How 20 Cheeses Are Made Around The World | Regional Eats | Insider Food

we have traveled all over the globe to see how 20 famous Regional cheeses are made from mozzarella to Stilton and mentaler to Brie sit back and enjoy as we meet The Artisans learn the processes and eat some of the best cheeses in the world our first stop is the Netherlands to see how gouda is made thank you every year 650 million kilos of gouda cheese are produced in the Netherlands most of it is produced industrially using pasteurized milk but there are some exceptions we're here to visit one of the few Farms that is still producing traditional raw milk gouda cheese we make a real farm and cheese on this farm and we are specialized in Old in aged cheese and The Taste will really be special when it's aged this place is actually quite remote we're like immersed in nature and we're actually on an island we had to take a small boat and uh cross the canal in order to get here do I go back we're in the right direction maybe another coordinated no how do you grow [Music] and the woman that is producing the cheese is actually doing it in her own house which is this one behind me depending on whether you're a native you would pronounce it either gouda or Gouda so since we're talking about authentic Dutch cheese we're going to call it houda the cheese takes its name from the city of hauda in South Holland but unlike with all the cheeses they are named after cities there was never any cheese making in houdam in the Middle Ages how the acquired Soul cheese market rights basically becoming the only city in the country where Farmers could trade their cheese how that was Associated so much with the cheese sold there that it was eventually named after the city the how the cheese market was started in 1395. today it is one of the most popular attractions in the Netherlands there are only 280 Farmers across the country still making raw milk borankas or farmer's cheese and there are only two Farms that take their cheese to the next level making Buren Gaza upper class or aged Artisan on howdam a special type of raw milk Farmhouse cheese that must wait at least 20 kilograms and can be made only in the summer with cutter Grazing In the green heart region between the cities of Amsterdam Rotterdam and Utrecht who lives on an island in the village of rock battering in south island with her husband Hugo and their three children and makes 15 wheels of aged Artisan or howda every day at the back of their house the family from the pool started here in 1932 so my husband's a grandfather grandmother they started here and we still make cheese on the same way on the authentic way of cheese making and in 1965 his father and mother they came here they married and they came and started also and they make cheese we start living here in 1996. and we get married and my mother-in-law she make she learned me how to make cheese and now so I do it now for 23 years on my own we have 150 cows and we milk them twice a day the cheese is made from cold milk from the previous day and warm milk that's fresh every morning I wake up at 10 to 6 and my husband wake up at 4 15. he calls the cows out of the land and they come and then at five o'clock he starts milking them and in the evening before he also milk the cows and then when I wake up at 10 to 6 first thing I do I make the milk sour and then at seven o'clock I have about three thousand a bit more milk liters and then I put some rennet to to it and I put some rennet to it the milk will get thick in 30 minutes it's real special every morning so when I leave the milk rest for 30 minutes after that short time you can cut it really slowly and when you cut it the fresh cheese will go down and the Whey will up we bring the way away we spread it over our land and the real fresh cheese we keep sterling sterling and slowly we bring it back to the temperature of the cows up to 37 degrees not higher because we make raw milk cheese [Applause] the process of adding warm water to the cheese called washing the curd is generally used to make the cheese sweeter washing the curd removes lactose which bacteria could transform into acid blocks of curd are then pressed together into wooden molds with the help of linen clothes [Music] we still use the moles of my husband's grandfather and grandmother the wooden moles is real special to make teas there are only a few cheese makers in Holland who still use wooden moles it's it's because we think the wooden molds is the best to make old aged cheese because the wooden molds keep the warm inside and that's the best that the for the taste so the taste after two years is really special you can still make slices of it after two years and that's real special there are only two farmers in Holland who make this cheese so that's really really special each wheel has a unique plaque made from milk protein with information about where and when it was produced the curds are pressed in the wooden molds for two hours on each side in the evening they are moved to Brines it's a natural way to bring salt into the wheels and water slowly only a few out of the wheels and that's different of the factories because in the factories where they make cheese they bring salt during the making process and we do it on an authentic way in a salty bath so really slowly cheese wheels stay five days in the salty baths then dry for 24 hours [Music] the wonderful family keeps them for a week in their Farm where they are covered by a biological coating foreign times every side because it's easier to keep them clean and then every week a Trader is collecting about 90 wheels up here and you keep them in big Trader houses warehouses I think warehouses for a long time and he ate them because we are good in making cheese and he is good in aging cheese how that has to wait for at least 28 days this specialty the Aged Artisan on howdum ages for at least two years but some Wheels can age longer and there are no farmers who take the risks okay to keep the cheese as long as we do in warehouses so it's really special [Music] [Music] this is perfect it looks perfect only a few small holes so the teeth looked at you like eyes only if you and you see the crystals all the people think they are salty crystals but it's protein crystals [Music] Mariah's cut is a slice of a three-year-old cheese and as you can see from the texture is actually quite soft and it's something that I wasn't expecting coming from a cheese that has been aged for three years like three years is such a long time and I would expect it to be like hard there but here it is let's give it a try it's got like real real milk milky cheesy taste like no no salt at all and it's sort of like nutty caramel like like it reminds me a bit of Parmesan in a way but in the sense that like it kind of touches the same taste buds but texture wise is completely different like this one is softer and it melts more in your mouth it's it's buttery authentic Dutch powder is protected by the eu's protected geographical indication under the name how the Holland this certifies that the cheese comes from Holland and has been made traditionally with Dutch milk yeah foreign [Music] region in South Italy where I'm gonna see how they make the world's biggest mozzarella in this Dairy they have made 20 30 kilo mozzarella that is like way way more than the average one as a southern Italian my favorite food is definitely mozzarella forget pasta pizza and all those things that are sold all over the world as like typical Italian things mozzarella is the real deal so I'm really curious to see how this massive ones are made let's go check it out [Music] some say that the companion region is the birthplace of mozzarella the name even comes from the local dialect matsare which means cutting by hand mozzarella from this Italian region is made with Buffalo milk and this Dairy makes it in a variety of shapes and sizes its brightest star this one called tsitona is [Music] was established in 1988 by the parado family to honor a generational tradition started in 1930. overall the dairy makes over 9 tons of mozzarella day four thousand of which are titones Frisco and now the main event it's time to see how a 66 pound tits owner is made [Music] sarla production of the dairy starts early at about 3 A.M when milk comes in from the farm way is drained from milk to get these blocks of curd which in Italian is called kaliata [Music] curd is cut into smaller pieces and is placed into this machine which will cook it at about 96 degrees Celsius that's about 204 degrees Fahrenheit foreign this stretchy dough that comes out is now ready to be turned into mozzarella I'm just going to give it a bite let's go [Music] like one hasn't been salted yet and actually it's very warm it's not as you know as you can see the dough is needed in a few smaller formats but we're not interested in those yes that's right this is what we're all here for [Music] so the big stuff when the curd is ready it takes two workers to knead it and transfer it to a pool of salty water [Music] because of its size the giant Sedona has to bait in the pool for a bit to make sure that the curd holds together perfectly so when it's ready to be lifted it comes out like this foreign [Music] that's a whopping 66 pounds when a giant tetsuna is Born the team at the dairy will for sure not keep that a secret they will post next to it for a photo I couldn't resist either bloody friends [Music] [Music] if you're worried about food waste fear not this giant sized mozzarellas are only made bespoke for big events big dinners or those sorts of events where everybody comes in hungry for cheese you might have also noticed that the workers aren't wearing gloves here's why um [Music] contamination [Music] the giant setona is incredibly popular on social media the dairy has realized this and made the most of it its Instagram is filled with videos of fresh mozzarella the platform is also used to run contests competitions and to sell products directly to customers important [Music] [Music] [Music] so far it's been a beautiful day the sun is shining and there is a giant mozzarella statue behind me I've seen a 30 kilometer come to life it was absolutely incredible I've never seen anything like this in my life it took two people to lift it and the moment they cut it open it release so much milk that I had to just like take a step back what do you think of the 66 pound mozzarella would you have one best poke for your next big dinner or for your birthday I for sure would prefer this to a birthday cake let us know in the comments below foreign [Music] to show you how traditional emmental cheese is made thank you now I'm actually in the village of a Fulton in emmental which is in a region just east of Bern 80 of all emmental production comes from this region with 150 producers and its name comes from here there's the nearby River Ma and tal meaning Valley in German in the U.S it's known as Swiss cheese emmentala has iconic holes in it and it's also the world's largest cheese emmental at aop can only be produced in these regions in Switzerland foreign it was granted aop protection from the EU in 2002 meaning that these areas are the protected designation of origin but there are a few qualifications for this the milk has to be from dairy farms no fewer than 20 kilometers away and it must be produced using raw milk 17 700 tons of emmentala are produced each year in this region by 150 family Dairies cheese production started in this area over 200 years ago