Moldy Cheese

There are so many wonderful kinds of cheese in the world. Throughout the past several thousand years (since before recorded history), humans have concentrated and preserved milk. Nobody really knows how the first "cheese" was made, though some argue that Bedouins carrying milk in moldy goat-skin bags found their cargo clumped (and delicious!), while others say it was travelers who happened to use calf stomachs for transport. Either way, they started a delicious trend, and I am forever grateful!

The importance of cheese in American society is brought home by the sheer number of websites, blogs, advertisements, classes, tastings, artisanal producers, importers, and events dedicated to the love of our milky friend. According NPR's recent article (via the USDA's recent calculations), the average American ate 31 pounds of cheese in 2011 (along with other scary numbers).

Today while cleaning out my freezer (I figured I've lived here a year, I may as well dig and see what I need to get rid of), I happened upon a not-too-old loaf of sourdough rye bread. The next ten minutes were spent fantasizing about what to do with it, as I pulled out four (four!?!) sleeves of tortillas, a few jars of old pasta sauce, some dehydrated green beans, three tart shells, and a bag of spinach, which ripped and exploded bits of green ice everywhere. Of course, I would make a grilled cheese with tomato, and have plenty of bread left for future endeavors. And yet, when I reached for my cheddar...

Though I consider myself a cheese aficionado, I am often surprised to find several bits of moldy goodness in the place where I thought I had stored my hard-won and hunted-down New Zealand raw milk cheddar and chevre-turned-brie (otherwise referred to as Boucheron). That might be more of a statement about my life (it couldn't have been four weeks since I went to the Cheeseboard!?), but it always pains me to think that most people believe those white fuzzy hunks of amazingness have to be thrown away. Or even worse, that aged gouda 'must be bad' after a few weeks- the stuff has been around for years! It's fine, especially as it doesn't even grow mold... the worst that will happen is the fat will start pearling up on the outside if it's not properly stored.

So let's talk about this mold thing, because I am dying to talk about it, and you might want to know a little more. First off, many cheeses require mold in order to come to their full flavor (think Maytag blue, Camembert, Roquefort, Chevre-Boite, etc). So sorry to break it to you, mold is alive and well (pun intended!) on the blue-cheese-walnut-dried-cranberry salad you ordered for supper down the pub.

At the same time, though, other strains of mold will grow on any food, given correct conditions and enough time. Some of these can produce toxins that you might not want to consume vast quantities of (especially if you have a compromised immune system), but you're not likely to get sick, unless there has been contamination by other nasties (eg salmonella or staph, if it has a high pH). Food molds are fungi, so they spread by latching on to a surface and spreading in a tendril-like manner (imagine a tree setting down roots). The harder it is to break through the 'soil', the more slowly the 'tree' will grow and the more shallow the 'root' system.

Likewise with cheese- goudas, aged cheddars, parmesans, and the like will mold slowly- scraping the mold off these cheeses and taking a bit out below will leave you with a perfectly satisfactory hunk, probably 90% of its original size. But soft cheeses- cottage cheeses, ricottas, up to mild cheddars and Camemberts (besides the fact that Camemberts will become overripe and the flavor will diminish) will provide an easy breeding ground for mold spores (particularly the uber-nasty pink mold). If it's questionable with these ones, you'll want to send them out back to be composted (generally, over a week after they've been opened and you'll see mold).
So ignore the 'best by' dates (they're always so conservative, and lead to so much waste!) and when it comes to moldy cheese, consider the type of mold and the type of cheese before you tuck in... or throw away.

By the way, my grilled moldy cheddar and tomato on rye with Jewish deli mustard was, of course, delicious.