Say (washed rind) cheese
With good dairy, it’s often a case of the worse it smells the better it tastes, writes Ewan Sargent.
The three cheeses waiting to be sampled look a bit worse for wear. A bit saggy. A bit rumpled in their ill-fitting rinds.
They don’t smell that great either – think of socks that have been in running shoes all day. And it is a warm day.
There’s a goat’s milk cheese called Cullensville Gold from Cranky Goat in Marlborough, a sheep’s milk cheese called Devotion from Thorvald in Nelson, and a taleggio from a little further north – Italy.
Get past the pong and they are in various ways creamy, gooey, yeasty, savoury, and a little fruity.
You can see how the cheese inside the rind is being broken down and changed by the bacteria on the outside. They certainly aren’t boring. These cheeses make a statement about cheese as a food, and they are excitingly alive.
But most of us are wedded to the 1kg block of cheddar that symbolises New Zealand’s cheese to the world.
‘‘You could argue that particular cheddar isn’t really cheese,’’ says Martin Aspinall, the Christchurch cheesemonger who is slicing up the ‘‘washed rind’’ cheeses.
He and business partner Sarah Aspinall sell cheese wholesale and will be back at farmers’ markets this summer after closing an inner city retail site.
But back to that symbolic cheddar.
‘‘It’s mass-produced [and] wrapped in plastic, it doesn’t breathe, it doesn’t have the fragrance of proper cheddar. These are proper cheeses. They are handmade, they are made from old-fashioned recipes, and they use traditional ways of ripening them,’’ Martin says, as he hands over another gooey bite.
The Aspinalls say that interest in real cheese is rising in New Zealand.
Washed rind cheeses are at the hardcore end of cheesemaking.
The outside of the new cheese is washed with brine or other stuff such as beer or wine to encourage bacteria – classically one from the same family as body odour – to grow on the rind and start messing with and breaking down the inside.
In the old days it was a way of protecting the cheese, but it also adds amazing savoury flavours. And also that pong.
Aspinall says there’s a French saying that covers the idea of treasure beneath the smell, ‘‘les pieds de Dieu’’, the feet of God.
Auckland cheesemonger Calum Hodgson, of importer Sabato, is a big supporter of the growing Kiwi specialty cheese cottage industry. He has particular respect for washed rind cheeses and the people who take on the challenge of making them. That pong, he admits, is a barrier.
‘‘We have this self-preservation thing when approaching food, you know what is right and wrong, but stinky cheese is a bit of a head f... because you think ‘man that smells, but I want to have it inside me as well. It’s umami and kind of comforting.’’
He’s launched a competition for beer-washed cheeses to celebrate October being cheese month.
Hodgson worked overseas with washed rind cheeses, and he learned to respect the bacteria.
He recalls a webcam that was put in the washing room for three months for some time-lapse photography. The bacteria were so aggressive ‘‘they effectively ate the webcam and destroyed it’’.
‘‘Cheese-making is controlled degradation and you are kind of helping to steer where possible the millions of bacteria that are either working with you or against you to produce something very flavoursome and new and exciting.’’
But he says it is safe to eat.
‘‘It’s a fermented food, bread is a fermented food, chocolate is a fermented food ... if you are talking about food hurting you, I would be most worried about washed salad greens in a bag.
‘‘That’s the most dangerous food in your supermarket,’’ Hodgson says.
So what’s his tip for how to tell if the washed rind cheese is ripe for eating?
‘‘You put your finger on the middle of the cheese
and a finger on the other hand on your closed eye and push gently on your eyeball. If they kind of feel the same – a little bit of give – it is ripe.’’ Washed rind cheesemakers might be the stormtroopers of real cheese-making, but Jill Walcroft sounds quite ordinary when she answers the phone at her Pohangina Valley home in Manawatu¯ .
Cartwheel Creamery is one of many small cheese-making businesses popping up around the country like mushrooms.
Walcroft and husband Adrian were scientists at Landcare and AgResearch respectively when, a few years ago, they decided to follow their dream of making cheese.
‘‘So we went from salaried scientists to smallbusiness owners trying to make a living out of making cheese. Hmmm, it’s definitely made a difference to our lifestyle,’’ she says.
They’d lived in France for a few years and ‘‘met a few lovely washed rinds over there, and my husband was inspired by the experience to make a cow’s milk one back here’’.
That cheese is called Coppermine after a nearby stream, and references the reddish coppery rind the washing creates.
Coppermine is more smelly than a goat’s milk version they make, which is really gooey and sticky inside.
Walcroft says it can sometimes feel like they are winning over customers one at a time with cheeses like these.
‘‘The smell and the taste are a little bit mismatched. Usually once people have tasted it they are like wow.’’
She says she sees that a lot.
But others will forget the info talk and she’ll get a call saying the cheese seems to have gone off.
‘‘We’ll ask if it is the orangey one. They’ll say yes, and then we will have to go through it all with them again.’’
One woman left the cheese in her handbag and was panicked that something had died in the room.
She says the washed rind cheeses take more work, are riskier to get right, and have a shorter shelf life.
But they are cheeses that give back so much when eaten at the right time. Part of their charm is the way they go their own way sometimes.
‘‘You have to explain to people that sometimes the cheese will have differences, and to celebrate those differences with us.’’
New Zealand’s cheese market is at an interesting stage. Most of the growth in cheese eating is coming from specialty cheeses, including washed rind cheese.
However, we still don’t eat much cheese compared to other countries. We eat 8.2kg each annually compared to Australians at 14.7kg and world leader Denmark’s staggering 28kg.
Maybe that’s because our usual cheese is so boring, but this could changing.
Whitestone Cheese, which has its headquarters in O¯ amaru, is probably the biggest of New Zealand’s small cheesemakers.
It doesn’t make a washed rind cheese but that’s on its way.
CEO Simon Berry says probably the first will appear at the Hobsonville farmers’ market this summer because the Auckland hub is where they will have a crack first.
The tricky part is sealing off an area of the cheese factory to contain the aggressive yeasts, and plans to do just that are being looked at for O¯ amaru.
‘‘It’s the way the market is going,’’ Berry says. ‘‘We have always wanted to do washed rinds. It’s a complex flavour and that’s what people are wanting now. The New Zealand cheese market is evolving to catch up to Europe.’’
Berry says some of the best blue cheeses he has tried overseas also had a washed rind, and the combination was amazing.
No one is doing those in New Zealand – yet. ‘‘It’s an exciting time. The market is now appreciating it and we are part of that and know how to do it.’’
Berry says someone thinking of trying washed rind cheeses might find the jump from that kilo cheddar block a bit big. It might better suit someone who is already into very ripe brie or a strong blue vein.
They will discover a lovely mouth feel, like a very ripe camembert, and a creamy flavour, which can be savoury or even bitter or floral, depending on the age and yeasts used. But it will definitely make a statement.
Berry’s thinking of cheese as he describes the flavours. Almost as an afterthought he says, ‘‘we’d love to do a yeasted blue’’.