it's a hilly region so good for cattle grazing the emmental kazarai show Dairy was opened in 1989. process of cheese starts at the farmer so we need a high quality raw milk then we heat up the milk on 32 degrees we put inside the bacteria the rennet we have to wait because to rent it make a relationship between the fan and protein you are cutting the curds down to a size of four up to six millimeters and then you're heating up another time to 53 degrees pumping up to the forms and then you are pressing that for 12 hours foreign is pressed under hydraulic pressure for up to 12 hours it then spends eight weeks in the warm fermentation Cellar at 22 degrees Celsius it then goes into a storage Cellar for up to two months before it's collected by the wholesaler this makes a famous sweet taste and smooth texture of the cheese the world famous holes they're created by a reaction in the bacteria after one month of storage a strain of bacteria propiony bacterium Sherman eye consumes lactic acid and releases carbon dioxide these bubbles become trapped in a cheese rind and form holes also known as eyes but why are the cheeses so large the size of emmental Wheels is heavily regulated as most have a diameter of 80 to 100 centimeters they need to be a minimum of 75 kilograms for cheese produced here a kilogram costs 19 Swiss Francs or 19 so one wheel could cost over one thousand nine hundred dollars we have to pay taxes also in Switzerland and 200 years ago they have the regimentation that you have to pay the taxes on a piece and not on kilogram so they make a big cheese wheel and they have to pay only ones the taxes and still 200 years we're producing this at minimum 75 kilogram Wheels the cheese is matured into a four-month classic eight-month Reserve 12-month aop extra and the 24 month Laura dematol the taste of of the Yemen Tire aop is unique I've been compared to Coal piece and it's comparing if you take a red wine and a good red wine visited the Showcase the right restaurant to try the cheese and we go for the classic it's four month age what you can see is these springy kind of rubbery texture to it let's give this a try it's so much more fluidescent than other Elemental that I've had it has a really full flavor to it because it's made with raw milk not pasteurized milk that you might get in the states it's just a very very kind of full Rich milky flavor that uh very tasty but how does this differ to the 12-month aged it's a lot less kind of spree and bouncy to the touch um but that rich nutty flavor is really starting to come through this room downstairs when we went into here in the dairy was the room that at the minute you walk in this is beautiful nutty Aroma that hits you and that is exactly what you can get in the cheese now things come from sort of like a fruity mild cheese to something which is has you know this texture to it and it's very nutty an authentic hematologist it needs to have the emmentola logo and a bespoke cheese number on the round we put our brand on top before we press the cheese and this is something like a tea bag and this is growing directly into the rains so if you are cutting the cheese wheel into pieces on each round you should find a part of this emmental or Switzerland logo and you find also a little number on top and with this number our customers can go on our website at Point CH and give this number inside and Google Maps shows you where this product was produced in which day and the dairies need to have this protection emmentala is the world's most coffee cheese so 95 persons of that were this selled as a Swiss cheese or a cheese with holes called emmental are fake and Tyler so Diamond Tyler Switzerland the brand is protected by the aop label and we have also a bacteria inside our cheese we are the only Branch cheese brand who are using this one and so we can not only look on the package if it's original inventoryopy we can also Analyze This product and so these are our activities and the brand itself we have people who are working only for searching the origin between the copies so it's a big work behind you [Music] we're in cinema in France in the birthplace of break and actually we're not far from Paris we're like 12 kilometers from Disneyland party but here it's another type of theme park we are at the farm de tantarpan which is one of the seven Farms making breedemo and the only one that makes it fermier which means from the farm which means that the cows are milked here and the cheese is just made 100 meters from here foreign the farm has 250 cows in total after milk is collected it is stored in this bath for 18 hours and some part of its cream is taken out while some natural filaments are added these include penicillium angiootricun which make up pretty most signature texture and flavor but more on that later one day after being collected milk is moved to another room where it will be split into curds this is done thanks to the addition of rennet which takes about one hour to solidify the milk um in this other room it was so hot that our cameras teamed up and we had to wait a bit to resume filming again formula um [Music] YouTube um [Laughter] foreign today foreign [Music] thank you the mold is made of three layers which are removed gradually as loses its liquid from 25 liters of liquid it's going to get smaller and smaller up until 5 liters this is going to take 3 hours and at the end of the whole making process the weight of the cheese is going to be 3 kilos um on their first day cheeses and molds are turned three times with the help of a steel plate to make sure they hold their shape they are then piled up on top of each other and when you see your fat on retrievements oh okay um foreign oh wow the cheeses stay in the molds for 24 hours to make sure they drain all their liquid in total the farm will make about 300 wheels of breathable Ladle from 100 basins the day after the cheeses are removed from molds and salted foreign [Music] [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Applause] wow yeah it smells very differently strong Tangy yeah you smell nuts and apples how are you smells like apples choose wheels and then move to another room where they stay for five to seven days within which they're going to be turned three times to avoid collapsing here they start to get whiter and it's where we start to see the first effects of the ferments added to the milk at the beginning foreign [Music] foreign foreign this is the last room of the maturation process and it is another cold one yeah with the grass that's six degrees in this so cold this is [Laughter] foreign you can feel the hard crust outside the Rind and then inside you can you can feel that it's very very very soft let's say a sesame definition is okay um shoulder them in the Mercedes [Music] photos what about that it's so creamy Supreme battery is [Music] today we're in the village of kosan Basset in Nottinghamshire England to learn more about how blue Stilton cheese is made today we're going to learn about its history and origin and I will also be getting my hands dirty in the process and then of course we're going to taste it foreign this cheese can only be made in six dairies which are spread across Three Counties here in England which are Nottinghamshire leicestershire and Derbyshire and today we're going to visit Coast ambassadori which is one of the Six Theories making Stilton cheese Stilton cheese takes its name from the village of Stilton in the east of England the earliest reports of cheese made and sold here dates to the 17th century in 1724 English writer Daniel Defoe referred to the town being famous for cheese calling the product the English parmesan what contributed to its popularity was that Stilton was relatively close to London only 70 miles away the town was on the great North Road built by the Romans this road was the only link between London and Edinburgh before modern motorways took over the road passed through Villages and Market towns filled with cochinins one of these was the Bell Inn where a lady named Francis paulet sold her cheese to Travelers and the word of her Stilton cheese quickly started to travel with them and though she probably did not invent the cheese herself she is responsible for expanding its popularity Beyond The Village that was her route to Market it was basically a Wafers for the carriages so people would stop overnight and a lot of the cheese was sold there and taken down to London by Travelers popularity grew still and cheese started to be made in the surrounding areas today Stilton production has strict geographical borders and is confined to Three Counties in England ironically as the village of Stilton Falls outside of the County's borders there can be any cheese made in Stilton called Stilton was founded in 1913 as a Cooperative to save excess milk from farms in the village from going to waste today the dairy works with four Farms that Supply 4 million liters of milk a year over you know the last hundred and something years have gone from making three months a year probably making 50 60 cheese a day to making seven days a week and we are doing in Peak about 180 Tuesdays the Farms send the milk to the dairy where it is pasteurized [Music] what we do is we take the milk we add a blue moon culture start a culture to produce acidity and then we add Granite which will help us clot the milk and turn it into curd once we've set it and it looks like a giant jelly giant white jelly and we will cut the curd release the moisture and we'll drain that moisture off quite specific to us all of our cheese will be handled from that to trolley and that's just a transfer of good from one large vessel to another that will give us moisture release without losing too many fatty proteins to weigh mechanized processes large-scale business people who are transformed large volumes can and do loose fatty proteins do we we do but just less because we're doing it by hand is just about truck again Billy showed me how to do it and I had a goal myself so the thing to remember is not to dig keep it quite flat and just push it through okay and that's it okay so you also need to no initial program the same depth oh so you can have some dips or not so it's exactly the same all the way down same here so I'm just gonna try one more for the road [Applause] a little bit of cheese is no dead you can let Craig have it and we'll get on with it thank you so you know when you say one day I'm gonna task if you have to pick it through so once we've ladled we will then allow it to settle and again more way will come out and then you will drain that way and once you start draining away the bacteria that's in in the curd will start to multiply and produce quite a high level of lactic acid overnight and then the next morning we'll come in and add a specific lactic acid point we will break the chords by melon so it's a uniform size we'll hand salt the goods hand mix the goods and form it up into a cheese hoop as you see behind me the cheese is placed in a warm room to allow some of the mustard to evaporate the cheese is turned every day and when it's dry enough and can stand on its own the mold is taken off we need to stop the air a little bit more growing at that stage because if you make it grow too quickly with Stilton it won't taste right because you're changing the pH too quickly so we will take a knife and we will actually rub the outside of the cheese and by rubbing the outside of the cheese we create a barrier so no oxygen get inside and we