Speaker 1: new or is it only like in the Grier region
Speaker 1: of the Alps. Are there proprietary names.
Speaker 2: Yes, there are.
Speaker 3: So there are certain countries that make certain cheeses that
Speaker 3: they're the only ones that will make those cheeses, Grier
Speaker 3: being one of them. Grera is only made in Switzerland
Speaker 3: by certain cheesemakers in certain regions. Only certain people are
Speaker 3: even allowed to make it. The government would stop you
Speaker 3: if you try to make Griere outside of the parameters
Speaker 3: that they've set. Canmbert isn't as strict. It is made
Speaker 3: in certain parts of France and it's mostly raw milk,
Speaker 3: but we can't get that cheese in America, so there
Speaker 3: are some sort of workarounds in that respect. Now in
Speaker 3: talking about Grea specifically in America, the government has ruled
Speaker 3: that anyone can use the name Grierre. So you will
Speaker 3: see cheeses that are made in Wisconsin that say Grierre
Speaker 3: on the label, but technically those are not going to
Speaker 3: be Greer. But any country can make their own rules.
Speaker 3: We've allowed this to happen, but if you talk to
Speaker 3: a cheese professional, Grea is only made in Switzerland.
Speaker 1: Just a footnote here. So Greer is in fact a
Speaker 1: place in the Alps and I need you to know
Speaker 1: that sci fi artist and legend hr Geiger of Alien
Speaker 1: fame purchased a medieval castle fortress there and has turned
Speaker 1: it into a museum of his goofy, creepy alien sculptures
Speaker 1: and artwork, and you can visit it in between plates
Speaker 1: of earthy, nutty, semi soft cow's milk cheese. Do cheese
Speaker 1: professionals get in cheese fights or is it pretty tight knit?
Speaker 1: I also understand that cheese is pretty matriarchal historically, like
Speaker 1: there's more women that work in cheese. Is that true
Speaker 1: of the cheese culture?
Speaker 2: Definitely?
Speaker 3: So Throughout history, cheese was often looked at as a
Speaker 3: woman's work, so the men would be outside with the animals,
Speaker 3: taking care of the farmland and doing all of the
Speaker 3: manual labor. As they say, even though she's making his
Speaker 3: manual labeled too, but it would be considered a women's work,
Speaker 3: so they'd be the woman would.
Speaker 2: Be taken care of.
Speaker 3: Today it's the same in some respects, but there are
Speaker 3: more women in the industry. I think there's a lot
Speaker 3: to do with the passion behind it and the work
Speaker 3: that is done to make cheese. It's very nurturing, it's
Speaker 3: very passionate, like I said, specifically to work with animals,
Speaker 3: to work with mother animals specifically. All these things are
Speaker 3: very matriarchal. So in the industry there's definitely more women
Speaker 3: than men today, there aren't as many female cheesemakers as
Speaker 3: men that it is probably more balanced, But in the
Speaker 3: industry as a whole, like in distribution and sales and education,
Speaker 3: like myself, there's a lot more women.
Speaker 1: That was a surprise to me, you know, reading about
Speaker 1: that and also reading about the cheese tends to be
Speaker 1: like a queer friendly industry too, and all of hospitality
Speaker 1: really is kind of toward that.
Speaker 2: Bent definitely, which is great to hear, definitely.
Speaker 1: And those in the cheese industry likely already know this.
Speaker 1: But to those on the other side of the cheese case,
Speaker 1: there is a strong queer culture folded into the cheese world.
Speaker 1: And a twenty nineteen Vice piece titled Meet the Lesbian
Speaker 1: Cheesemongers of the LGBTQ Community, a cheese vendor named Kara
Speaker 1: Warren explained the appeal that it's the storytelling and the
Speaker 1: fact that cheese is kind of like this outsider food already.
Speaker 1: She said, it's a subculture that somehow works in the
Speaker 1: realm of gay culture. They intersect at the point where
Speaker 1: it can be artsy and fantastic and over the top,
Speaker 1: and you can be loud and proud. So cheese is
Speaker 1: inherently queer, as outlined in the twenty twenty four Eater
Speaker 1: article why cheese is Inherently Queer, and Kira is quoted
Speaker 1: in that piece explaining that a passion of hers is
Speaker 1: trying to make cheese approachable and relatable to people in
Speaker 1: America who may see it as unobtainable, and to allow
Speaker 1: people to enjoy cheese on a more casual level. And
Speaker 1: Kia also told Eater that as a person of color
Speaker 1: in a white dominated industry, she knows of only two
Speaker 1: other brown femalengers and that one of her many, many
Speaker 1: goals is doing more for young people of color and
Speaker 1: young queer people. And that's also what she's fostering at
Speaker 1: her cheese consulting business, Own Your Funk, and that's a
Speaker 1: company that's inspired and motivated by this urgent need for
Speaker 1: more diversity and who's buying, selling, and producing artisan food,
Speaker 1: specifically value added dairy as it's called. And she does
Speaker 1: that by crafting these intentional educational food experiences and you
Speaker 1: can learn more, of course at own yourfunk dot com.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I had another rind question. I'm sorry, Oh
Speaker 1: wax rindes. Don't eat the wax rines.
