Slashdot Mirror
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."
Long time, no see. Thought it was too good to last.
"The work is funded by federal grants," (snip other sources of funding, yes I know it's not ALL tax funded)
I am so glad that tax dollars extorted from me are being spent on such important projects. Thanks Uncle Sam!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Hey Zonk, we already know about Roland Piquepaille's MO. It's about time you figured it out.
But I guess it didn't stop you from posting yet another useless article of his.
publishing a paper is now 'open source' because anyone can get it? this site has more sheep then any i've visited.
Slow news day, eh?
It's even stupider in Slashdot.
Strangely, there are not many academical papers about cream cheese.
Yeah. Truly bizarre.
So what? It's bacteria needs to die at a certain time to give it that new molecular structure or whatever... Is the taste even any better? *Sigh* Research money shouldn't be wasted like this. Pretty pointless.
The world has done very well without scientists mucking up our food sources. How many thousands of years have people lived off what the earth grows?
I now see in my grocery store "organic milk", it is priced twice as expensive as the gallon of regular milk. The same thing is in produce, they have organic vegitables. What is this? 20 years ago everything was organic, now only the rich can get normal food. The rest of us must eat crap that has been genetically modified.
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
If they really want to know they should just ask my ex-gf. She made it once, and the consistency was spot-on. At least it looked like cream cheese, anyway.
The real need for research remains nondairy cheese. While there are now excellent vegan alternatives for most everything, milk, ice cream, hot dogs, etc., cheese is really tough to get right. Even most soy cheeses contain casein, a milk protein. Tofutti does make an amazing nondairy cream cheese, but solid, meltable nondairy cheese remains very elusive.
I read them, but I'd like to request that no one else read them. If we all read the article then the "little-known facts" become well-known, and therefore less valuable.
Thanks.
Sweet, I guess food service will be serving a slightly larger variety of food now, all sporting our school mascot. Let's just hope that we have a better football season this year....
Really have a recipe you want to throw into public domain? Try the "list of recipes." In the mean time, between submitting your own special dishes and mutating your favorit food groups, you can tackle world hunger one soufflé at a time- as long as you add cream cheese. (can you add cream cheese in a soufflé? Let's find out...)
We have Open Source Cream Cheese now? Oh sweet lord of mercy! All we need is Open Source Bagel and Open Source Toaster. Oh wait, we already have NetBSD.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
what are you complaining about. Now if you really wanna see tax dollars pissed away, there's a US senetor who's secured $500 million to restore and promote a Civil War era submarine sunk at the bottom of a lake. Too lazy to look it up right now, but fark had the article a while back. There was no one bill he got the funding in either, it's all nice and well hidden.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Cream Chese is delicious.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
How do you value currency, though? Look at the history of gold. The the number of dollars that it cost for gold in 1980 was more than it is today, and that's not taking into effect the time value of money. On Tuesday, September 23, 1980, gold's value was $711.00, valued at Sept 23, 1980 USD. On Thursday, June 01, 2006, gold's value was $625.00 , valued at June 01, 2006 USD. So if I had only gold, and milk cost the same in USD then as it does now, it only costs me 87.9% of what it used to. Factoring in the time value of money, it costs me an insignificant fraction of the original value.
Moral of the story: statistics are fun!
Nobody likes you.
It's neither a solid or a liquid, so it must be... a soquid.
These labs would do well to start investigating the properties of the mysterious fpoon.
MAKES ME SICK JUST
"Cheeeeese Gromit!"
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.
-----
"You spilled my egg... I needed that egg."
As a former resident of Wisconsin, cheese is big business. Huge, in fact. Government grants for cheese and other dairy research are nothing new to the University of Wisconsin. Sure, it might appear like a drain on money, but by doing the research in a public setting it benefits all dairy producers whereas private research only benefits the company or co-op sponsoring it. To justify it all you have to do is imagine the tax benefits of even a few percentage points of additional dairy production.
Besides, I back all agricultural research. Food will become the next major world commodity (aside from fuel). It's easy to make potable water, but trying to compensate year after year of lackluster arable ground is foolish. The United States is one, if not the, top contender for arable land and our rank will only increase as the floodplains of the Asian countries are flooded with ocean water with rising sea levels. Seven billion people have to eat somehow.
Blessed are the Cheese Makers...
or, Honk if you love Cheeses!
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
and the other one is in -- let me guess -- Philadelphia?