stop the more growth at that or the blue mole growth at that particular stage of production then the wheels are turned every day every day they are pierced to allow oxygen in which will activate the blue mold and produce the stilton's characteristic blue veins then the cheese matures for another five weeks [Music] we're on the street and then turning all the way around right now gently bring it out [Music] so this one this one is almost ready yeah almost not quite I mean the other end might not be quite a firm because they don't they don't mature in uniform so what we should see it'll start the bloom process from the center of more car so we can tell look at that it's not ready yet because it's not fully blue mind your finger when you when you're bringing it back out to push it to the center start finger on now use your other hand finger on usually your thumb and have it open the Gap and then pull it out gently and then just just clean it so that that's covering the hole [Music] we've got a slice of freshly cut Stilton so I'm so excited to give this a try first thing that I want to point out about this is that it's not that smelly you know how blue cheeses have this reputation for being so smelly it's actually all right [Music] oh it's so good it just disappeared it just melted like that the texture is nice and crumbly even if this is some sort of hard cheese so it's not that creamy it actually is is on your palette it has some like sweet hints at the beginning when you when you first taste it and then you're left with a bit of salty aftertaste which is incredible I mean you know you get two different flavors in one bite it's so good I'm gonna have another one the sweetness of the blue veins so good and also if you get a if you get a mini piece without without the blue that in itself it's marvelous and again the texture is incredible so crumbly and uh it's something that I haven't had with all the blue cheeses they are kind of gummy this one is so nice melts in your mouth incredible [Music] dilton is a registered trademark by the Stilton cheese makers Association which was founded in 1936 the trademark protects the cheese in countries including the US Canada and Japan within the EU the cheese was also granted the protected destination of origin in 1996. cheese carrots can you name a more quintessential food in Wisconsin Wisconsin cheese curds have a signature orange color they have a unique flavor that can vary depending on the batch and most importantly when you bite into them they must must squeak which tells you the curd is a good one we're here in Door County and we're about to meet Chris Renard a third generation artisanal cheese maker who's been making cheese his entire life they're going to show us how milk turns into the Savory squeaky snack foreign the process itself takes four hours it starts with cheese makers releasing twenty thousand pounds of pasteurized whole milk into a large open vat all the milk that comes in today we're making the cheese tomorrow for every 10 pounds of milk you get about one pound of cheese on average luckily Wisconsin is the perfect place to get all this milk locally the state has about 1.3 million cows and with that much Dairy available they take cheese production seriously it's the only state in the United States that requires a special license to sell any cheese of any kind including curds Chris gets his milk from 24 Family Farms in the area that work together with the dairy plant as a cheese making ecosystem depending on the milk that comes in that day the temperature outside what the cows have eaten at the time of the year every band of cheese will have a slightly different flavor all that pasteurized milk gets mixed with just a little annatto seed coloring to give it that orange Hue wisconsinites prefer their curds orange while cheese makers on the East Coast stick to white cheddar for a vat that holds 20 000 pounds of milk renards adds only 29 ounces of coloring the seed comes from either South Africa or South America it does not affect the flavor what does affect the flavor is the rennet unlike cheese makers in Europe Chris doesn't use animal rennet to make his cheese curds which together with the starter cultures breaks down the milk into cheese the Rena we use is a microbial rabbit we're calling it works the best with the cheese now rennet does a really nice job of setting it up the enzymes of the Reddit help with the aging process thank you here just observing in the room it's getting really steamy we cook everything with a bass with steam so no matter what time of the year it is it's always warm in the cheese factory cooking it for a couple reasons one it's going to help firm that cheese up and take some of the moisture out but it also you want the starter to be at the optimal temperature so what temperature range do you want to be in for this we're going to cook this to 100 degrees okay what happens when the cheese mixture gets to 100 degrees we will shut off the steam so it doesn't get any hotter but what we'll also do is then we keep agitating the reason is is we want to firm this turn up we want the nice squeaky cheese curd you're going to get if you're a starter if your starter cultures don't get to the right temperature you'll have enough flavor so once the cheese firms up the milk regulates it gets nice and firm then we'll take wire knife and we run that through and that is cutting it into curds and wear those wire knives are called cheese Harps and they've been around since the 1960s once the cheese is cut it takes about two and a half hours until you see actual curds start to form cheese makers here aim for a nice even cut the more even the cut the more the Whey is expelled and the cheese sticks together we're stirring it right now to keep it from pumping one of the reasons we do what we do Hands-On is we can watch and control all that we don't have to worry about a malfunction of equipment we're literally doing it what we're doing right now is checking to make sure the cheese curds are firm we want the right firmness to move on to the next process if you leave it too soft the proteins calcium some that's going to spell out in your way as soon as cheese makers like Chris approve the texture and pH level whey is removed from the vat and pumped into a cream separator the cream is sold to Pine River Dairy to make butter while the Whey is sold off to make whey proteins once a majority of the way is drained cheese makers draw the curd to the sides of the vat and let the Whey continue to drain down the center this process is called ditching the pushing the cheese to the sides and we're firming and pushing it together so it's one solid piece you're doing it good you just push right there you go yep too much you're okay [Music] push it just so it turns up there you go oh so you don't have to push that hard [Music] big mass of cheese okay you're gonna get trimmed into slabs and those slabs will be about 20 pounds and so what are you doing now you're cutting the we're gonna level it off okay and then we're gonna break up all this cheese on top so it all gets matted into one oh I see what do we do I just do this you can break it up oh my God so we're breaking it up so that it can layer on top so it's going to knit all back in together as we roll it over and stack it up this is a good hand massage right now this moisture you're filling in here yeah it's probably in the 43 to 45 raise so it's a higher moisture percentage too hard and why because you want to keep that squeak the moisture in it okay the rubbery texture hopefully I'm healthy you are and what are you doing now so you're shopping we're doing is we're going to take all the fines the smaller curds yeah we want to Mill it in so we get as much of our yield as possible slide your hand on the cut side this way yep and turn it right over and then you're going to slide it nice and tight we want to mat and knit all these two together one solid slabs oh gravity hold it together yep now we're gonna flip it one more time and then we're gonna cut it and stack it okay I'll let you get the first one and I'll get the rest okay afterward Chris checks the acidity level of the cheese correct range they will begin to Mill it up into cheese curds and what if it doesn't take your desired pH level we'll leave it set that's one of the things about being a small Artisan plant we can leave the tea set if it's not where we want it you don't have to force it through the cheese is washed with warm water to expel any extra weight then salt it three times this is done to seal in and enhance the flavor and also control the pH of the cheese we're breaking up all the clumps just so we get the salt to distribute evenly the salt's absorbing until all the small pores in the piece [Music] this would be cheese curds what's in a cheddar curd flavor in a plain fruit one of the difference you'll notice is like a young cheddar compared to a young Colby in the first seven to ten days you're not going to taste much difference at all in flavor but after that 10 to 14 day range when the cultures aren't really getting a foothold in the cheese the flavors will start to differ fastly [Music] my cheese makers probably try one [Music] wow I love the texture of your t-shirts thank you that's wonderful in total a plant like Renard's can sell about 1500 to 2 000 pounds of cheese curds a day some of the curds are sent to be breaded at restaurants to fry While others are packaged and sold fresh at stores Chris wouldn't let me return to Chicago without trying Renard's Myriad of curd flavors so we're going to try the different flavors of cheese curds that renaud's has for us all of these cheese curds are their cheddar cheese curds but they have different seasonings on top all right let's give it a go squeaky I don't know if you're gonna hear it this is so squeaky It Feels So Fresh and it has a little hint of ranch as you can tell it's the ranch flavor it's a little bit moist but it's also in between a soft mozzarella and a hard aged cheddar it's basically smack dab in the middle where you get the softness of it but it's also it has a little bit of a bite not too much but it's super tasty and you can tell that this was salted and then the seasoning on top is really what I prefer okay I could pop these in like popcorn I have to come back to Door County to try out these curds [Music] hi guys this is Claudia and today I'm gonna take you to see how Gorgonzola cheese is made in Italy I mean trekate in the Piedmont Region which is one of the only two Italian regions together with Lombardi where this cheese can be made and this is one of the only 29 there is in the world that can produce this cheese [Music] the Gorgonzola industry is worth over 800 million dollars almost 5 million wheels are produced each year and production is confined to this small area only Gorgonzola cheese has a centuries-old history and it is still done using the same ingredients and techniques that it was decades ago even machines like this one used to stir the curd are designed to recreate human movements as gently as possible its beautiful marbled interior is given by penicillium rockefarti a fungus that is used to ripen the cheese and this is why in fact blue cheese is coso a [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] cow's milk and it can either be mild and creamy or hard and pungent depending on how long it is left to age the two kinds are easily distinguishable by the color of their veins blue in the creamy and green in