Lucy Gellman Photo
Chiquet.
Pauline Chiquet was shopping and caught the faintest whiff of something nutty. Pam Soulos wanted free food and heard there was an offer for it floating around Elm City Market. A cluster of Yale undergraduates gathered in the market’s back cafe with the promise of a fun lesson at the end of a long, dreary day. And for Robin Williams and Rebekah Basquette, it was another fourth Wednesday of the month — and time for some serious tasting and teaching activity.
They and others gathered last Wednesday night to partake in what has become a monthly rite at ECM: Cheese 101, a free seminar on the tastes, textures, and origins of cheeses from around the globe. Wednesday’s session offered a lesson in six sheep’s milk cheeses, ranging from salty Halloumi to woodsy Ossau-iraty and mild, almost sweet Queso Iberico.
Williams and Basquette are full of delicious secrets, and Wednesday, they divulged two big ones for newcomers and Cheese 101 veterans alike. First, sheep are at once mild and hearty in ways cows are not, and so is their milk, giving rise to a family of cheeses that are often easier to digest due to proteins that are different from those found in cow’s milk. Many are also, unlike last month’s blues, what I think of as remarkably good dessert island cheeses. They could pair with fig and quince jam on a baguette in the morning, feature on the side of a a tomato-dotted green salad at noon, and close with a glass of red wine after a day at the office.
Second, and not a surprise to those who have attended previous sessions, every cheese brings with it a science lesson, and the ones that come in brebis territory are some of the most interesting.
Such as the age-old debate over pasteurization versus raw-milk cheese. In the spotlight with a hunk of eight-month-aged white sheep Manchego –– the market also carries four-month, twelve-month, and organic variants –– Williams dispelled the rumors that raw-milk cheese has potentially deleterious side effects, joining camps of those like Vermont-based cheesemaker Mateo Kehler or local Casekönig Jason Sobicinski who believe raw is the way to go.
“Listen,” said Williams. “You go to France, people are eating raw milk cheese every day. They don’t have a listeria problem. In fact, most listeria problems here in the United States come from products other than cheese. In the pasteurization process, there is something that is lost, flavor, nutrients. Cheese is a living thing. Here, the enzymes are still there, adding to the flavor of the cheese. Whenever you have the chance to compare a raw milk and a pasteurized, look for those things.”
Or take the strange and tasty case of Halloumi, a Cypriot cheese whose hearty near-squeakiness and fierce preservation of shape comes from its origin story, which involves fluctuating seasons and a neolithic-era and now endangered breed of sheep. Due to the milk solids in boiled mouflon milk, the cheese turns tangy and almost oniony when caramelized.
Then consider P’tit Basque, Lactalis’ young, mild version of France’s beloved raw-milk Ossau-iraty from the Pyrenees mountains in the Basque region, manipulated to cater to American palates.
“This is a good cheese to try … it’s sort of an entry-level cheese. Lactalis wanted to produce a sheep’s milk cheese that would appeal to a broader segment of the American market,” explained Basquette.
Which is, of course, another part of Cheese 101: The classes are chances to learn a little food anthropology and gastronomic history, which Williams and Basquette have both said they will deliver on further with next month’s session, “April in Paris.”
Until then, Williams suggested that the two were willing to continue the cheese dialogue anytime.
“Please,” he said. “When you come in to Elm City Market, stop one of us. Ask us for a taste of cheese. It lets us stop from the monotony of the day and enjoy something we enjoy with great people. I want you to find out that you like it or dislike it right here … come on by and have some cheese with us.”
Go Vegan
Meat and cheese may be as bad as smoking
Eating animal proteins during middle age makes you a candidate for cancer.
https://news.usc.edu/59199/meat-and-cheese-may-be-as-bad-for-you-as-smoking/