The Molecular Secrets of Cream Cheese

Roland Piquepaille writes "The June issue of Wired Magazine carries a story about one of the two university labs in the U.S. dedicated to cream cheese research. This one is -- where else? -- in Madison, Wisconsin, where researchers are exploring the molecular mysteries of cream cheese. You may not know, but this cheese is tricky to produce because the acid-secreting bacteria used to coagulate the milk need to be killed at the right time. The researchers are now writing a guidebook about the secrets of cream cheese, a book which will be available to anyone, in a process similar to the open source movement for software. For more information, please read the entertaining article of Wired magazine, 'Schmear Campaign' or this summary to discover little-known facts about cream cheese."

Comments

Re:Science gone amuck again

[czarangelus]

You're making the assumption that wages have kept pace with inflation. They haven't.

Re:Science gone amuck again

[CRCulver]

Our lifespans are longer than they have ever been in the first world, thanks largely to modern science-based medicine. For most of those "thousands of years" you talk about, people had lifespans of around thirty years.

Wrong, you are perpetuating a particularly obnoxious urban myth that comes from a misinterpretation of mortality rate statistics. The mortality rate may have made for an average of thirty years, but that is because infant mortality was very high. If you survived childhood, then you had a good shot at making it to 70, then as now. Ancient literature, such as the Bible and Greek stories, says that "two-score-and-ten" was the average span of days for an adult male, and in poor Eastern European countries before the advent of modern medicine there were never a lack of old people. However, now in the U.S. Americans face the prospect of earlier death than people in comparatively worse-off countries, because of the heart disease stemming from our unhealthy modern diet, as well as the possibility of cancer from industrial methods.

Make your own mascarpone!

[Consul]

I think mascarpone is better tasting cheese than basic cream cheese. Here's how you make your own.

Heat one quart of light cream (I mix two cups of whipping cream with two cups of whole milk) in a double-boiler to 180 degrees F. After five minutes, pour in two tablespoons of freshly-squeezed lemon juice. Lit it sit at 180F for 30 minutes. Take off the heat, and let it cool, covered, in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, arrange a sterilized (by boiling) teatowel over another container, and pour the curds and whey into it. Tie up the towel, and suspend it using a skewer over a tall container, like a pitcher. Let it sit in the fridge for 24 hours, dripping away.

The next day, the teatowel will contain yummy mascarpone cheese! Use within about a week to ten days of making it.

I've done this several of times, with excellent results.

Re:Make your own mascarpone!

[mrjb]

I'm sorry to inform you that you were misinformed. The recipe he submitted is in fact for mascarpone.

Ricotta is italian for "recooked". Ricotta cheese is made by recooking the leftover whey of a previous batch of cheese, helping the remaining milk protein in there to clog together. This recooking, as you may notice, does not happen in the submitted recipe.

This is one of the wonderful things about cheese: although the ingredients and basic procedure are mostly the same, variations in the preparation method lead to dramatically different cheeses.

Re:Make your own mascarpone!

[AngryNick]

variations in the preparation method lead to dramatically different cheeses.

For example, change a few steps and you have Panir, a Persian cheese that tastes and looks a bit like fetta. That recipe calls for you to use regular milk, lime juice, retain the whey, and store the resulting compressed churd block back in the whey with a little salt.

Re:Strangely,

[Anonymous Coward]

>Strangely, there are not many academical papers about cream cheese.

Pubmed brings up 45 hits on "Cream cheese".
Most relevant is probably "Characterization of Particles in Cream Cheese" (M. R. Sainani, H. K. Vyas and P. S. Tong - J. Dairy Sci. 87:2854-2863).

Old Fashion Organic Cream Cheese

[FosterSJC]

Carlton Yoder, of Champlain Valley Creamery, makes one of America's only stabilizer- and gum-free cream cheeses. You can learn about his products and creamery from his website at http://www.cvcream.com/, and buy the cream cheese here. He is a very enthusiastic proponent of sustainable agriculture, in Vermont.

The texture of Old Fashion Organic Cream Cheese is similar to fresh goat cheese, but with more creaminess and without that distinct goats milk flavor. Because we dont stabilize the cheese with any sort of gums (carob bean, xanthan, etc), the cheese may separate. The liquid is simply whey, just stir it up and enjoy! The cheese is best in the first week after its made, but it will last 4 weeks in your fridge.

On the subject of cheese, the distinctions between things like soured, curdled milk, sour cream, cream cheese, mascarpone, and full-fledged cheese are myriad and arcane. I wrote a quick blurb for a friend, explaining what cheese exactly is. I have attached it below, for your perusal. IAACE (I am a cheese expert)...

Cheese is a rather general term describing curdled milk (or cream). To curdle milk means to separate the whey from the curds. Milk proteins (casein) are ostensibly broken in half. One half precipitates out of the milk, becoming a solid (the curds). The other half remains liquid (the whey), though it ceases to be white. The distinction between true cheese and things like cream cheese, sour cream, mascarpone, creme fraiche, etc. is the way in which the milk is curdled.

