The older the cheddar cheese, the sharper its flavors

Valley 101

Clay Thompson Arizona Republic USA TODAY NETWORK

Today’s question:

What’s the difference between sharp and extra-sharp cheese? And what do they mean when they say cheese, as my grandmother used to say, is “binding”?

Sharpness, when you’re talking about cheese, is a measure of the intensity of the flavor. A sharp cheddar cheese is pretty cheddary. An extrasharp cheddar is extra-cheddary.

The question of flavor is sort of subjective, but the cheddar’s sharpness can be measured by how old it is.

Mild cheddar cheese is generally aged for two or three months. Extra sharp may be aged up to a year or more. Some really fancy cheddars are aged for two years or more.

The longer a cheddar sits around the more time the bacteria that make it cheese have to break down the proteins and fats and impart flavor.

As for binding, that’s a completely different matter.

When your grandma told you cheese is binding she meant that it causes constipation in some people.

Whether cheese really does cause constipation is open for debate. My guess is that it is a matter of individual digestive systems. Some people may handle it differently than others.

This is kind of interesting: Have you ever heard someone say, “That makes the cheese more binding?”

Neither have I, but apparently it means to make a situation worse or more complicated.

It seems to have come into American English in the 1940s, although no one seems to know just where it came from.

What’s odd is that in Canada it means just the opposite. Up there it means to make a situation easier or more pleasant.

Why? Beats me.

If we knew a big hurricane was coming, could we drop a nuclear bomb on it to break it up?

If you dropped a nuclear bomb on a hurricane, you would end up with a radioactive hurricane.

Reach Clay at 602-444-8612 or clay.thompson@arizonarepublic.com