the pungent multiple [Music] the fungus is added to milk at the very beginning of the production process in a big cauldron together with enzymes rennet and East [Music] in about 20 minutes milk becomes curd it can be transferred into molds [Music] each wheel is marked with the dairy's identification number you can see number 16 here that's Casey featuring vernity we visited here between 450 and 500 Gorgonzola wheels are made every day to help the curds settle wheels are turned four times and then left to rest overnight then they are salted a couple of times [Music] at this stage they weigh about 18 kilos that's 40 pounds but this number will drop to 12 kilos 26 pounds at the end of the aging process as excess way is released the salting rooms are warm and humid this is also to favor the activity of yeasts inside the cheese mild Gorgonzola Wheels stay for 3 days and hargo gonzola for five then they are moved again into a cold room where they are punctured a hundred times on each side [Music] this is to allow oxygen into the cheese for it to grow its signature blue veins [Music] Olga gonzola punctured with a machine but some other emails cheeses are still punctured by hand after this step the cheese is left to age [Music] it takes two months for the blue creamy gorgonzola and three months for the green pungent one [Music] [Music] the color difference is pretty evident but do they really taste different [Music] the dairy set up a little cheese tasting so that we could try them both that's amazing my God it almost doesn't feel like you know you bite it into a into cheese it just it just smells in your mouth [Music] oh wow they're so different it's crazy you know I mean you can tell from the texture that this is harder and this is creamier but this is much much stronger it has a stronger bite after trying Gorgonzola on its own in-house Chef Jean Piro clavero wanted to show me how versatile the cheese is so I cooked some squidding spaghetti with both cheeses foreign [Music] but I think the combination with the squid ink is great I mean color wise of course it's amazing because black and white you're like opposite right so you can really see the cheese in there and it's sort of creamy texture on the pasta Gorgonzola cheese is protected by the European Union by the protected designation of origin scheme this means that any cheese labeled Gorgonzola must meet a particular set of standards and is subject to Quality checks it's also wrapped in a signature aluminum foil is [Music] [Music] [Music] territory [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] Manchego cheese is made in a part of Spain that is called La Mancha which is just south of Madrid and today we're in a Campo de Montiel which is a region in La Mancha we're going to visit La Granja which is a farm here that's been doing the cheese for over 200 years we're going to learn about accessory and making process and find out why it is Spain's most popular cheese as well as what makes it different from all the cheeses in the world that pair the same name foreign [Music] region dates to the Bronze Age but cheese is not the only thing this region is known for in the 17th century novelist Miguel de Cervantes brought the region to fame narrating The Adventures of Knight errant Don Quixote de la mancho which is the second most translated book in the world after the Bible within the region Manchego cheese is made in the provinces of Toledo cuencas application is a fifth generation Family Farm that's been making the cheese since the 19th century foreign [Music] foreign the dairy makes about 65 wheels of Manchego cheese per day the cheese is made with milk from the previous evening and morning milk that's fresh is a we [Music] um [Music] important because it is what actually gives the cheese a signature pattern it's all printed inside and then after being placed into molds the cheese is placed into a press foreign [Music] for about four hours and after these four hours it's gonna be moved to Brian's [Music] each wheel is labeled with a unique plaque of milk protein in the past Manchego cheese used to be shaped in these baskets made of asparto grass pastors floor foreign after the wheels are taken out of The Brines they're placed in a drawing room as you can see behind me we have different blocks of cheese we have just here on my right the ones that were made just yesterday and then going forward we have two days ago three days ago four days ago up until one month is estimo is [Music] matured for at least two months Tuesday matures from two to six months it's called semicurado and it becomes curado when the maturation exceeds six months foreign [Music] [Music] foreign this one is semi-heart semi-curado and they say in Spanish and we got some slices that Gabriella's got for us smells very nice throughout my cheese journey I learned to become a fan of raw milk cheese so I actually have our expectations for this one foreign [Music] it's very good I like it it's gone it's got some like Tangy aftertaste I think that is because it's been aged for more than the two the two months that is the minimum it's very good you taste the raw milk you can taste that this comes from sheep's milk and it's not cow's milk and it has a different different texture as well in your mouth and um I like it it's somewhere in between crumbly and a bit buttery so you get both of them depending on you know when you actually buys into it and when you chew it again the fact that this one has matured more than the minimum is maybe better despite the fact that the cheese takes its name from the Spanish region where it originated other Spanish-speaking countries called their cheeses Manchego so what is the difference when the Spanish conquistadors landed in Mexico they brought with them the art of cheese making montaguchi is included today Mexican Manchego shares very little with his Spanish namesake as it is made with cow's milk and is usually matured for a shorter time but Spanish cheese makers are not happy to share their Cheese's name with others within the you Spanish Manchego cheese is protected by the protected destination of origin status which prevents cheeses not from La Mancha from being called manchego in April 2018 a new trade deal with Mexico granted du exclusive rights for 340 products with a geographical indication but excluded Spanish Manchego so at this stage the two cheeses coexist and the role is sure to be continued [Music] a wheel of Parmesan cheese can cost over a thousand dollars the average wheel weighs 88 pounds which means it costs over 11 dollars per pound [Music] that might not sound like a lot but it's more than double the price of your average cheddar [Music] a wheel of Parmesan cheese takes at least one year to age 131 gallons of milk to make and it can only be made in a small area in Northern Italy foreign cheese is a big business for Italy an average of 3.6 million wheels are produced each year and the industry is worth an eye popping 2.2 billion euros that's about 2.5 billion US Dollars making this cheese one of Italy's biggest exports single cheese wheel is made in a restricted area in Northern Italy in the region of Emilia Romania it's Italian name in fact Parmigiano-Reggiano means from the cities of Parma and radio media so how does this turn into this and what makes this so special we went to a Dairy in Parma Italy to find out [Music] the very first producers of Parmesan cheese were monks over a thousand years ago then like now parmesan Wheels were made with only three ingredients cow milk sold and rented there are only 329 dairies in the whole world that are certified to produce parmesan cheese and they are all based in the same area where the monks used to make it in fact it isn't even possible to make the exact same product outside of the production area and why is that turns out it's all about three good bacteria that only grow in this specific territory [Music] [Music] [Music] de parmesan it takes 131 gallons of milk to make one wheel of Parmesan cheese that's Hollow milk there is combined freshly milked whole milk with day-old skim milk to make the cheese two milks are transferred in this copper Watts along with fermented whey a sort of sourdough and then rennet an enzyme which gives the milk a yogurt-like texture [Music] the cheese Master will then split the milk into curds using this tool called Pinot [Music] thank you because in community integrity together we're changing the cheese texture cooking the milk does another essential job do you remember the three good bacteria well they're not alone other bacteria bad bacteria might have joined the party cooking the milk ensures that only the good bacteria can continue the journey while the others are kicked out when cooked the curd travels all the way to the bottom of the vat where it's left to settle [Music] 45 minutes later here it is a compact mass of current weighing 220 pounds [Music] this mass is the equivalent of two cheese wheels and speed carefully by workers with linen clothes [Music] foreign foreign [Music] at 8 pm the cheese is covered with this stencil which will engrave the logo Parmigiano-Reggiano these thoughts are the mark of origin used to tell customers that this is the real thing made in the same restricted area where monks used to live in the Middle Ages each whale is also given an ID it's this plaque made from milk protein which contains information about where it was produced and when the stencil is removed four days later and the wheels are praised into brines where they stay completely plunged for about 19 days this process helps to form the cheese rinds which acts as a barrier for the cheese this is when the maturation process begins [Music] Wheels remain relatively untouched for one year after that a Master Grade they were respect them and brand them the average maturation is two years but some wheels are aged as long as 10 years to achieve a stronger notier taste a longer moderation period makes the price go higher that's why Astra Vecchio very old parmesan that has matured for three years will be sold on the market for an average of 13 euros that's about 15 US dollars per pound um this high price means that there is now a black market of counterfeit parmesan products Italy has been struggling with fake products for years in fact the problem is so big that The Fakes have become an industry of Their Own that is estimated to be worth a hundred billion euros that's about 113 billion US dollars with parmigiano reggiano been one of the biggest brands fighting copycats while the cheese is protected in the European Union under the protected designation of origin scheme it is still struggling to get the recognition it deserves in the rest of the world the foreign [Music] so how do you recognize a real Parmesan cheese do you remember this daughter stencil that's a solid indication that the cheese is legit if that's not visible the packaging should contain parmigiano-reggiano's official logo and they use protected designation of origin [Music] the defining qualities of corny shark cheese are dark green rind and a candid white mold the Rind actually comes from these leaves called stinging nettles which are brushed on by hand one by one the Nettles give the cheese a fresh creamy taste with hints of herbs seaweed and lemon Cornish Ark may not be as popular as other English cheeses like Sultan or traditional cheddar but it's just as rare because it can only be made in one place we're in the head Frozen cornrow and these right here are