Milk can be curdled either by acid and/or by rennet. To be considered a true cheese (e.g. cheddar, swiss, brie, et. al.), acid AND rennet coagulation (i.e. curdling) is required. First, a culture is added to the milk (or is already present in the milk in the case of some raw milk cheeses). This culture "ferments" the milk, slowly lowering the pH (raising the acidity) of the milk.
Then, rennet is added - this is an enzyme derived from the fourth stomach chamber of an unweaned ruminant animal (e.g. a calf, kid, or lamb). This enzyme literally breaks apart the proteins in the milk, an action facilitated by the presence of acid (and heat), and separates the milk into curds and whey. The whey is poured off (either to make ricotta, or to feed to hogs). The curds are then cut, releasing more whey, drained, and molded (this is a gross simplification - most of the textural variations in cheese stem from this process). At this point, the curds have become cheese.

False cheeses like creme fraiche, mascarpone, sour cream, etc. are curdled very lightly and without the use of rennet. The acid required can be produced by natural or added bacteria, vinegar, lemon juice, etc. The variations in the acid-curdled "cheeses" come from the extent of acidification, coagulation, variations in fat content, types of cultures, etc. For example, creme fraiche is cream (thus, high in fat) that is lightly coagulated (lower acidity). Sour cream is cream that is more heavily coagulated. This slight difference in acidity and cultures will cause sour cream to fully curdle (i.e. turn chunky) when boiled, whereas creme fraiche will not.

The diversity and complexity of cheesemaking processes is overwhelming. I hope this helps to illustrate (if not simplify) the breadth of the cheese world.

I believe he meant Philadelphia brand cream cheese

[Reality Master 201]

Rather than referring to the place of origin, I believe the grandparent was referring to the brand of cream cheese made by Kraft Foods. Check out their website for an explanation of the purported origin of cream cheese. Apparently, the brand name was choses because people at the time associated Philadelphia with quality.

As a longtime resdient of the city of brotherly filth, let me just say that the mind just fucking reels at that association.

Great cheese page

[mrjb]

This is by far the best cheese making page I've ever come across on the net.

Re:I believe he meant Philadelphia brand cream che

[viewtouch]

More on this...
Gary Allen reprints a section of the book by Eunice Stamm, The History of Cheesemaking in The Empire State from the Early Dutch Settlers to Modern Times. If you go to http://tinyurl.com/opmbs you will read this:
-------------
the Catskills were just huge tracts of rocky open land that weren't suitable for farming. Farmers often complained that "there were two stones for every dirt" -- but the deforested hills were ideally suited for cow pastures. This, in turn, created the need for a market that could absorb the glut of New York State dairy products. However, with limited refrigeration available, and fears of tuberculosis in the city, fresh milk could not yet be shipped safely in the large volumes that were being produced. Consequently, cheese makers in the region found a ready market for their products. In 1870, Neufchatel was being made in New Jersey for the New York City market, but Charles Green, living in the village of Chester, in the southern Catskills, thought he could do better. In 1872, he hired a European cheese maker to teach him how to make the soft cheese.

What Green didn't know was that another local cheese maker, William A. Lawrence, had overheard the lessons. Lawrence immediately went home and duplicated the recipe -- but doubled the amount of cream. The result was cream cheese, which was packed and shipped from Philadelphia as "Star Brand Cream Cheese." Lawrence also produced and sold "Cow Brand Neufchatel." By the 1880s he had moved his plant west, to Philadelphia, New York.

At the time, Pennsylvania's Philadelphia had a reputation for making fine foods, so the most fashionable marketing name in the United States was "Philadelphia," and in 1885, the Empire Cheese Company in South Edmeston, New York, registered the brand name "Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese." The Empire Cheese Company's factory burned down in 1900, but was rebuilt as "The Phenix" (like the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes every 500 years -- but spelled without an "o"). The company itself was renamed "The Phenix Cheese Corporation" in 1924, but the name didn't last nearly as long as its namesake because Kraft bought the company along with the "Philadelphia" brand name, in 1928.

Today, Kraft is the world's largest producer of cream cheese, and its factory in Lowville, New York, is responsible for 40% of its production. The next largest producer is Breakstone, with its plant in nearby Downsville.
-------------
There you have it. William Lawrence moved to Philadelphia New York to learn how to make cream cheese! OK, so, now, where is Lowville? Well, it's about about 30 minutes down the road from Philadelphia, New York. Surprise, Surprise! When Gary Allen talks about the Catskills being rocky and best suited for Dairy farming he's also talking about the part of New York state where Philadelphia and Lowville are situated, in the St. Lawrence River Valley. All these towns are not in the Catskills, they are in Northern New York, in the area between the Adirondacks and the St. Lawrence River & Lake Ontario. Allen himself doesn't actually say this, but he should have. Another thing - Why in hell would William Lawrence move from the area of Chester, NY, all the way to Northern New York state, to the village & town of Philadelphia, New York? Well, as I explained in my previous post, the people there were already famous for making this same type of cheese by 1870-80! He moved there to learn how - and boy, did he!

Mebbe the people at Kraft think that people would get confused if they printed the truth on their web site, mebbe they just never gave the simple job of learning the truth to any of their researchers - who knows? At any rate, I've just told you much more than you'll learn from Kraft or from Wikipedia. I guess I'll head on over to Wikipedia and replace the myths the people have placed there with the truth when I'm done here.

Gene Mosher