Win win for all the cubbby geeks out there. Now all we need is a breakdown of the chemical structure of the polymer used in real doll construction.
http://nakedip.com/ -- revolutionary web 2.0 site
/* Rubs eyes, looks at url, rubs eyes again..
Yes I am reading about cream cheese recipes. On slashdot. Why do you ask?
"I think people like to keep their distance when I do my research," the 29-year-old Argentinean says.
Mercedes, a great name for an Argentine stripper.
"Suzy Creamcheese, honey, what's got into you?
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
I'm think I'm in love.
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
..process similar to the open source movement for software.,
id say cheese its more like proprietary software.... smelly, and full of holes.
-Czar
Cream cheese was first manufactured in the early 1800's in dozens of homes in Philadelphia, Jefferson County, New York, a Quaker settlement dating back to 1800 in the Chaumont De Leray tracts of Northern New York. I have the written history and maps to prove it. It did not originate in or near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Yes, I grew up there and ate lots of cream cheese.
really, now? what other countries can you name which are opposed to scientific research? They may not be able to afford it, but honestly the US is certainly _not_ "apart from many other nations".
... that it's all about killing them at exactly the right moment.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
It's amazing, it seems like most of the stories anymore are repeats of ones that have been in wired for 2-3 weeks. Really, I think most geeks at least browse through wired everyonce in a while.
mmmmmm... cheesecake
Method of processing duck feet
I am from Glenview, Illinois, where Kraft has their HQ. They have a nice R&D plant right in the middle of town, and one time, when I was growing up (I was maybe 11 or 12), my friends and I took a little hike through the wooded area behind it. There was a large storm drain coming out of the plant that led into the North Branch of the Chicago River. What startled my friends and me was the presence of a few guys in biohazard suits scribbing the walls of it off with a high-pressure hose of some kind. Whatever the secret ingredient is for their cream cheese, I hope it doesn't produce whatever they were scrubbing down!
today is spelling optional day.
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)...
I just came back from a raw food culinary arts intstitute in california, and here is how they made great cheeses--the key is fat + fermentation.
Soak nuts overnite. Rinse. Puree with water and probiotics or just Rejuvalac to a consistency somewhat more watery then ricotta. Place cheesecloth in berry bins. Pour puree in, wrap cheesecloth around, and place berry bin and weight on top to press down lightly (the berry bin keeps shape while letting excess fluids soak out). Wait a day. The fat has the same consistency as cheese. The bacteria work the same magic on nut sugars as on milk sugars. It IS cheese, when you understand cheese as a particular process of fermenting a high-fat base with some sugars in it.
For Rawmasan, make pine nut cheese with a lot of salt, dehydrate in a thin layer and flake.
I am so glad that tax dollars extorted from me are being spent on such important projects. Thanks Uncle Sam!
I wonder if you meant this in humour and were completely overlooking the Open Source bias of slashdot.
Here's another way to look at it:
The government funds are going into something which will be released to the public.
Rather than: The government funded collegiate research will become proprietary to the University of Wisconsin, which will then lease out the rights to dairy producers the patented processes of precisely producing Cream Cheese.
I think I'm find with government funded public domain knowledge. Doesn't appear you are at all. Care to clarify?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Kraft has dominance on the cheese market and has a proprietary formula... some people are trying to make cheese available to everyone. Sounds a lot like the software industry. One company has dominance on the industry, and that company isn't willing to give away what the "ingredients" of the product are. A group of people are trying to make the product "available to anyone".
Open-source cheese isn't a crazy idea. There's already open-source beer.
You mean, like peer-review science? Gee, have we really fallen so far that we don't recognize what proper science looks like?
Second, there are some really good soft-cheeses you can't make for sale in the US. The type you need to use unpasteurized milk for. Shame, really.
Third, as you could probably guess, pasteurization is an excuse for not maintaining a clean milking facility. My grandpa was a dairy farm supervisor for a huge US-based food company. Time was, you could eat off any surface in a milkhouse. You could practically fab CPUs in there. I wouldn't try either one today. Pasteurization leads to sloppiness.
And just for lasting this far, here are some goodies for you:
Wisconsin Guide to Cutting the Cheese
A real cheesecake recipe. Just leave out the orange zest, keep the lemon zest. And screw the toppings - good cheesecake don't need no steenking toppings. Seems appropriate for a thread on cream cheese. (Thanks, Emeril)
Oh, and just for the sake of being topical, government-funded research on improving the foodstocks and on breaking knowledge monopolies in food production can only be a good thing. This is exactly the non-sexy sort of research that we need to do more often.