the nut leaves that are used to wrap corny shark imagine there are only five people in the whole world that know how to properly rub a corny shark so how did this recipe even come about well it was actually found randomly in a book about 400 years ago fascinating isn't it well I'm certainly intrigued so it's time for us to go and find out more there's only one dairy in the world that makes this cheese liner there is in the heart of Cornwall like all cheeses Ito starts here with fresh milk run it and in this case cultures you see these beautiful white molds around the cheese that's what the cultures will trigger in the aging process later on you you need to disperse away uh bit by bit gently if you if you take the way off too quickly you won't leave enough behind for the cultures to to feed on the sugar is in the way your cheese will be very metallic very cheddary which you don't want Laden will test the way up to 20 times per watt between each step he does it to monitor its temperature and those levels of lactic acid which will give us a crumbly cheese for a few hours the day goes like this cutting testing cutting testing they're big the curd itself it's quite still quite delicate and you can see underneath the pack you can see the curds the individual curves yes yeah but they still stick together even though it always wants to knit itself together oh oh I see because they they remember where they came from Once all the way is drained all that is left is salt in the curd cutting it again into very small pieces placing it into molds and pressing them after it spends 24 hours in the press and in brine we have a beautiful white canvas that is ready to turn into a corny shark the only people fit for the job are these ladies the netlers every year between May and July they go out in the fields to carefully pick the stinging nettles that are used to wrap the cheese this large quantity of nettles is kept Frozen to freeze off the small needle-like structures that stink and cause a rash when they touch human skin so what we have to ensure is to make sure that this Leaf is dipped completely immersed five times oh five times they're actually washing it and then with the as you see there's a furry side and there's a shiny side yeah the shiny side goes against the cheese so what you're trying to do is make that leaf stick on that cheese and then with your brush take your moisture out and then what you do is you just cover the cheese all right and uh do you have a specific pattern in mind yes we do yeah we we call it Dragon's Teeth but as you can see it's like up and down so it's quite therapeutic mesmerizing sometimes so how many years have you been doing this this is my 15th wow so what would this uh Nettles do to the actual tubes it gives a lovely earthy flavor it completely surrounds the cheese so it's giving it like a protective layer it's very very quirky it's very unusual no one else does it to see if I could create a corny shark myself I gave nataline a go okay pick it up keep it in your left hand yeah spread your fingers out like you're doing and then submerge that five times [Music] oh okay so then the shiny side I would then pick it up with two hands that's it yeah of course yeah and I will put that on that side on that corner that's it right here yep all right well it's holding its shape I thought it was yeah no no no you're doing very well that's it and then with that you quite forcefully you can you can get the water out that's it so you're trying to make that leaf stick to the cheese Jenny told me that it's okay to leave little gaps between leaves when nettleing why because the cultures that we added at the very start of the making process would form a natural mold once the cheese ages can you see the pattern you're forming yeah [Music] they're not a Cornish shark matures for 21 days it ages in cold maturing rooms with high humidity the cold temperature preserves the cheese but also the Nettles which will decompose very easily in a warm environment the Nettles themselves also help the cheese mature giving it rigidity and firmness and creating a rind and the perfect rind is firm but not soft it's dry but not too dry it's not crispy it's it's a little bit moist and then it's got this lovely environment for these white white molds to develop and so you know every cheese looks like a Christmas tree yeah it does so you have one nettle meeting another nettle here the white candida mold is in the cheese so at sort of 20 days it's starting to break through and create this mold that then spreads its way so this little bit here is where there's a gap in the Nettles that the the mold can poke through and then finally as the cheese matures as these molds take a hold that flavor starts permeating down through the cheese cuttery's Dairy is the only one in the world that makes this cheese but the idea that nettle leaves enable cheese to mature is at least 400 years old from the time when cheese was made at home back then cheeses were placed on beds of nettles to favor the Aging so we're looking at a little bit of maturing under the Rind you can see that the rinds are softened under there and then you've still got this sort of slightly crumbly core I was expecting the Rind to be a bit thicker well it's just one Thin nettle Leaf it's very very lactic it's got a bit of a snap to it as you break it and then as you get to the Rind it's slightly more elasticy that's true yeah yeah so um see so very milky [Music] slightly acid yeah God I don't know I'm just having some childhood memories it really reminds me of something that I will have a back home in Italy like the same sort of texture milky and a bit lucky just everything is sad but with something different and you can taste that metal can't you yeah yeah you can't taste the knuckle so the knuckles giving you a textural experience but also is the impart in flavor it's almost a bit lemony as well yeah because it's it's fresh and there is that acidity maybe not a very acidic lemon with something like you know and a monthly lemon you know one of those sweeter ones so there is something right yeah and the other thing I think you can express our physioquity definitely but the older the cheese gets the more likely you are to get some of those favors coming through feta cheese is made with a combination of sheep's milk and goat's milk which gives it that creaminess and an extra cake compared to cow's milk cheeses but depending on where you are in Greece you will get a different tasting feta from soft and buttery to hard and tangy it's so down to the combination of the two milks and how much of them you use we're here in the Perkins to find out what other secrets are behind the making of feta cheese why do you use a combination of the two like how does that change the taste the milk that you see here in this box has rested for a day at cool temperatures and has been pasteurized it is now ready to be turned into cheese once each batch has cooled to 35 degrees Celsius you'll use that atanasius adds cultures to the milk to kick start its fermentation is [Music] after the cultures rest 20 minutes atanasius proceeds to add rennet the rennet used also comes from two cans of milk this time it is a mix of cows and goats to add extra spice each batch rests for 55 minutes and is then cut into curds the curds are cut first vertically and then horizontally to achieve perfect cubes yeah well you just like to cut things in Cube a lot [Music] after being cut the cards are transferred into molds which are in the shape of cubes of course while other cheeses go into molds and all their way is pressed out feta's mold have some holes in them to gently drain the way but without losing it all and we'll find out why soon here each Cube holds 8 kilos of curd and Whey but will eventually wait just 6 kilos after a two hour break each cube is cut into one kilo blocks and salted athanasius is putting salt beneath and over the blocks to evenly coat the cheese it will rest for 24 hours you may have noticed this plastic separators they're used to keep gently draining way out of the feather curd this liquid whey mixed with the salt draining is in fact going to make feta's natural brine once the packaging is sealed feta will release even more liquid adding to that brine so how many kilos is this 20 20 okay God great kettlebell feta ages for 15 days at 18 to 20 degrees Celsius the temperature and aging time contribute to the intensity of flavor the longer it ages the more acidity it gains a [Music] foreign yeah of course nice texture um I've read the bars used to add a little bit of spice in the rain and giving it that bitterness is after the first 15 Asian days at mild temperature feta is then stored at a cold temperature for 45 days to reach its full taste and Aroma thank you [Music] you can taste the goat milk there there is that hint of spiciness like the one we had before with an extra crumbliness as well in the texture it's a nice balance of flavor you get like the aftertaste that kick with it is [Music] foreign [Music] when you think of Swiss cheese you think of holes right but emmentala isn't actually the most popular cheese in Switzerland Grier is the most produced and most consumed cheese in the country we're here to see how it's made and find out why it's the main component of a Swiss fondue we're actually in the town of Grier which is in the french-speaking region of Freiburg near Geneva freeborg it's one of the five areas including Bern Jura fold and nuschartel that make up the Grier aop production Zone Korea has a long Heritage records of cheese making go back to the 12th century in this region Legend has it that in the year 161 the Roman Emperor antoninus Pius died after eating too much gruyere today 30 000 tons of gruyere are produced here each year the Maison degree is responsible for 520 tons of that in 2018 over 15 000 tons of gruyere were sold in Switzerland making it the most consumed cheese in the country ahead of mozzarella and emmentala Korea was granted aop protection from the EU in 2001 meaning that these areas are the protected designation of origin but there are a few qualifications for this it must be made using traditional know-how it must be aged to a minimum of five months and it must be made using raw milk from natural fed cows from dairies no more than 20 kilometers away milk is supplied twice a day a vat containing 4 800 liters of unpasteurized milk is used to produce 12 wheels of gruyere aop at a time 48 wheels are produced daily the cheese maker adds starter cultures made from whey to mature the milk rennet is also added to curdled milk this sets the milk into a junket after 40 minutes knives called cheese hops are used to cut the curd the bat is gradually heated up to 57 degrees Celsius until the curds are the size of wheat grains the cheese maker must check the texture and size of these carefully the contents of the vat are then pumped out onto molds and the way is drained away each wheel is then pressed for 24 hours the following day each wheel is dipped in a concentrated salt bath for 24 hours after it is taken to the cellars where it is constantly turned and the Rind is washed the cheese is stored at around 15 degrees Celsius the cheese also has to be kept on wooden shelves a seller like this houses around 7 000 wheels of cheese gruyere is aged here for five months at which point it's ready to eat for a sharper taste it can be aged up to 16 months gonna give them a try and see what I can tell the difference between