Cheese is milk that’s been spoiled on purpose to prevent it from spoiling accidentally. This preserves milk’s life span, allows for the existence of many great foods, and means that cheese contains some pretty weird things. Here’s 5 of them.
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How Cheese Works
http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/cheese.htm
Music Attribution:
“Wormhole” by Avaren
Video Attributions:
Bacteria Animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23BEKvKhvFg
The Science & Art of Cheese – KQED QUEST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G6yzLSByHQ
Slow motion of rat eating cheese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfWGCCn3Xfs
Extracting Rennet for Cheesemaking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKMWSrj3xGU
Rennet for Cheese Production ׀ DuPont™ Marschall® – The Magic of Science
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23Zc_gwmziU
Kraft Mac & Cheese Rolling Out New Option Without Yellow Food Dye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkpGyGeKF10
How to Make Natural Food Coloring – Concentrated Color Recipe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0dhvWA5iq4
Roquefort Société, une aventure humaine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOkJPnnTcr0
SLOW MO CHEESE HOSE (and How To)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe7-6AUMxUs
Nacho Cheese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaMH-2P4bnA
Transcript:
OK, if you’re going to make milk into cheese, the first thing you need to do is remove the liquids (called the “whey”), leaving the solids (called the “curds”). You may know this process by the name curdling. Yes, the same thing that makes a forgotten quart of milk go all lumpy in your fridge is the first step in cheesemaking. And most cheeses use the same type of curdling agent at work in your fridge: Bacteria!
A few types of bacteria eat lactose (the sugar that occurs naturally in milk) and excrete lactic acid. As they do so, the acidity level of the milk increases, which changes the charge of some of the milk’s molecules. Which in turn allows some of the solids that were previously repellent to begin to coagulate.
But don’t worry, these bacteria aren’t dangerous – they actually help fight off hazardous germs. And their excrement adds flavor!
Many cheeses receive a second coagulation agent: rennet. Natural rennet comes from the fourth-stomach (aka abomasum) lining of young cows, goats, and sheep. There, it helps the animal digest its mother’s milk by separating out the whey from the curds. Traditionally, it’s added to cheese by soaking pieces of dried stomach in water, then straining and adding that water to the curdling milk.
But hey, animals aren’t killed just to make rennet; it’s a byproduct of the meat industry. And most rennet these days comes from bacteria that either naturally produce similar enzymes or have been genetically modified to do so. Some plants (like fig leaves and thistle) make rennet-like enzymes, too.
By the way, if you’re curious about all the coagulation chemistry I keep glossing over (or even if you have a question about another edible), lemme know in the comments. I did _way_ too much extra research for this video and I love talking about food. And eating food.
Milk isn’t yellow – so cheese that’s yellow or orange contains some kind of coloring. Naturally, that’s beta carotene. Y’know, the stuff that makes carrots orange. It also occurs in grass. When cows eat lots of fresh grass, the beta carotene winds up in their milk’s fat molecules. There, the color is concealed within protein structures.
But during the cheesemaking process, the beta carotene is released, making the cheese yellow. If it’s aged a long time, that color can deepen to a natural orange. But the practice of dyeing cheeses artificially originated in 17th-century _lies_.
Some cheesemakers began cheating their customers by skimming cream off of their cows’ milk. But the resulting cheese was less deliciously fatty and much less yellow, since the fatty parts contain the beta carotene. They tricked customers into buying this cheaper cheese by adding food coloring.
Today, dyes help large manufacturers keep their product consistent. Especially if they sometimes feed their cows grains and dried grasses, which contain less beta carotene than fresh grass.
Molds in the Penicillium genus love to eat cheese as much as we do. Normally you’d wanna remove any fungus growing on your cheese, but two particular species, P. roqueforti and P. glaucum, are encouraged in blue cheeses. As a byproduct of existing, they give those cheeses their characteristic textures and flavors by accelerating the breakdown of proteins and fats in the curd, making the cheese creamier and giving it that tangy flavor.