Speaker 2: Right, don't eat the wax rines?
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, Why do some cheeses why are they dipped
Speaker 1: in wax? And other cheeses are just like cool having
Speaker 1: a MOLDI rind?
Speaker 3: Great question. Again, it goes back to style. So traditionally,
Speaker 3: cheeses dipped in wax are going to create certain nuances
Speaker 3: and flavor profiles within the cheese. So the most well
Speaker 3: known wax dip cheese would be Gudhas or Goudas from
Speaker 3: the Netherlands and Holland. So when you dip the cheese
Speaker 3: and wax, you're sort of creating a barrier around it
Speaker 3: to allow for the microbes and the cheese itself to
Speaker 3: age while not losing its moisture. So you've created this
Speaker 3: protective barrier where nothing can get out or in. And
Speaker 3: so what that means is it can't get dried out.
Speaker 3: It's going to stay protected by the wax, and that
Speaker 3: moisture helps with sweetness. So that's why a lot of
Speaker 3: Gaudas are going to be more sweet in flavor profile,
Speaker 3: partly because of the wax dipping. So you'll see it
Speaker 3: in a few other cheeses, Like there are some blue
Speaker 3: cheeses there are dipped in wax. There are cheddars dipped
Speaker 3: in wax, all for the same sort of purpose, to
Speaker 3: protect it from losing its moisture.
Speaker 1: One of my fears about the future, and I have many,
Speaker 1: but one of them is you know those baby belt cheeses. Yes,
Speaker 1: when you got one of those in your lunch, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: today's going to be a good day of a baby
Speaker 1: Belt cheese, right lunch. Not to mention, you could make
Speaker 1: like weird wax fingernails and you could sculpt it. It
Speaker 1: was like, today's the best. But I'm so afraid of
Speaker 1: the day when baby Bell has to announce their poor
Speaker 1: social media expert has to announce it like they're going
Speaker 1: to be wrapped in plastic or they stopped making the
Speaker 1: why Like it's such a treat, But I imagine it
Speaker 1: must be so expensive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think it's that expensive until okay, modern world.
Speaker 3: It's food grade wax. It's not very thick, it doesn't
Speaker 3: take a lot to create. I think it's more, in
Speaker 3: my opinion, more of an environmental aspect of things, so
Speaker 3: to tradition out of wax could be for an environmental
Speaker 3: purpose to create less waste than that respect. But it
Speaker 3: is food grade so it does decompose over time. But yeah,
Speaker 3: that would be a terrible day. I don't know if
Speaker 3: it would have it wouldn't be the same cheese anymore,
Speaker 3: would taste completely different.
Speaker 1: Okay, I had to look this up and apparently the
Speaker 1: red wax is a microcrystalline wax. It's food safe and
Speaker 1: the cellophane around the cheese is compostable. Also, if you're
Speaker 1: subsisting entirely on Baby Bell cheeses, good for you, but
Speaker 1: you're feeling guilty about the wax consumption, you can, according
Speaker 1: to their website, collect all the wax, the cellophane, the
Speaker 1: netting and the metal clip and you can ship it
Speaker 1: back to them with a prepaid packing label and they'll
Speaker 1: recycle it all for you. They purify the wax and
Speaker 1: make candles. But the wax, i'm told, also makes an
Speaker 1: excellent campfire starter, or you can sculpt things. Baby Bell
Speaker 1: has even run competitions for the finest sculptures made from
Speaker 1: its cheese wax discards. So dream big, get in there.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: It's just it's such an experience when you on wrap it,
Speaker 1: you're just like, oh, so exciting. I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: about blue cheeses too. Sometimes you'll see like cave aged,
Speaker 1: and I picture a weird, remote, tiny cave that no
Speaker 1: one knows the location to. But when they say cave aged,
Speaker 1: is that like is a basement a cave? What is
Speaker 1: that mean?
Speaker 3: So cave age is used pretty loosely today, but traditionally
Speaker 3: cave age means just that in a naturally formed cave,
Speaker 3: cheeses are put into the cave to age.
Speaker 2: Caves.
Speaker 3: Again, traditionally, true caves are sort of a naturally controlled environment.
Speaker 3: So they have cool temperatures about like fifty five degrees
Speaker 3: so it's not super cold, kind of keeps things at
Speaker 3: a nice temperature, but then very high humidity, and so
Speaker 3: with those two attributes it makes for a great environment
Speaker 3: again for certain cheeses. Certain cheeses want high humidity and
Speaker 3: cool temperatures to thrive in the aging process. So that's
Speaker 3: when you're going to put things in caves. And you'll
Speaker 3: see blue cheeses where where it started with Brokeefort. They
Speaker 3: started in caves and so people follow suit. And so
Speaker 3: today you can define a cave as any controlled temperature environment.
Speaker 1: Any controlled temperature environment.