the different ages first one I'm going to try is the six month age gruyere the rich kind of nuttiness hasn't come through as much yet it's still quite a mild cheese at this stage now is the eight month eight career wow there's such a difference in flavor between the two of them also the texture of it you can feel slightly more grainy and a much richer flavor to this one I know this is going to be the strongest flavor because it's longest age so all three of these go into making a fondue which we're going to try we couldn't come here without trying fondue watchimoji also called fondue Swiss in many Swiss regions gruyere cheese is the most popular ingredient in fondue another important component for a great fondue here is the vashiran and what it does is it gives it consistency so it's not just clear that goes into an amazing fondue that is so rich and so creamy you can definitely taste a bit of punch from the more mature flavors of cheese in there it's the absolute real deal that is the best fun deal I've ever had on top of fondue you can find gruyere in French onion soup cook Monsieur Cordon Bleu quiche the list goes on it's a versatile and popular cheese for cooking because it has a taste that's distinct but not overpowering a wheel of gruyere is between 55 and 65 centimeters in diameter and weighs between 25 and 40 kilograms have you noticed the writing on the side of the Rind legria aop is inscribed on every authentic wheel each wheel must have a casing Mark and the number of the cheese factory it must also have a date of production on it you might be thinking wait why doesn't this Swiss cheese have holes in it French variety of gruyere is required to have holes and receives igp protection in Switzerland Korea receives aop protection and it's a smooth texture Ria is such a popular cheese how does the Maison degree air protect itself against copycat products create a well-known name so and it's a high quality product and has like a watch for example you make a fake Grier and we find some fake Grier on the market and we can find who is the producer of this vague we attack him the name Grier is protected around the world in Switzerland Russia Europe South Africa and the USA sweet and creamy Camembert holds a special place in the heart of cheese lovers today we're in Normandy France and we are in the village of bermanville we are visiting Le sang Fair which is a local Farm to see how traditional Farmers Camembert cheese is made [Music] to be called Camembert a cheese has to wait at least 250 grams be 10 centimeters in diameter and have about 22 percent fat content and it has to come from Normandy this region in northern France is in fact where the cheese was born [Music] Legend has it that it was first made in 1791 in the village of Camembert by Maria El a farmer from Normandy after a priest from brie shared she's making tips with her although Marie really existed it's probable that the cheese originated a few centuries earlier in the 12th century but thanks to Marie and her family after her Camembert started to be produced on a larger scale and gained popularity fast forward a few hundred years the Normans still take great pride in it is [Music] is a family-run farm that grows wheat Rick Barley and other cereals it makes 400 wheels of Camembert every day um [Music] milk to make one wheel of Camembert before being transformed into cheese the milk has to mature for a day this allows microorganisms to flourish and to acidify the milk so when rennet is added the curd develops faster then the milk is ladled by hand five times every hour [Music] um foreign after ladling the cheese is salted and left to dry for one day [Music] um [Music] [Music] listen closure services ages for four to five weeks this allows the fungus to grow all around the cheese and age it is foreign [Music] traditionally Camembert is packaged in paraffin paper and placed in a wooden box es foreign you may associate Camembert with a strong stinky cheese smell it's actually because of the milk used um foreign um so this is the coming by the Chargers for us let's give it a try oh it's nice it's nice I mean to be honest I'm not sure how you can wait two more weeks it's really good biting into the outside part of the cheese you start to get those like typical flavors of Camembert you get the gooeyness you get a bit of a sour aftertaste you can taste more of the milk in here and you can taste that it's raw milk maybe it's not as like creamy as a you know the one that I'm used to that is like just the standard one about the supermarket but again the flavors here are stronger like the flavors here are more robust and uh actually if you can see there is there is some creaminess going on in here just by far by far the best one I've ever had regardless of how much time it has it has been on the shelves the popularity of the soft creamy cheese has like common bath style cheeses to be made all over the world France alone makes 360 million wheels of Camembert each year and the cheese has become a symbol of French culture it was used to feed French soldiers during World War One and even gave its name to the pie chart which in French is called more and more there is have started to pasteurize their milk for health and safety reasons living only a few farmers in France still making it the traditional way using raw milk which is permitted in Europe but forbidden in the US is [Music] foreign and today we're going to see how ricotta is made ricotta is a very versatile cheese we all know it that can be eaten in very different ways and technically speaking it's not even really a cheese because it comes from the liquid way when the milk is curdled So today we're going to visit the small Dairy here in the countryside to find out more about how it's made let's go yeah ricotta is part of a family of fresh cheeses they are normally eaten the same day fresh dairy products are very popular in southern Italy where each region will make its own version of ricotta depending on the milk used and its flavor profiles Puglia the region we're in today favors a soft delicate ricotta made with liquid whey derived from cow's milk bigger dairies that make cheese often considered liquid whey just a leftover product and use it to feed livestock or even discard it but for smaller local dairies here in Italy it is a great opportunity to optimize their resources and get something great out of them just like its sisters mozzarella and burrata ricotta is a game of time and chemistry foreign today Jovan is going to show us how he makes ricotta from 100 liters of milk out of this 100 liters only 10 will turn into curds that would then make cheese the cheese is not the star of the show for us today in reality as much as 90 percent of what's in here is liquid whey and that's all going to be turning into ricotta um foreign solid classical classical music foreign the question okay business ES a Braham is foreign windy [Music] foreign have reached the desired texture and size Giovanni will extract them and place them into molds which will go on to age and become cheese finally free from its curdled twin the liquid whey is ready to be turned into ricotta now yes a Kalia is arigato conditions foreign then starts heating up the way to add milk and ferments to it if we had to judge a step by how loud it is I'd say this is definitely a crucial one thankfully for our ears it was also a pretty quick one is while Giovanni carefully removes all the excess foam we can see it's slowly starting to surface the ricotta we came for today okay foreign foreign [Music] a um foreign tinsel we're in San Diego Italy and today we're going to see how Cacho Cavallo cheese is made katukavalo is one of the most popular cheeses here in southern Italy and it's famous for its elongated shape what we're going to see today is a special kind of kachu Cavallo the podolico kind which is made with the raw milk of podolica cattle a rare breed of cattle that is able to survive in the harshest conditions that we can find here these conditions make their cheese one of the most expensive in Italy sometimes even more expensive than the finest or parmesans let's go find out more they make this is a cheese scattered all over as they roam making it hard to tell that you're actually in a farm Meet Virginia one of only a handful of producers making the cheese we are here to learn about he uses a recipe that his grandparents told him though the most important element of this recipe is location here in San Diego garganico we are only one kilometer from the sea and 100 meters above sea level this is an important detail and also know why [Music] um [Music] produced only three to six liters of milk a day which is much less than 30 liters an average cow all my produce today we're working with 50 liters the environment in which the cows feed gives this milk a rich earthy flavor the whole cheese making process takes 5 hours Virginia heats up the milk to 40 degrees enough to warm it up but still keep it raw which is essential to make this type of Cacho Cavallo if the milk were to become too warm it would splurge and kill off the unique flavor that the podalica cow's milk brings to the special cheese it then adds rennet and fermented whey from yesterday's production and after 20 minutes it starts cutting the curd it aims for the size of a grain of rice to do that he uses this mushroom looking tool which is called menaturo a word that as you may have guessed comes from the local dialects okay okay um [Music] rather than slowly cutting the curd to make energetically slash it through it this breaks it up into the small pieces he's hoping to achieve we are used to seeing curd being extracted and then shipped into cheese right away but here it actually rests further with some of its own warm way to allow for more concentrated flavor to develop keeping the curd nice and warm will facilitate its fermentation it was some other cheese makers might use a steel bath for this process here Virginia uses a maple bath to ferment the cheese this also impacts the flavor and the notes of acidity that tickle your tongue as you eat Virginia tells us this takes about one hour but because it's winter we ended up waiting for three hours instead the curd is ready to be stretched Virginia takes out a bit away to keep experiments for tomorrow he then slices the curd in smaller parts which will then be needed in hot water in comparison to the stretch curd of mozzarella this one will be harder this is due to the waiting time as well as the size of the card when it was cut to do support foreign foreign [Music] foreign [Laughter] into two cheeses each weighing 2.5 kilos this process will be done completely by hand so let's get comfortable he tells me this water is 100 degrees yes Celsius and judging by the color of his hands and smoke around us idle envy him Okay so foreign each cheese goes through different shapes before reaching its final one Virginia has his personal signature shape too when Virginia is happy with the shape of the kacho Cavallo he places it in cold water to set the shape and stop the fermentation he then adds a rope around the Cheese's heads to tie the pair together [Music] alone sit once paired the two cheeses moved to beef and brine the time they spent here depends on weight every kilo needs 24 hours these two new entry is weigh 2.5 kilos so they stay here for 60 hours and when that time is over their next destination is something unexpected because foreign as the pair will spend the rest of their Asian