# Ew.  What happened to my cheese?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ew-what-happened-to-my-cheese/348994>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [March 19, 2006, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ew-what-happened-to-my-cheese/348994 "2006-03-19T13:49:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![katie1341](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/91b2a8/32.png) [@katie1341](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/katie1341)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ew-what-happened-to-my-cheese/348994/1 "2006-03-19T13:49:25Z")

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I recently got a nice sized chunk of parmesean reggiano cheese. I like to use a veggie peeler to cut off nice long, thin strips of it for pasta. After about a week, it had these weird little crystals in it that looked like salt. They didn’t taste like anything in particular, but they ruined the texture of the cheese. This happened once before with some Gruyere that I had.

```
 Was there something wrong with the cheese, or something wrong with the way I stored it? I store my cheese in plastic wrap- should I use wax paper or something instead?
```

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**Author:** ![MissMossie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@MissMossie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissMossie)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ew-what-happened-to-my-cheese/348994/2 "2006-03-19T15:47:45Z")

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Appearantly, they’re a good thing. From [Zingerman’s](http://www.zingermans.com/Article.pasp?ArticleID=article39):

> [@](#):
>
> One of the magical things about biting into a piece of good Parmigiano Reggiano is the feel of the tiny sharp crystals crunching on your tongue. Many folks mistakenly take these to be salt crystals, but they aren’t. During the aging, free amino acids in the cheese are naturally converted into this new crystalline structure. A well made and well aged wheel of Parmgiano will always have these crystals. Don’t leave home without them.

Now I want to go out and buy some Parmigiano Reggiano to try myself.

-Mosquito

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**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ew-what-happened-to-my-cheese/348994/3 "2006-03-19T20:05:53Z")

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> [@katie1341](#):
>
> Was there something wrong with the cheese, or something wrong with the way I stored it? I store my cheese in plastic wrap- should I use wax paper or something instead?

Even though those crystals seem to be a good thing, I have heard it’s best to store cheese is wax or parchement paper.