As a longtime resdient of the city of brotherly filth, let me just say that the mind just fucking reels at that association.
Did the research include an investigation as to why jalapeno poppers are more addictive than many street drugs?
/. is concerned.
I think that's one of the most important issues regarding cream cheese, at least as far as
Worrying about a few hundred thousand dollars of a seemingly trivial research grant, and possibly ignoring the billions of dollars going into the occupation of Iraq monthly? Makes sense to me.
Kudos to all of us who have posted this article, read it, and put comments on it.
Fiat Lux in Nerd world.
This is by far the best cheese making page I've ever come across on the net.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
For people who can't have lactose (80% of the adult population of the planet, apparently), vegans, and anyone else:
http://tofutti.com/btcc.0.asp
Also comes in a non-hydrogenated variety (made with organic sugar): http://tofutti.com/nh.0.asp
Sour cream and other dairy substitutes also listed!
Whole Foods and some more progressive installations of major supermarkets (like Ralphs) carry it.
It's 5 AM on a Saturday morning, and here I am, reading about cheese on Slashdot, eating Sour Patch Kids, and wondering...where did it all go wrong?
Slashdot: News for Herds. Stuff that fattens.
Don't you see? It's the military!
What they're planning is to engineer the bacteria so that it commits apoptosis (programmed cell death) when the time is right. Better cream cheese. What they *won't* tell anyone is that it's also the engineered to splice the apoptosis sequence to human DNA. Then, when the time is right, a massive marketing campaign will force the enemy to eat nothing but cream cheese and...
I have to go, I can hear black helicopters.
I'll enhance my assertion. In 1955 my great grandmother, who was born in 1870, personally told me about the village's cream cheese heritage and how she had learned to make cream cheese in the 1870's there in Philadelphia, New York by her grandparents who had been making cream cheese in their home for sale to the public for many years. Hell, we had cream cheese with jelly on the table at breakfast every day. People were spreading it on the slices of the pies they made from the green apples they picked from the orchards in their back yards. The nonsense about cream cheese only being made first in Philadelphia, PA, in 1872 is merely a corporate myth.
Why you get mod points for directing everyone to the Kraft web site and I don't get any for passing on my own direct knowledge of what really happened two centuries ago is beyond me. I used to date the granddaughter of the woman who first devised the recipe for Thousand Island dressing so I know all about that one, too. I could tell lots of interesting stories. Interesting to me, at least, and many of us certainly feel the same way.
Perhaps the poster in question is for the war in Iraq, and wants to use the cheese funds to prolong it an additional 5 seconds.
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
Is there any possibility of finding out new information about quark (cheese)?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I can't believe my post got modded "insightful."
Well, if you read the webpage a bit more carefully, you'd have noticed that it says that cream cheese was in fact invented in Chester, NY, and not Philadelphia. Not that is isn't a corporate myth, but at least criticise the actual statement's content.
Why you get mod points for directing everyone to the Kraft web site and I don't get any for passing on my own direct knowledge of what really happened two centuries ago is beyond me.
I provided a link to something; Slashdot moderators like links. What are you gonnna do?
I used to date the granddaughter of the woman who first devised the recipe for Thousand Island dressing so I know all about that one, too.
Oh yeah? Well, I used to date the granddaughter of the guy who coined the term "black hole" (in the sense of the gravitational phenomenon, not the dungeon in Calcuta). I could also tell lots of interesting stories, or ones that are at least interesting to me or to other people with equally skewed ideas of what constitutes interesting.
If one wants to contribute to better cream cheese, or any other improvement in the food supply, then one can donate to a research facility. Being forced to donate to such research through taxation is not necessary to preserve the rights of the citizens of the United States, and as such is an inappropriate use of taxes. Spending $500 Million to restore a submarine is also a waste of tax dollars.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
The original poster said nothing about the war in Iraq.
Even if it did not succeed in doing this, the war in Iraq was supposed to preserve the safety of the American people, which is the government's duty. Cream cheese research is not even supposedly necessary to preserve our rights.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Damn I want a boob and cream cheese treat now. Why did it have to be women in cream cheese?