days in caves the minimum aging is six weeks and the maximum two years today Virginia has prepared a six-month-old Katra Cavallo for us to taste a cheese this old is worth 40 dollars a kilo which translates into just over a hundred dollars a piece foreign [Music] wow this is a questions [Music] in the family of smelly cheeses there are probably only a few that will really make you go oh well I have no doubt for me stinking Bishop beats them all crowned the smelliest cheese in the UK stinking Bishop gets this distinctive smell thanks to Perry which is a pear cider used to wash the Rind of the cheese the result a moldy exterior a squidgy texture and a never lasting pungent smell we're in the pear orches of Dimock gloucestershire England at the home of stinking Bishop it is from the fruits of these trees that the infamous pericider is made but while the Perry gives the cheese its distinctive smell I'm curious will the cheese taste as strong as it smells we're here to find out there is only one Farm in the world that makes this cheese Charles Martel and son and just like stinking Bishop is a semi-soft cheese its recipe is semi-secret we know it starts with pasteurized cow's milk that is left in a bath for 4 hours with ferments and rennet we also know that the rennet used is a vegetable rennet this helps coagulate the milk without interfering with the flavor of the cheese which an animal rennet will do the milk comes from the local gross the cattle the milk from this breed is particularly suited for cheese making because during the coagulation process its cream doesn't rise to the surface and get lost within the way rather it stays down in the milk and it will make the final cheese much richer when the curd has reached the size of an app it is transferred into molds this is the first secret step of the process at the end of the molding this Tower of empty molds that you see behind me will be full of curd and after a certain amount of time that is also secret the cheeses will be moved to the maturing room okay this is the moment of truth let's see smelly oh foreign lots of people describe as old smelly socks oh disgusting but actually when you eat the cheese it's really nice yeah and you can taste the smell it you can just taste the cheese which is nice and smooth it fills up your nostrils and it stays there with that smell still very much up in my nostrils Justina talks me through the most important step of the making of stinking Bishop washing it in parrot this is done when the cheese is one day old old enough to hold its shape but young enough to absorb the flavors of the Perry how often do you do this how often do you wash it in Perry only once only once only ones oh and that's enough just you know make everything that the cheese is all right but it's uh alcohol yeah also you can you can smell the aroma of the parrot so you don't want to have this too strong at the same time and this washing is their method to it or it's just you know you caressing the cheese yes and enjoying the work you're doing putting my life today's work yes the molds around the cheese are made of dish food you may ask why we don't know that's another secret that the makers wouldn't share my guess is that this helps the cheese keep its shape of course without being too rigid and thus allowing the cheese to retain some moisture like other semisoft cheeses and this we know for sure thinking Bishop Wheels age for two to three weeks and they are turned regularly to ensure both sides mature equally so this is the finished cheese that still smells even though it's yes which is always smells yes so this is the ready cheese oh wow oh that's good oh it's beautiful actually you know it's uh it looks like one of those like eyeshadow palettes yes it has nice shades of yellow and yellow right yes a bit of orange yeah it's kind of sparkly no yes so all this is because of the washing in in Perry plus your favorites you know yes yes and I mean is it a coincidence that the ferry itself it's kind of reddish yeah it's probably coming of it from the ferry itself so what's the deal with this Perry well around glass this year there are over 100 varieties of Perry pears which are smaller than your average path I know these are blossoms but pears were not in season when we visited anyway turning them into Perry is quite a common thing here the pear the stinky Bishop baits in is called thinking Bishop unlike what you might think this pair doesn't stink most Perry pairs are little hard things like that you know if you threw somebody and hit them with a hurt because they're so heavy and dead little tiny things but the stinking Bishop pair is more pear-shaped and more juicy makes a good early Parry because it's got high sugar it ferments very quickly and so it's got a reputation of being a very strong pair all right named after Mr Bishop Mr Bishop was rather an unsavory character and so he earned him the name the name stinking Bishop all right so suspicious yeah Bishops love it lots of Bishops give each other presence of stinking Bishop because they he comes back yeah they think it's funny it is you know jokes secrets and smell aside the story of stinking Bishop is not really about making a cheese that will make headlines rather it is about making something that could save its very Source the milk from Gloucester cattle which is disappearing notice you've got a blackhead and black legs but her body's Brown okay and they've got this white stripe and a white tail okay so all Gloucester cows have a have a white tail white tail yeah a little white strip and a white white belly well when I started here 50 years ago there were 68 left in the world in the world and I thought gosh you know they can't be let to become extinct how can I help them I managed to get hold of three which I melt by hand and um I thought I know they're originally a cheese making breed we'll make cheese it was my way of of helping the breed survive not just by breeding them but by using them and that's the way they'll survive if we use them oh thank you so do you eat the rind yes that's what the most intense part of the flavor is oh all right so let's just have oh a bit cold I love it it's really nice yeah no smell at all no no I mean it's supposed to say that yeah you know like when you say you can't you can't taste the smell because the smell can put you off but this tastes I really love it I don't know it reminds me of some cheese I used to eat when I was when I was a child it's just the texture in my in your mouth a bit creamy but not too not too runny so not too messy the flavor goes in from the Rind obviously because on the Rind is the culture which is where you get the flavor yeah the building where we're tasting the cheese is a Distillery and yes you guessed it this is where Perry is made Charles tells me that his Distillery is 400 years old he even showed me some property documents from 1810 built in 1650 so it's the oldest original distilling house still working the British Isles oh yes is it we know of no other older cider or Perry that is used to use to wash the Rind of the cheese is later turned into the sweet pear Spirit called puero which is made out of Perry and fresh pear juice cheers sweet it's sweet but not sugar sweet that's no no sweet we're in Monopoly Italy a beautiful custom town in the region of Puglia which is the region where burata cheese is from burata is one of those foods that has a very short shelf life it has to be eaten fresh the same day so trying a burata here in pulia it's truly a culinary experience and trust me I'm from around here but I live abroad and I've tried countless times to bring them with me in my suitcases and they've never been as good as the ones that I've tried here so today we're going to do exactly that we're going to visit the local Dairy and get our own burata experience let's go [Music] in Italy we met with Vincenzo titrani son grandson and great grandson of cheese makers and owner of mozzabella his Dairy produces about 500 kilos of fresh cheese every day Vincenzo and his team start the day way before the Sun is up at 4 AM the milk has been acidified and it is ready to be split into curds it now rests in this spot at 35 degrees with a way starter and run it is address the typology in Italia um protein okay foreign Reformation foreign they will now have to rest in the way for one and a half hours Vincenzo uses this time to take out part of the liquid whey adding milk to it and transform it into ricotta Juan is while the curd is still resting in its way to reach the perfect stretchability a part of it is taken out to make the inside of the burrata these are called spelachetti and are little shreds of frayed stretch curd which will be salted and mixed with cream to make strachatella Vincenzo uses 90 degree water to stretch the curd is is [Music] a [Music] other depends on foreign [Music] [Music] temperatures [Laughter] each piece of curd is then frayed one by one and here we have our spirituality foreign foreign celebrities now that we have our inside it's finally time to take care of the casing of the burata [Music] dilution Texas [Music] restaurants when the casing is ready all it takes is a swift movement to add in the structure that La prepared previously this is the first burata of the day at Vincenzo's Dairy is foreign foreign foreign [Music] foreign foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you foreign cheese is named after a small village in the west country in England we're here to watch the traditional method of making it and find out why cheese makers restarted the centuries-old tradition of storing it in caves the cheddigorous cheese company is the only dairy in this Village so we're about to see the real deal about 333 000 tons of cheddar are produced in the UK per year to get the official protected designation of origin label West country Farmhouse cheddar the cheese has to be made in one of the four counties Cornwall Devon Somerset Dorset the cheese must be made from milk from grazing herds no more than 30 miles from the farm it has to be made from a traditional recipe the curds need to be turned by hand and it must be aged to a minimum of nine months the earliest record of cheddar anywhere is at cheddar in Somerset in 1170. the land around this Village has been at the heart of English cheese making since the 15th century today as many cheddar producers have upscaled and required more land there is only one traditional cheese maker left in the village the Cherry Gorge Cheese Company produces 60 tons of cheese each year but certainly down here you have the somerset levels and then you have the top of the cheddar Gorge and each year you would get a lot of water coming down from The Gorge bringing a lot of silt which really made the pastures verdant and very very nutritious in the morning 2 000 liters of milk is delivered from a farm four miles away it takes around 10 liters of milk to make one kilogram of cheddar the milk is agitated which mixes the fat evenly through the milk some Farmhouse producers use pasteurized milk but here it's raw milk we use it on pasteurized we need to know that the quality of the milk and the safety is fine the farm that we get it from has freezing Coldstone friesians British regions a vegetarian replacement for rennet is then added which sets the milk into a junket this is cut to form curds and whey the curtain whey are heated to about 40 degrees Celsius to make the curds solid this influences the moisture level in the finished product