If you were lucky enough to find a job during this jobless recovery, your orientation probably consisted of a short tour of the copy room and a long trip through the employee handbook. But if you’re Jessi Peine, your new boss sent you on a six-week trek across Europe, where you toured several cheese-producing farms, devoured pounds of cheese, learned about the aging process of cheese, drank loads of wine, and ate more cheese.
Peine is a cheese specialist at Lund’s. Since her education abroad, and her installment at the Penn Avenue store, she has come to know her cheese-loving customers on a first-name basis. They bombard her with questions and cheese stories the instant she slips behind the counter and puts on the tall, white hat that designates her as a food expert. When I approached her the other day, she was huddled with a customer. “I just got back from Norway,” the customer bragged. “I shoved a cheese wheel in my jacket, and they never found it!” She’d successfully smuggled some gjetøst past the eagle-eyed customs officials.
“As a kid who loved food, I always thought you could only be a cook or a housewife,” Peine told me. “I never knew you could do this. And I studied microbiology for a while, which is all about bugs. And bugs make cheese…”
Yes, bacteria make cheese, and cheese is more popular than ever, especially artisan cheese. Like the secret societies of wine, chocolate, sushi, and even cigars, the world of fancy cheese is a complicated one. Peine’s job is to steer you in the right direction, which sometimes means not following your nose.
First of all, “American cheese” shouldn’t be confused with American cheese. Cheeses made here are not necessarily inferior to, say, French cheeses. In fact, in recent years the most expensive and sought-after specimens have been produced in the U.S. “There’s a cheese called Pleasant Ridge Reserve from Wisconsin that is beautifully made, and their cows have acres and acres to graze on, which is very important, because the cows need a steady diet of fresh grasses,” Peine said.
There’s only one problem with American cheeses: Due to FDA regulations, the milk has to be pasteurized (which means heating it to 161 degrees Fahrenheit). This adds a cooked taste to the cheese, and destroys many of the natural enzymes that cheese tasters celebrate. The alternative is to age a cheese for at least sixty days, which also kills most harmful bacteria. But because of what Peine calls an epidemic of food paranoia, most American farms will pasteurize instead of risking the aging process. “We’ll never taste a really fresh, unpasteurized cheese unless we’re in France,” Peine said.
That said, we still can serve plenty of super-stinky cheeses that are dripping with bacteria. Peine doesn’t carry Limburger, the infamously stinky German cheese, because it fouls up her entire cheese case, and because, she says, there are better stinky cheeses out there. “There’s Taleggio from Italy, which is lovely. It just stinks to high heaven, but has a really nice and clean pure cheese flavor.” An ancient Italian cheese carried around the globe on the winds of World War I, Taleggio is creamy, rich, and buttery, and will make a fickle guest either love you or hate you, depending on his or her nose.
Even if you’re serving a wheel whose mere odor will insure plenty of elbow room at the cheeseboard, it’s important not to overwhelm your guests with too many alternatives. Three to five cheeses are all you need, in a nice array of colors, textures, and milks. “Do a nice goat, sheep, and cow,” Peine counseled. “Sheep and goat have that lovely tang, totally different from cow’s milk.” Peine suggested serving Humboldt Fog, a funky-looking goat cheese from California that has a layer of vegetable ash between two layers of white cheese. “That’s the thing: Most of the ugliest cheeses taste the best. They’re not supposed to look perfect,” she said.
There are other simple truths to be aware of: It’s best to pair cheeses and wines by region (reds and whites are both fine) and relative strength on the palate. Always make sure your cheeses are served at room temperature. (Enough with the food paranoia; Peine says cheese can sit out for hours, even days.) Also, never cut the cheese. “Let the guests cut what they want,” Peine said, cautioning against airing the cheese too much too soon. “Don’t let the hard work of those little animals go to waste!” Serve your cheeses with a fresh baguette or bland crackers. You do not want to overpower the cheese. Or you can just scarf it down on its own. “You don’t really need bread,” Peine said. “You don’t need crackers. You can eat it with a spoon if you want.” Face it: If you were worried about offending your more sensitive guests, you probably would have stuck with the cheddar cubes.—Molly Priesmeyer