A warning of what the future may hold for cheese
- Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
- July 26, 2024
- 599
A great evening for me is a light, snacky dinner, something nice to drink and a good, creepy movie on TV. Some hummus and pita maybe or bruschetta with grape tomatoes and balsamic. The best of such light meals might be just some cold meats and cheeses with a little fresh bread or crackers.
We might soon find our favorite cheeses in short supply, however, as circumstances have brought about the possibility of losing some truly delicious cheeses altogether. The reason? I guess we’ve liked them too much.
Brie is a wonderful and adaptable soft cheese. Peel off the rind and bake it with some honey and nuts. Or as I discovered this summer, put the peeled brie cheese into the bowl of a food processor and give it a good whip. It becomes wonderfully creamy and fresh tasting. If you find double to triple cream Brie, so much the better.
Recent news from scientists in France brings a hard warning: Such soft, milky rind cheeses such as Brie, Camembert and even bleu may become, and I quote, “extinct.” Production of such cheeses depends on a specific range of fungi, which has been employed so heavily that it isn’t able to keep reproducing quickly enough to satisfy demand. Once that fungi is gone, so is the cheese.
According to the French National Center for Scientific Research, it’s the current strain of penicillium camemberti that is needed to make those cheeses, and it doesn’t reproduce naturally. Cheesemakers must clone the fungus, and they’ve been doing that long enough that errors occur in the genome as it is reproduced, much like making generations of photocopies, each from the last.
The fungus becomes harder to clone, harder to grow successfully and more prone to harm from its environment. The resultant cheese loses much in terms of flavor, fragrance, texture and color. What is developing is a collapse in the strain’s genetic diversity, which is a recipe for extinction.
Camembert is hugely popular in France and here as well. It is very soft and creamy, with a brown, buttery flavor. In France a bottle of red wine, a baguette and some Camembert is practically the national light meal.
There used to be several fungi strains that were used to make these cheeses. Each brought its own flavor and texture profile. About 100 years ago, cheesemakers settled on a single strain — penicillium camemberti — and used that exclusively as a sort of best standard for uniformity.
There are apparently still other strains that could be used to inoculate the milk to produce theses cheeses, but they would emerge as a different sort of product, with a different smell and taste than we have been accustomed to. We would simply have to adapt.
At any rate these cheeses will be around for a bit longer, but it is becoming harder and harder for makers to find enough spores to get the job done effectively. The warning from French scientists is just that, a warning of what the future may hold.
A lack of genetic diversity is a very serious thing in nature. When there is no new, diverse genetic material entering the gene pool, the whole machinery falls in on itself eventually, and organisms are no longer able to reproduce themselves, even with a little help from people trying to keep them going.
If you are a fan of bleu cheese, Camembert, Brie or Gorgonzola, get some while they’re still in good supply. All you need is some wine and bread and a good, creepy movie, and it’s time for dinner.