cheaters like Gorgonzola and mozzarella have a lot of moisture in them so they go off very quickly whereas parmesan has little moisture so lasts for a long time cheddar is somewhere in the middle around 40 percent starter cultures develop and multiply the way is drained away next the all-important cheddaring process where the curds now having the texture of chicken breasts are turned and cut what chattering does is it squeezes the curd and forces more way out of it and gradually it'll get drier and drier and the texture changes very quickly [Music] the curd is salted by hand to preserve it and milled into small chips it's pressed into a 25 kilogram mold and left overnight in the morning it's dipped in hot water to smooth the edge of the cheese and remove the imprint of the cloth it's then treated with a vegetarian-based substance the use of cheesecloth is a vital way of allowing the cheese to gradually dry and develop a rind the only thing that identifies it is a tag that states the date of production and the weight of the cheese mellow mature and vintage Cheddars are all stored on site where they are turned and the free mold is vacuumed away foreign [Music] the cave mature variety is carried into the famous Goths cave in the mendip Hills [Music] the constant temperature and humidity nearly 98 provide perfect conditions in which to mature cloth bound cheese the moisture content is a critical component and it ensures the cultures and enzymes move on more quickly producing a more complex flavor it takes on the natural yeast and mold from the atmosphere in the cave leading to an earthy flavor [Music] Cheese's strength is defined by the length of the Aging from Bello cheddar it's four to six months mature 10 to 12 months and vintage 20 to 24 months cave matured should have less of a bite at 12 months old we tried some out to see if there's a taste difference between the maturations the first one I'm going to have a little bite of is the cave mature cheddar it's really creamy it almost has a consistency of quite a medium mild cheddar you can tell the difference of the rinds here so I've got the cave H1 which has sort of like that really damp quite dark color on the Rind of it and then I've got the Vintage one which is just a little bit lighter okay now let's try some of this wow flavor of that is incredible it has such a kick to it such a bite immediately when you cut into vintage shutter you want there to be almost a flakiness to it and that's exactly what this has got the company is the first one in recent memory to reintroduce cheddar cheese back into a natural cave environment to mature the PDO label was set up to protect the industry from non-genuine products so why did the cheddar Gorge Cheese Company opt out of it some years ago we had PDO status for our cheese but we deliberately opted out of it so with a PDO you can make it from pasteurized milk we make all ounce from unpaste dryers for the PDO you can mature it in plastic we mature hours in cloth and we are still doing the things that would enable us to qualify for PDO what we've just done is go on a little bit further quite a lot further foreign [Music] cheese is one of Portugal's Best Kept Secrets made in a remote volcanic island under constant humidity this cheese is packed with moisture hints of spiciness and aggressive sand the art of cheese making arrived here on the island of South George over 500 years ago and it has become an important part of its identity imagine there are over 10 000 cows on the island which is more than double the size of the human population cows here even dictates the start of their day for their keepers is a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean it is also home to one of the richest and most elaborate cheeses on Earth saljo's cheese the volcanic geology of this island means that its soil is Rich and fertile the result is abundant vegetation that basically Never Dies and cows that are able to graze freely 365 days a year these conditions make Southern cheese incredibly rich in flavor every bite reminds of the very grass where everything started please joao is one of the keepers here in South George he runs one of the only four dairies on the island the smallest of them all and the one that sticks to the way this cheese has been made for decades his 40 cows give him around 400 liters of milk per day 200 a dome and 200 at Sunset he will combine them to make cheese when milk arrives at the dairy Israel's mom graza and his dad Manuel who take the lead they developed the whole cheese making process to preserve in the flavors of the island in the cheese by not killing the native cultures that are present in the milk to do that there are two crucial steps the first thing is to keep the milk raw and not pasteurize it the second is to use whey from the day before to ferment the milk instead of adding other fermenting agents this way the way is imparting even more flavor to the milk without interfering with its natural composition as this is a more gentle way to acidify the milk it takes 4 hours to split the milk into curds one hour of rest and 3 hours of cutting this is more than double the time other cheeses take why is it this long is it is it like a recipe that is specific to sour George foreign and then your family is perfected it yes with the experience for our Mark the cheese is salted and transferred into molds it will stay in the molds for 48 hours with just a short break after one day to quickly turn it [Music] South George then matures from 3 to 12 months unlike all the cheeses they spend their aging days in temperature controlled rooms South George rests at room temperature why South Georgia island is a very humid Place subject to constant fog like really really thick fog as of Ages the humidity packs the cheese with moisture and turns it from sweet and Mild to Tangy and peppery foreign [Music] and what is this is this like the moisture of the cheese yes it is inside okay just from here you can see that it's pretty pretty wet inside is can we try yes and it's a bit spicy like some George sheets yes [Music] and it's nice and soft but without being chewy you can feel the humidity thank you on an island where there are so few people and the only ones to compete for space are cows and hydrangeas you might expect that joao's cheese is accessible to all the human population here but this is not the case there are bigger more commercial cheese factories on the island they are making a less traditional version of South York cheese foreign [Music] [Music] sweet cheese with a citrus finish but no doubt what makes it stand out is its bright orange red color the cheese is actually deliberately turned this vibrant too with a natural coloring called anato it doesn't contribute to the flavor of the cheese so why is it added The Story Goes that Stilton and his blue veins were so popular that other cheeses including red Leicester were having a hard time standing out so cheese makers thought what can we do to make it more popular let's just turn it red and it worked red Lester is one of the most popular cheeses now in the UK so what is anato specifically is it like is there colorant but is it not it's natural right it's a natural colorant from a South American Plant and it's been used since the early 1800s oh Farmer's wives would have used Marigold coloring before that or carotene it's a very deep color and it sticks to the fat protein to the curd to the fat protein matrix as it goes through the process so as the way goes out it doesn't have much color but the curd does the sustain yeah it does yeah and I normally manage to spill it everywhere so they call me a natto Dave oh it's fresh okay well no need to do nail polish you can just do you want to put pour it in there we are you got it okay should I what do I do just pull it doesn't make a pattern write your name it's like a futuristic sort of painting or something like that it's a Monster yeah it's like a Thai Thai dye yeah oh I'm going to switch the paddles on and then it will make a wonderful pattern let's see when the milk has curdled Izzy and Craig here are in charge of cutting the curds until they reach the size of a pea the cards still look a bit white as the anato hasn't fully stuck to them yet and is still swimming in the way one hour later the way is drained to reveal some very yellow curds they are cut and cut and cut into blocks with the color getting brighter and brighter each time oh my God it's so yellow it's like parsimaya is a little bit you need sunglasses on right because you're like so close to it and you know when you stare at the Sun for a bit too long it needs to stand out the cards are the milled and salted David uses this Fork to evenly distribute the salt that piece is a garden fork okay and we have somebody put a stainless steel stale on it [Music] could you take a little lump this one I mean that's quite nice it just tastes salty now doesn't it just say something squeaky Saucy and Squishy yeah I know our American friends will know about this eat cheese is then molded and pressed into what would be a 10 kilo wheel when the cheese is two days old it is cloth bound with lard a traditional method that had been abandoned until very recently a muslin cloth is dipped in a memory of hot lard and then wrapped around the cheese lard does not add to the flavor of the cheese but creates a seal around it preventing it from drying out and preserving its moisture and citrus finish it also protects the cheese from molds which eat the lard instead of the cheese itself keeping it humid mold survives on the lives on the lard and that slowly eats the the larda way and then that starts to and then the cheese can dry as it matures there's a lot a lot of larda rolled out yeah that's not really there's a bit of water drippings okay [Music] grab one of the edges okay and this Edge yep [Music] okay you'll be able to grab your hand underneath and flip it whoa because this all this lard is very slippery okay and then just split down there we go perfect red Lester ages in a humid room from six months up to 14 months here you can see the mold building up and starting to do what David wants it to do eat away the lard and leave the cheese intact in fact despite its moldy appearance the cheese will have a Nutty sweet taste with a citrus finish the lard stays on the cheese and is only removed when it is ready to be sold larding as well as using raw milk to make red luster were two Traditions that had been lost like other cheeses in the UK red Lester suffered the rationing of World War II and Farms either stop making it or abandon traditional methods it was David who brought this traditional recipe back after over 50 years there's colors on there amazing it's Orange yeah you couldn't you cannot do this job if you don't like cheese yeah I like that yeah it is a bit crumbly but uh it still holds its shape yeah but it's kind of meat we're looking for a meaty texture yeah oh yeah yeah I really like I really like this combination of textures actually it has a nice sharp flavor yeah that's quite citrusy though so when you break a piece of red luster it should just snap there's little white specks which are basically tiny little pockets like eyes and the cheese yeah that's where cheese makers oh he's in the cheese yeah [Music]

Channel: Insider Food

Views: 4,727,071

Keywords: INSIDER, FOOD INSIDER, cheese, regional eats

Id: YQGai2PVHBs

Length: 171min 52sec (10312 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2023