It is also rumored to make your sentences longer.
Next time, you might want to consider the following cheese maintenance and storage guidelines.
Nasty Cheese? How you should store any particular cheese depends on the moisture content. Fresh and soft ripened cheeses have a high moisture content and are, therefore, more susceptible to spoilage. Ideally, they should be used in about two week's time whereas hard cheeses with a low moisture content can last for several weeks.
Wrap cheese tight in a wrapping, such as plastic or foil, that will form a moisture barrier. This will prevent it from drying out and becoming rubbery and nasty. Airtight wrapping will also slow mold growth due to the fact that mold spores are airborne. Changing the wrap frequently will also slow the formation of random molds. In the case of quark, ricotta, or cottage cheese, storing the container upside down will help slow oxidation, thus prolonging their life. Strange but true.
When mold forms on ripened cheeses, you only need to cut off the mold plus a little extra (about 1/2 inch) to get the roots. The remainder is generally safe to eat, but keep in mind that the mold growth is a sign that the cheese is about to become nasty and should be used up within a week.
mold growth is part of the aging process on ripened cheeses. But this is done by experts and should not be attempted by amateurs at home. Roquefort for example is moldy and smelly and good. Velveeta with a blue fuzz is just nasty. You have to know what you are doing.
Unripened cheeses such as cottage cheese, ricotta and cream cheese, do not age and mold growth is a sign of spoilage. Discard these immediately at the first sign of mold. Don't even think about scraping that stuff off and eating the rest.
mold-ripened cheese such as gorgonzola, stilton and roquefort are susceptible to a type of mold which produces a harmful toxin and should be discarded immediately if a different colour or type of mold is evident. The best rule of thumb is to discard any cheese if in doubt.
What You Can Do To Prevent Nastiness In Your Cheese Cheese should be stored between 35-40 degrees Fahrenheit. A refrigerator cheese compartment would normally reflect this temperature range. But regardless of where you choose to store it, make sure the temperature is also consistent and keep in mind that cheese is porous and will absorb strong odours from other foods. If you are storing a food with a strong odor such as onions, keep it apart from the cheese. It is also good to keep your cheese collection in a plastic box with a snap-shut lid inside the refrigerator.
Can Cheese Be Frozen? A question asked suprisingly often is "Can cheese be frozen?" Perhaps no one has asked you this yet. But they will, some day. So here is what you can tell them. Look into their confused eyes with confidence, reassuring them with your tone of voice and manner and thus transmitting your confidence to them. The answer is "Yes, but...."
Freezing cheese will change the texture. Hard cheese tends to get crumbly and soft cheeses separate. Nasty. For this reason, it is best to use frozen cheese for cooking only. Freezing soft cheeses is best avoided altogether, if possible. Cream cheese, for example, gets both watery and grainy in texture.
Very firm cheeses can be frozen for about six months but most cheese is better not left longer than 8 weeks.
Freeze cheese in 1 to 1-1/2 pound pieces. Larger pieces take too long to freeze which increases their tendency to be very crumbly when thawed.
Thaw cheese slowly in the refrigerator, preferably for 24 hours or longer.
Wrap cheese tightly in foil or thick plastic before freezing. By double wrapping and making it as airtight as possible, you will help prevent moisture loss which is the main contributor to the change in texture.
Cheese is nutritious food made mostly from the milk of cows but also other mammals, including sheep, goats, buffalo, reindeer, camels and yaks. Around 4000 years ago people have started to breed animals and process their milk. That's when the cheese was born.
Kinds of Cheese: Nutritional Cheese: Made from cow, sheep or goat milk or cream; usually cured or aged to develop flavor.
Semisoft Cheeses
Very Hard Cheeses
Buying Cheese
Storing Cheese
Cooking Cheese
Keep cooking temperatures low and avoid over cooking to prevent stringiness and toughness in cheese. Add the cheese to other ingredients in small pieces so it will spread evenly and cook in a shorter length of time. To further shorten cooking time use the microwave.
For some fun you can Behold the Power of Cheese and take a test that gives your Cheese Profile at:http://www.ilovecheese.com/ I'm The Trendsetter woo hoo!
Excerpted from Betty Crocker's Cookbook
First, either raw milk or pasteurized is used. Raw milk contains a large variety of natural microorganisms, while the process of pasteurization eliminates pretty much anything alive.
The milk is curdled, either giving the bacteria that convert the lactose in lactic acid time to do the job, or by adding rennet, which is made from the enzymes of a calf's stomach. The curdled milk clumps together, due to the protein casein.
After the milk has curdled, the clumps are removed from the remaining liquid. The curds are cut open, and the whey is drained. The curds are then taken, pressed together, and pressed into molds.
The cheese is then ripened, which is letting it age while various molds do their work. The ripening may also be called affinage, when done by an expert cheese maker. This is where the type of cheese gets selected. The molds digest various ingredients in the curd, and release enzymes which can color and flavor the cheese. The more molds involved, the more complex the flavor. This is one reason that cheese made with raw milk is usually considered tastier, as there is more to the flavor. Cheese made with pasteurized milk has only a few strains of mold introduced to create the desired type, but may lack the variety of microfauna.
There is some controversy about making cheese with raw milk, due to worries about natural contaminants that may be present, such as E. Coli 0157:H7. However, some argue that the natural variety of organisms keeps such harmful ones from growing to large enough proportions to be harmful. In fact, in the United States, the FDA has required all fresh and soft cheeses to be made from pasteurized milk. Only hard cheeses which are ripened for at least 60 days may use raw milk.
Sources: Discover Magazine, November 2001, "Ripe for Controversy" More to come...
Also outdated slang for doing whatever is necessary to cover your ass when the police arrives. Cheese it can be interpreted as: watch out, run away, hide your illegal substance, hide yourself, etc. Prominently (and ironically) featured in Bringing Up Baby -- Katharine Hepburn says Cheese it, the Fuzz while already in jail -- and assorted 1930s gangster movies.
Cheese (?), n. chese, AS. fr. L. caseus, LL. casius. Cf. Casein.]
1.
The curd of milk, coagulated usually with rennet, separated from the whey, and pressed into a solid mass in a hoop or mold.
2.
A mass of pomace, or ground apples, pressed together in the form of a cheese.
3.
The flat, circuliar, mucilaginous fruit of the dwarf mallow (Malva rotundifolia).
4.
A low courtesy; -- so called on account of the cheese form assumed by a woman's dress when she stoops after extending the skirts by a rapid gyration.
De Quincey. Thackeray.
Cheese cake, a cake made of or filled with, a composition of soft curds, sugar, and butter. Prior. -- Cheese fly Zool., a black dipterous insect (Piophila casei) of which the larvae or maggots, called ckippers or hoppers, live in cheese. -- Cheese mite Zool., a minute mite (Tryoglyhus siro) in cheese and other articles of food. -- Cheese press, a press used in making cheese, to separate the whey from the curd, and to press the curd into a mold. -- Cheese rennet Bot., a plant of the Madder family (Golium verum, or yellow bedstraw), sometimes used to coagulate milk. The roots are used as a substitute for madder. -- Cheese vat, a vat or tub in which the curd is formed and cut or broken, in cheese making.
© Webster 1913.
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