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
You obviously didn't read all of the new content on both of the posts I provided for you and all to read, the second of which was entered only a few moments after my first response to you so you could read them both, and which provided plenty of exactly the kind of information which you claim I don't provide. I think you really need to get a grip and maybe even follow the links provided, the ones you say I don't provide. If you don't give a shit about history and you don't like it when people do explain history to you then mebbe you shouldn't bother responding to the posts of people who do like history and who can explain it to you. Responding to the publication of little known facts with sarcasm is not justified even if you don't give a shit about the history of Thousand Island dressing, either. People do care, even if you don't. It would have been far better for the discussion if you had chosen to add to it with any new facts that you were aware of rather than to act like an angry child.
HAND
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
-Rich
From a cow?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
acid-secreting bacteria used to coagulate the milk need to be killed at the right time.
Innocent bacteria being killed simply for their secretions. That's just sick!
I hope they do it humanely. The thought of all those poor bacteria, screaming in horror.. I don't even want to imagine what technique is used ... I bet some of those crazy factory works *enjoy* ending the life of a beautiful, gentle creature, in the prime of its life. Hey you idiots! If God wanted bacteria to die young, that's how he would've made them!
This kind of selfishness should stop. How would you like it if someone killed you, just because you gave off a certain chemical?
I'm making some signs:
Feel free to make your own signs, and display them at demonstrations. We can do this, people!
-- This message brought to you by PETA
Are the results going to be free to the public, or hidden behind a trade association membership form?
I've tried to get answers out of food-industry associations before. Forget it unless you want to join, which sometimes requires proof of corporate activity, and always requires a hefty fee.
So if this "available to everyone in the industry" thing isn't "free to everyone," Kraft will get the secrets that fill out their copious internal data, but you won't learn how to break off a big chunk of hteir market share unless you're already a lesser-learned competitor.
Then where do you draw the line at what is useful spending and what is not? Having highways across the country doesn't affect the rights of citizens, does it? How about those marching bands in the army? They're not protecting me!
By your definition, you could argue that most of the US spending, which you are forced to pay, is not necessary. Lets take a look at the US government...
Department of Housing & Urban Development? If people want houses, they can spend the money themselves! Can't afford a house? Build your own, ya lazy bastards!
Amtrak? That financial black hole doesn't do anything for my rights! Trains? TRAINS? If I want to travel by rail I'll buy myself one of those hand-operated cart things.
Nasa? Hubble's photos don't keep me safe at night! Mars rovers? Unless they're tracking down and killing those bloody martians, then I don't want anything to do with it! Weather satellites? Stick your head out a window!
Department of State? Those wasteful bastards spending all that money on foreigners - it's a disgrace! They're not American, so what do we care? The fight against international HIV/AIDS? If you want to stop thousands of people dying from a horrible disease, then be my guest, but count me out!
Now, Homeland Security... That's $30billion well spent!
Highways could be and are built by private entities, but you seem to be forgetting that one of the main reasons for the Interstate Highway System was defense. I'm not against public roads but they should be run and payed for by local governments if possible. Most federal spending is not necessary. I may be remembering incorrectly, but I believe the budget for medicare and social security is over 1 trillion dollars. I believe that the people of the United States could spend that money and secure their own medical care and investments far better. People are expected to pay for their home. If you can't afford a house, rent a home. If you can't afford that, find someone else in a similar situation and pool your money. Don't force others to pay for it. If you want to help people get homes, do so, freely. If the trains can make money, then private enterprise will build them. Otherwise, use cars, or other transportation you can buy for yourself. If they are so much less efficient considering gas prices etc. then trains will make money. Most of NASA should be left to private enterprise. If the rewards are so great, then some of those greedy capitalists will be sure to invest. It costs a lot to get into space now, but that's partially because there is no incentive to find better ways. With guaranteed money taken from taxpayers, there's little reason to do a good job. If you want to help people in other countries, then help them, they'll surely appreciate your support, financial or otherwise. But should you be forced to, especially considering that since the government is doing it, politics and corruption will get in the way of helping people? Homeland security is necessary, and it freedom of association doesn't apply. If you are going to protect a nation, you have to protect all of it. If someone chooses not to pay for it, you can't not protect them while protecting everyone nearby. And private security agencies powerful enough to protect this country could do anything they wanted to it.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Yes. I know goat aand sheep is the traditional milk for feta, but it can be done w/ cow's milk. We've also made cheddar and mozzarella with goat milk.
Method of processing duck feet
well, i'm off to make a cheese sandwich at 11:39 pm.
thanks slashdot community for making me hungry with
your incessant cheese chatter.
music lover since 1969