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People have been enamored with cheese for a long time. Th e intricate combinations of appearance, aroma, fl avor, and texture have inspired writers to refer to cheese as “milk’s leap toward immortality” (Clift on Fadiman), “the soul of the soil” (Pierre Androuët), and “the wine of foods” (Vivienne Marquis and Patricia Haskell). Cheese has much in common with wine and beer: they result from fermentation by microorganisms, they are “value-added” products (processing greatly increases the value of milk, grain, and grapes), and they reflect the local climate and terrain. Cheese may be kept for months, and traditionally provided a source of protein, vitamins, and minerals during the winter when other food was scarce. Cheese is nutritious
and delicious, and can be appealing or appalling. Th ere has been a great deal of research on this complicated food—over 20,000 scientific papers about some aspect of cheese have been published over the past ten years alone. Some authors have distilled this information down to the basics for the general public, and others have written works that most people without a scientific background are unable to understand. I’ve tried to take the middle ground, by writing about the science without getting too technical. Like many books on this subject, we will cover milk ( Chapter 1 ), the fundamentals of making cheese ( Chapter 2 ), aging cheese ( Chapter 3 ), and the diff erent classes of cheese (chapters 4–13). But we will also cover the chemical compounds involved and how the flavors arise as we talk about cheese classes, and we will detail nutrition ( Chapter 14 ), how cheese is analyzed ( Chapter 15 ), rules, regulations, and specially designated cheeses ( Chapter 16 ), things you can do at home ( Chapter 17 ), and other topics besides.
This book is a product of the accomplishments of two organizations, the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). ACS has over 160,000 members worldwide who conduct research in chemistry, teach it, or write about it. Scientific societies like ACS promote knowledge by holding meetings where scientists present results of their research, by publishing journals and books based on these results, and by providing online information, including webinars. ACS began off ering webinars to its members in 2010 and started a series called “Chemistry of Food” the following year. The first presentation was given by Charles Bamforth on the chemistry of beer, and I had the third talk, titled “The Chemistry of Cheese and Why We Love It.” Oxford University Press had already published three editions of Charles’s book Beer: Tap into the Art and Science of Brewing , and they were looking for someone to write a general-interest book on cheese chemistry. They viewed my webinar, invited me, and the result is in front of you.
ACS has over 30 technical divisions dealing with various areas of chemistry. One of these, the Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (AGFD), has been an all-volunteer group since its formation in 1908. I was chair of AGFD in 2001 and am its secretary now. Most divisions including AGFD hold symposia at the two annual ACS meetings in March/April and August/September. Some of our recent symposia have covered such diverse topics as nanotechnology, tree nuts, bioactives, cereal grains, waste utilization, subtropical fruits, consumer safety, chocolate, allergens,
Hispanic foods, fl avors, and many more. ACS and AGFD are geared for professionals in the fi eld, but they do have resources for the general public, available online at acs.org and agfd.sites.acs.org.
My employer is ARS, the primary research arm of the United States Department of Agriculture. ARS has nearly 100 facilities across the country, and one of the largest is the Eastern Regional Research Center in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. Th e Center has six research units focused on aspects of agricultural research, including the Dairy and Functional Foods Research Unit, where I am. The Unit and its predecessors have conducted research on cheese and other dairy products since the late nineteenth century. Of our many advances over the years, the most visible to consumers is lactose-reduced milk, which will be discussed in Chapter 1 . We also developed a reduced-fat Mozzarella that has been used in the National School Lunch Program since 1995. Nowadays, our work deals with cheese characterization and safety whey utilization conversion of milk casein to edible fi lms development of bacterial cultures for cheesemaking and bioactive peptides and proteins lowering
the environmental and economic impacts of food processing and development of products from plant cell-wall polysaccharides in fruit and vegetable processing residues. ARS also has online resources for people who may not be scientists but who are interested in topics related to food ( www.ars.usda.gov ). Our agency is committed to public outreach, and has been for a long time. In fact, a book titled Varieties of
Cheese: Descriptions and Analyses was fi rst published by USDA in 1908, renamed Cheese Varieties and Descriptions in 1953 (this edition is available at the National Agricultural Library website), and revised again in 1978.
Many other books describe cheese varieties, along with recipes and how to buy and serve cheese. But this book will describe the chemistry, biology, physics, nutrition, and even climatology involved in cheese. It is arranged so that the more technical topics are confined to boxes that you can skip (I won’t be insulted, honestly). Along the way, we’ll encounter some related topics that will add to the discussion. About one-third of the milk produced in the United States each year goes toward cheesemaking, and on average each American consumes around 34 pounds of cheese