A 150-Year Shift in Cheese Tastes
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Paper for the 2nd Global Conference. Food, Heritage and Community. An Inclusive Interdiscipli- nary Conference. A Food and Drink in the 21st Century Project. 2019 Prague, Czech Republic A 150-YEAR SHIFT IN CHEESE TASTES • 1 A 150-Year Shift In Cheese Tastes: Social, Economic And Cultural Dimensions Of Danish Cheeses Jørgen Burchardt National Museum of Science and Technology, Denmark [email protected] Vesterhavsbutikken, Fjaltring. Intro Today, the cheese department in a fatty, lean, sour, sweet and many supermarket or specialty store is fil- other flavor combinations. led with a large variety of cheeses. Cheese has become an integral The exporter can provide tasting part of the Danish meal. Each Dane samples of cheeses, and consumers eats an average of around 15 kg of can choose textures and tastes ran- cheese a year. Parents give their chil- ging from firm, soft, strong, mild, dren cheese to ensure that they in- 2 • Jørgen burchardt gest important vitamins and miner- introduction to the dairy remains als. Some choose cheeses to become clear in my mind. When I got there a meal with a culinary quality simi- at midnight, light flowed from the lar to that of red wine; others buy dairy building’s windows. It was cheese to blend on pizza for flavors winter, and from the parked cars, and different textures, while others two sets of footprints went up to buy chunks of cheese for a quick the entrance door. I followed the addition to the traditional lunch box tracks, and when I opened the door, or snack. I was surprised by a strong smell. It has taken many years to achieve My first thought was "baby puke", this level of consumption, although but the smell of sour milk wasn't at our latitudes we have had cheese quite as unpleasant as if a baby had for thousands of years. Danes’ op- slipped off one’s shoulder. portunities for eating cheese have The dairymen had arrived to changed according to technological prepare the milk for cheese making. developments in agriculture, trade First, they would add lactic acid cul- patterns, economic cycles, and com- ture to the milk so that it was ready petition from other foods. to have rennet added around 4 a.m., The article highlights some of when a few more dairymen would the most important elements of arrive. When the curd had solidified, cheese’s cultural and historical jour- it would be cut into pieces and the ney. whey pumped off. Then, the next team of dairymen would come to A meeting with a dairy pour the cheeses into moulds. When It’s difficult to describe taste. I the cheese container was empty, the discovered this a few years ago, next of the dairy’s six daily produc- when one of Denmark’s most im- tions could begin. This is how the portant cheese dairies, Brørup Me- working day went at this dairy and, jeri, had to be closed down. I was with some variations, it was similar contacted to save the dairy’s history, to those at other dairies all over the and as a trained ethnologist, I star- world. ted with fieldwork. I knew nothing In advance, I was going to save about dairies, so I said, spontane- the dairy’s last cheese at the local ously, that I wanted to start my work museum, but a conservator said at the dairy. that it was impossible to preserve a It turned out that the first dairy- cheese. The dairy made a copy of men arrived at midnight, and my a Spanish Manchego cheese, and in A 150-YEAR SHIFT IN CHEESE TASTES • 3 Archaeologists often encounter simple earthenware with holes in the bottom, like this one dated to the Roman Iron Age. More than a thousand sieves are registered in the museums’ collections. We know from historical time that the curd is kept in place by a cloth in the bot- tom, while the whey left. Photo Ski- ve Museum. the following months, I got to know jective attributes. For taste, a judge the cheese well. It tasted good, bet- checks whether the product’s taste ter than its Spanish counterpart. aligns with the standard taste for How could knowledge about the the type of cheese, or whether there taste of this cheese be ensured for is a taste of feed or yeast or if the the future? fat is rancid. In addition, whether a An expert in taste is able to iden- cheese is aromatic and has the right tify many hundreds of flavors. Arla, acidity and a taste of salt are other the large Scandinavian dairy, has an attributes that are judged. expert who judges some of its new- ly developed cheeses, and the expert The long way of the cheese had 600 