The other day, my friend and housemate insisted on buying a big piece of Kroger brand sharp “cheddar cheese.” I told him that he would be dissatisfied with the taste, and that it would go bad within 2 days after being opened, and that for about a dollar more he could have a block of Cabot Vermont Cheddar, which is like going from a Ford Festiva to a Maybach limousine in terms of the quality improvement.
But no, he insisted on buying the Kroger cheddar cheese. It was the color of a hunting vest, bright day-glo orange, and it tasted terrible, but slightly sharp, when fresh. After a day of being left in the opened wrapper, without an airtight bag surrounding it, it had lost ALL sharp flavor, and was completely tasteless and disgusting. (I wasn’t the one doing the eating here, it was the other guy - I would never eat it. These descriptors are his assesment of the taste.)
I said to him, “I told you so. Next time, spend the extra dollar and fifty cents and get Cabot cheddar.” There’s no sense in buying a vastly inferior product just to save such a trivial amount of money, I always say.
There is a question here: WHY does the cheaper cheddar cheese always lose the sharp cheddar flavor so quickly after being opened? The Cabot cheese, or Black Diamond cheddar, or Hoffmann’s cheddar, or any of the other GOOD cheese brands, can be left in the fridge opened, without an airtight bag around them, and they will keep their sharp flavor for a long time. But the Kroger-brand cheddar loses the sharpness after one, or if you’re lucky, two days.
Why is this? Does it have to do with some kind of chemical that the cheaper cheese has in it?
I don’t care much for sharp cheddar, but my WAG would be that cheaper brands might have additional natural/aritifical flavorings that are more volatile than their normally occuring counterparts.
Hmm…maybe. In normal cheddar, the sharpness is (I think) the lactic acid that is produced by the enzymes that make the cheese. It “eats” the lactose, and the product is the lactic acid. A sharper cheddar is made by letting it sit longer, therefore more lactose is turned into lactic acid, and the cheese is sharper. Perhaps the cheapo brands use something else to simulate the sharpness (maybe they add in another type of acid? Acetic acid, perhaps?) and it’s more prone to evaporating or chemically degrading into something else. If oyu still have the wrapper, check the ingredient listing.
And if it’s not that, then odds are it jsut wasn’t as sharp to begin with, and so even if it and a good cheese stay in the fridge the same amount of time and lose the same amount of lactic acid, it will taste less sharp then the good variety. (And speaking of, have you ever had the pleasure of eating Cabot Private Stock? It’ll cut your tongue, it’s so sharp!)
For one thing, you must NEVER NEVER leave ANY cheese exposed in the refirgerator. It will soak up other flavors like a sponge and become thusly ruint. To properly handle any cheese you must wrap it completely in plastic wrap. Never use foil because it ruins the flavor. Flavor in cheese has many elements. It’s much more than “sharpness” or mildness.
All Cheddar Cheese is whitish in color. It is a cooked and pressed cheese. The orange Cheddars such as Mammoth and Hoop and the storebrand you bought have had dyes added to give the orange color. The Cheese is named for the village of Cheddar in England where it was originally made. What makes it unique is that the curd is cooked, worked, and cooked again, both times at specific temperatures. A truely good Cheddar will crumble apart has you handle it. To be fair, the ones that you describe as “maybach” quality are actually quite middle of the road. You must not have been exposed to any truely fine Cheddars in your life if you are holding Cabot and Hoffman’s in such high regard.
Many other cheeses begin life as Cheddar. Monterray Jack, for example and American both do. To progress into a proper Cheddar it must be allowed to age and develop all of the right qualities. The crumbliness, the nuances in the tastes within the cheese, the aftertastes, the crystals that you often experience with any top-shelf sharp cheese. The truely great Cheddars of the world actually control their cows’ diets as this affects the taste and quality as well.
The mass-produced grocery store chain Cheddars aren’t so bad. They also aren’t so old. It sounds like the problem that you had with your cheese could be best described as OE. Operator Error. If I were you I would save the $1.50 and take better care of the cheese as I have instructed above. Once you’ve saved up enough, invest in a REAL CHEDDAR like Montgomerys or Keanes Farm. (spelling?) It’s usually about $16.00+ for a pound and if you can find a decent cheesemonger who knows how to care for it, it’s well worth it.
