Lesson No. 1: The Colour of Cheese

A comment by my brother wondering about what's in that smoky liquid that my Jarlsberg was dipped in to give it a brown coating got me thinking about how cheese is coloured.

As a kid, I remember being somewhat blown away to find out that Cheddar wasn't naturally orange. Wish I'd know about this website back then. I just accepted that it was dyed orange with chemicals but it turns out the reason for that colour isn't artificial, rather it's due to the addition of a pigment made from the "bright red outer covering of the seeds of a tropical plant." A few drops of vegetable dye made from Bixin (or, Annatto, after the Spanish word for the stuff) and your creamy-white cheese will gain "an appetizing yellow color," as one sales pitch for this cheese additive claims.

According to this website, you can add wine during the cheese-making process for flavour and/or colour. Cheese can also be soaked in red wine for a day or so, which will colour the exterior of the cheese (and, not surprisingly, infuse it with the flavour of the wine).

As for smoked cheeses, a brown exterior can be achieved the Jarlsberg way* (i.e. dip cheese in "smoky liquid") or the "old-fashioned" way, as employed by Teddington Cheese (and presumably other cheese makers). When smoking its cheddar, they first cut the cheese into wedges (because "the flavours can only penetrate a small way into the cheese") and then they place the wedges into "an oak fired smoke house for 6 hours," a process that not only infuses it with smokiness but turns the outside of the cheese "a fabulous chesnut brown colour."

* I tried to find out what's in the smoky liquid but no luck - anyone know?

Cheese No. 4

"Jarlsberg Smoke" (aka Smoked Jarlsberg), $11.79/lb - maker and provenance unknown

So I am not proving to be much of a cheese snob. Turns out the "mystery cheese" I picked out of the dollar bin a couple days ago is "one of Norway's greatest export successes in the world market" and "America's number 1 brand of Speciality cheese." It's not cheddar but in terms of exoticness, Jarlsberg seems to be a close cousin of Havarti and Feta. Oh well, I'd never tried it before and that's one of my big goals for this project: to taste different kinds and types of cheese.

But enough preamble, you're probably curious what I thought it tasted like. Well, being a smoked variety, it tasted, uh, smoky. Kind of like bacon, actually (though since I'm a vegetarian, I haven't eaten bacon in years...). It reminded me a bit of Gouda or Swiss (not surprisingly considering the cheese's history - more on that below). It wasn't overly creamy and the texture was a little bit rubbery. Also, what I thought was rind (and cut off last night when I sneaked some into my dinner) was actually just a layer of brown. I did some poking around on Jarlsberg.com and it turns out that the cheese "Acquires its characteristic taste by being dipped in a special smoky liquid. It gives the cheese a brown-coloured surface and a piquant, smoky taste." Okay, that's kind of gross. I'm curious if that's how other smoked varieties are made or if it's just a mass-production cheese-making technique.

The same website had lots of interesting info on the history of Jarlsberg. Here's an excerpt:

In 1830, the Swiss came to Norway’s Jarlsberg and Laurvig County (known as Vestfold County today) to teach the Norwegians to make cheese. These foreign master cheese makers were famous for making cheese with holes. There was active production in Norway until 1832. The cheese disappeared but the tale of its delicious taste was still in memory. In 1956, the academic community at the Agricultural University of Norway at Ås undertook the task of reviving the cheese recipe from 1830. Professor Ole Martin Ystgaard and his team developed during his research a semi-hard, medium-fat cheese with holes, successfully combining the cheese-making traditions with modern technologies. The new cheese was named Jarlsberg after the county, where the earlier version had been made at the beginning of the 19th century. A new cheese category was established.

So, to summarize today's history lesson: Jarlsberg is Swiss cheese made by Norwegians trying to approximate the taste of Swiss cheese from memory.

Please send me cheese recommendations otherwise I may just be tempted to write about the Tre Stella mozzarella cheese ball I bought for pizza... (fortunately, I did have the forethought to pick up something a little more unusual as well).

Class dismissed!