Speaker 3: So basement, if you have the temperature controlled, if there's
Speaker 3: a door and the community and the temperature are controlled,
Speaker 3: then you can definitely call it a cave or cheese
Speaker 3: aging room, even though a refrigerator can be called a
Speaker 3: cave if you're aging cheese in it. But traditionally and
Speaker 3: today there are still many many cheeses that are age
Speaker 3: in real caves, even right here in America.
Speaker 1: So we have an episode on caves. It's peliology. I'll
Speaker 1: link it for you. Also, the blue veins in cheeses
Speaker 1: like Roquefort and Corganzola, those appear because there are tunnels
Speaker 1: of air in the aging cheese and those pockets of
Speaker 1: oxygen allow the mold to flourish and then they appear
Speaker 1: like threads of gold before a minor size, priceless to some, So.
Speaker 3: To be considered to be a blue cheese, the only
Speaker 3: really rule to being a blue cheese that you have
Speaker 3: some blue molding in there.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I feel like blue cheese has to be
Speaker 1: the most polarizing.
Speaker 2: It's definitely the most polarizing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I mean you have some fans of it
Speaker 3: and then you have people who will never try it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My friend Todd, who is has French citizenship, an amazing chef,
Speaker 1: and I was shocked to be like, that's one cheese
Speaker 1: he just won't touch because he's like, he'll try anything,
Speaker 1: he'll cook anything, and it's so personal. What cheese is
Speaker 1: you like? Which is one of the things that's amazing
Speaker 1: about cheese. Can I do a lightning round of listener questions? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it, so ask salts of the Earth people
Speaker 1: cheesy questions because, like a snack, knowledge is best shared.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much Kiara for being here, not only
Speaker 1: this week, but next week as well. You can follow
Speaker 1: her and learn more about her work linked in the
Speaker 1: show notes or at our website aliwar dot com, slash ologies,
Speaker 1: slash Promology, or at own yourfunk dot com. Donations went
Speaker 1: to the Cheese Culture Coalition and Team ups building schools
Speaker 1: in Kenya. We've got those linked in the show as well.
Speaker 1: Next week, come back for Waldtswall Patreon questions to learn
Speaker 1: how to properly store cheese, the difference between orange and
Speaker 1: white Cheddar, the Grild Sandwich Debate, how to make cheese
Speaker 1: at home, Cheese pricing, Squeaky Kurds, The Moon's Composition, How
Speaker 1: cheese changes your brain, Chemistry, The Ultimate Show, Coulderyboard Build,
Speaker 1: plus Holes and Crystals and Maggots, Oh My and again.
Speaker 1: If you need kid friendly episodes, check out Smologies SMO,
Speaker 1: l O, g I E S and Ologies Merch is
Speaker 1: available at ologiesmerch dot com. Thank you patrons of the
Speaker 1: show for making it possible via Patreon dot com, slash Ologies.
Speaker 1: We are at Ologies on Instagram, a Blue Sky, I'm
Speaker 1: at Ali Ward on both Aaron Talbert admins Ologies podcast
Speaker 1: Facebook group. Aveline Malik makes our professional transcripts. Noel Dilworth
Speaker 1: arranges time as a scheduling producer. Susan Hale is our
Speaker 1: managing manger and director of all Things Ologies. Editors are
Speaker 1: the extra Sharp Jake Chafe and lead editor and Big
Speaker 1: Cheese Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio, with some additional sprinklings
Speaker 1: of Jered Sleeper of mindgam Media. Nick Thorburn the music
Speaker 1: and if you stick around to the very end of
Speaker 1: the episode, I tell you a secret. This one is
Speaker 1: that my legs not my best feature, pasty ashy. No
Speaker 1: matter how much moisturizer, it's not a good scene. But
Speaker 1: summer is hard for lingering aging goths, and so I've
Speaker 1: taken to wearing like old school fish nets under my shorts,
Speaker 1: and specifically the ones made for professional dancers like Kupeio
Speaker 1: brand Indestructible. I don't know what in the name of
Speaker 1: kevlar these things are made of, but you could run
Speaker 1: thigh first into a barber ware fence and these things
Speaker 1: wouldn't feel it while you bled out underneath them. I
Speaker 1: thought this was the most genius summer decision I've ever made.
Speaker 1: I wear them all the time. I have several pairs.
Speaker 1: And also it's a great way to avoid needing self
Speaker 1: tanner or explaining bruises you don't know how they got there.
Speaker 1: But I ran into my neighbor yesterday. He's a rocket
Speaker 1: scientist in NASA, so I tend to trust his judgment,
Speaker 1: and he pointed to my ensemble of fish net tights
Speaker 1: under black stit arts and he just paused taking out
Speaker 1: the garbage, and he just was like, why so it's
Speaker 1: a burn, Yeah, but it was it a deterrent. No. Sorry, Ben,
Speaker 1: I'm still wearing them. Okay, next week more cheese provide pacodermatology, homology,
Speaker 1: ydo zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, metatology, menthology, ceiology, elinology, and you.
Speaker 4: Ate the whole wheel of cheese.
Speaker 3: How'd you do that?
Speaker 4: It's actually, I'm not even mad. It's amazing.