There aren’t any artifical flavourings in that type of Cheese. The orange Cheddars are artificially coloured.
Cheese comes together as a combination of specifically-prepared milk curd, salt and rennet. Rennet is fluid from a cow’s stomach and it CANNOT be artificially produced. By this I mean there is no means of obtaining it other than to pump it from the stomach of the cow.
This may be true, but I’m still wondering why the cheap cheddar cheese loses its sharp flavor when exposed. The Cabot cheese at least stays sharp, even if it does absorb other flavors.
Are you saying that it’s because the Kroger cheddar is not aged for long enough?
Not quite true. All rennet does is coagulate the milk proteins into a solid form. There are apparently a whole host of microbial and vegetable substances that can be used as “rennet”, besides the usual animal kind.
I didn’t imply the rennet was artificially produced, just the cheese flavour. If you claim there is no such thing as an artificial cheese flavour, I am going to ask for a cite for such a claim. There is synthetic flavourings for everything from “charbroiled beef” to “fresh-picked strawberries”, and I’m fairly sure “sharp cheddar cheese” as well. Whether they’re close enough to the original is debatable, but a lot of products are based on them.
Not to be rude, but you do not need salt nor animal based rennet to make some cheeses. It can be done with a little bit of white vinegar or even nothing at all if you wish. You can’t make Cheddar that way, that’s true, but you can make some sort of cheese. Add some sour milk to fresh milk you are heating on the stove, wait for curds to form, press them in some cloth and voila cheese!
I am, of course, referring to REAL cheese. Even the Kroger cheese falls into that category. I’m not talking about pasteurized process cheese food. There is tons of artificial in that.
Take honey bun, soak in water, allow yeasts from the air to permeate. a little waiting and voila beer!
No not really beer but a fermented beverage. That’s how they make it in prison, anyway. It’s no more real beer than your 1-2-3 cheese recipie is actually real cheese. On both illustrations we have faxcimilies of the actual goods using similar, vastly simplified production techniques.
There’s real cheese and real cheese, and that, rather than added flavorings may be the answer here. The store brand stuff is usually softer than high quality stuff, so it’s likely got a higher water content. That will increase the rate of diffusion of water soluble compounds within the cheese, and hence into the atmosphere.
Their products may not conform to your definition of REAL cheese, but both Tillamook and Organic Valley would disagree with you about the necessity for animal rennet in cheddar cheese: Tillamook Cheese Questions (see “Ingredients”) and Organic Valley Products (note the last statement in “Our Promise To You”). There are many others, but those are the two brands of cheddar in my refrigerator (yes, wrapped tightly) at this moment.
I suppose that if your definition of “cheddar cheese” excludes any product that doesn’t contain animal rennet, I can’t win this debate, but both the cheeses I have are aged, not at all “artificial”, and pretty darn tasty.
The coloring in Cheddar is not exactly “artificial.” Annato comes from the tropical achiote tree & is used in Latin & Caribbean countries–more for coloring than flavor (or flavour).
Many fine cheddars use annato. And I agree on spending more for “the good stuff.” Although it can be addictive!
Interesting. I’ve heard many different theories on storing cheese, most say not to store it in the 'fridge at all.
I’ve also heard that you shouldn’t wrap fatty foods in plastic wrap because the fat reacts with the plastic and forms (scary) chemicals. Or something. Did I imagine that, or was it just another food scare that came to nothing ?
In any case I wrap cheese in foil and keep it in the fridge, and I’ve never noticed any change in flavour. It does have a tendancy to dry out after a while which I solve my eating it faster.
For the record, I’ve been buying the store brand’s “New York Sharp Cheddar” plastic-wrapped 8oz. cheese for $1.50 lately. If you keep it in a Ziploc bag in the fridge, it does not lose it’s flavor, not even after a week.
Granted, I’m not sure what “New York Sharp Cheddar” is supposed to “really” taste like, but this stuff isn’t losing any flavor.
I do notice if it gets ANY air at all when it’s in the fridge, the exposed parts turn rock hard and get darker. Those bits I cut off and throw away.