tastes to use in her descrip- Archaeologists often encounter ex- tion. cavations of sieves, which are simp- However, the daily assessment le clay pits with holes in the bottom, of cheeses in the dairy industry has such as the one dated to the Roman been reduced to only 20 different Iron Age. More than a thousand main categories. In a judge’s guide are registered in the collections of for cheeses at cheese exhibitions, cultural history museums all over the visual character must be judged the country. We know from writ- by the cheese’s exterior, color, struc- ten sources how sieves were used ture, texture, aroma, and taste, as for making cheese; the solid cheese well as its packaging in some cases. must be held firmly by a cloth in the Aroma and taste are the most sub- bottom of the vat while the whey 4 • Jørgen burchardt Gorgonzola 879 Year for first known mention of cheese types. Throug- hout experiments, cheeses have been developed with Schabziger 1000 characteristic flavors. They are often developed within Roquefort 1070 a geographical area, so the name has become a kind of brand for the cheeses. This list shows some of the Marolles 1174 best known ones. Scott, Robinson and Wilbey 1986, 7. Schwangenkäse 1178 Grana 1200 Taleggio 1282 Cheddar 1500 Parmesan 1579 Gouda 1697 Gloucester 1783 Stilton 1785 Camembert 1791 St. Paulin 1816 runs from the coagulated milk mass. ing milk products as adults. In fact, Likewise, sieves have similarly been many people with lactose intoler- used for cheese making since the ance can eat cheeses as they usually end of the third millennium, 3,000 contain very little lactose. years before Christ. Around the year 100 AD, the Danes are born to eat dairy Roman historian Tacitus wrote that products; it is literally stamped in the Germans used curds as a food- our DNA. For 7,000–10,000 years, stuff. It is certain that knowledge of our culture has been based on the cheese making arrived with the Vi- milking of livestock, and this has kings when Iceland was colonized. meant that we have been able to We know from the Icelandic sagas survive better than peoples who that cheese was produced from relied on a purely vegan diet or by sheep's milk. In addition, a petri- hunting alone. Since the middle of fied cheese was found in a building the fourth millennium, milk prod- which, according to the Njál Saga, ucts have improved the economic burned down around the year 1000 base for residents in Denmark, and AD after a manmade fire, even 96–97% of Danes do not develop though one person tried to extin- lactose intolerance, which would guish the fire by whipping whey at have prevented us from consum- it. Laboratory studies were found A 150-YEAR SHIFT IN CHEESE TASTES • 5 to show traces of curd. Thus, from The cheeses from the Danish historical records, we know about region of Thy were sought, in par- the production of fresh cheese. ticular, and they were even award- It was made from milk or butter- ed a silver medal in 1791 by the milk, where acidification created Royal Danish Agricultural Society the cheese. Like butter, it could be for a thesis on how priests spous- stored longer than milk. Quark and es produced their cheeses for the cottage cheese are examples of con- benefit of imitation elsewhere in temporary fresh cheeses. the country. The historian Troels However, another technique Troels-Lund stated in his work on was needed to produce long-lasting daily life in the Nordic countries in cheeses. Stored cheeses were based the 16th century that, across Scan- on rennet, where the active element dinavia, there was a geographic was enzymes from calves. After the area from Thy over to Halland in rennet was added to the milk, the Sweden where giant cheeses were cheese material (casein) was depos- produced. It is said that they were ited, and it could be stored for a honored to make them so large be- long time after draining and drying. cause connoisseurs knew that the During storage, a further conversion milk had to be supplied on one and of the cheese occurred, producing the same day, could finish from the tasty flavors. It is probably an old size of the cheese to the wealth of tradition, which is described in a the owner. cookbook published in 1868. The This form of production has farmer’s wife made her own rennet been widespread. It is known that from dried calf ’s stomach, where a taxes have often had to be paid in teaspoonful was added to six buck- kind, and cheeses have been men- ets of milk, with cumin or nutmeg tioned specifically as a form of pay- to taste.