Cheeseheads

A definition from Wikipedia:
Cheesehead is a nickname in the United States for a person from Wisconsin^[1] or for a fan of the Green Bay Packers NFL football franchise.

A definition from  the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Yooper: a native or resident of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan —used as a nickname

As a proud Yooper who has backed The Pack for many years, the term cheesehead fits me.  I use it today for my post title though, not in the way it was defined above. I use it now instead to refer (fondly) to the members of my family who are fond of eating cheese. That's all of us. Oh, there are some of us who like practically any sort of cheese, even most of the smelly ones, and there are those of us who prefer a much more limited variety. The important part of being a cheesehead in our house is that you like the idea of cheese. And in that, we are definitely united.  

Recently, because of this common respect for the cheesiness of cheese, I suggested that we make some of our own.  Auckland's level three restrictions against Covid were on again during this time, and I thought that such an activity was a healthy way to spend some home time, to educate the younger members of our whanau, and to produce something good to eat. 

Allie bought us 3 liters of Jersey, unhomogenized, whole milk, and we did the rest.  I don't have a lot of photos of our efforts, but I have some of the high points of the process. One thing I think the boys learned was how easy it is to make a very pleasant, mild cheese. 

They actually did the making. I showed them a video before we started and gave input when needed, but they did all the measuring, stiring, pouring, mixing, and dipping. I cleaned up. 

Here then is the record of our first step into the wonderful world of caseiculture. 

 This is some rich milk.

 Ours was very simple cheese. We used milk and white vinegar. 

 The most time consuming part of the process was getting the milk up to heat.

That's Arram's hand on the vinegar and Amiri's on the stirer.

 The curds formed very quickly. It was fun to watch.

 We got an excellent yield.  

The teaspoon measure indicates we added one teaspoon of salt to the curds. (in hindsight, I wish we had added at least two.

There it is. Next, I lightly salted the outside of the cheese and wrapped it tightly in Saran Wrap before putting it into the fridge to cool and further solidify.  

An unquestionable success!  

Easy, fun to do, and mildly delicious

Whether you are a hard-core cheese foodie, a middle of the road cheese experimenter, or a novice cheesehead wannabe, I urge you to try making some of your own. Set aside an hour or two, watch one the dozens of videos on You Tube to reassure yourself, and have some fun.  You won't be sorry. It really does work.                  -djf 

Here is the video we watched:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utyzDUrd2Bw


(Do you know what?  They sell goat milk at the supermarket.)

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I hope that you enjoyed watching us make cheese. If you are at all interested in ruminating at greater length about cheese, continue reading. 

I found some quotes about cheese at https://www.goodreads.com/quotes.  

“He remembered his mother once telling him that there were more than three hundred types of cheese made in France. Soured had solemnly replied that one day he would go there and try every one.
There were worse reasons to choose a place to live”
― Alex George, The Paris Hours
(I remember the first time I tried Asiago. It was at a booth outside the Exhibition Building at the U. P. State Fair. I was impressed. l went back to that booth so often to grab more of the tooth-picked morsels, that I was sure that they'd put the tray away as soon as they saw me coming...djf)  


“Age is of no importance unless you’re a cheese.”
― Billie Burke
(All this talk about cheese has made me vow to visit our favorite French cheese shop when I can travel again...and buy some varieties we haven't yet tried...Especially some aged ones....djf)


And here is a quote (and a question) for the esoteric philosophers among you...I know it made me think...
“What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?”
― Bertolt Brecht


(Did you know that the holes in Swiss cheese are filled with carbon dioxide? Is that do you suppose, another reason to wring our hands about global warming? Did you know that there are over 450 varieties of Swiss cheese?  That 30,000 tons of it are made every year in Switzerland alone?  According to a speech I heard not long ago, we have only nine years to go before global warming is irreversable!  So every time you or I slice into another block of Gruyere or Emmentaler, we are hastening the end. This is a problem. Why isn't someone looking into substituting some other sort of gas in all those billions of holes? That's what I'd like to know. I wonder other things too. Like, I know the Swiss cheese bacteria give off carbon dioxide, but what do they breathe in, stuck way down inside that cheese like they are? And what about when you cut into a block of cheese. If you listened very carefully in a very quiet room, or had a really good microphone against it, could you hear the hiss of the gas escaping when you hit a hole? Does the pressure in the bubble of carbon dioxide in the cheese increase as the bubble gets bigger?  And what about a bubble of gas that forms close to the surface, could it explode if the pressure got too high? Could whole blocks of Swiss cheese explode if no one bought them for a really long time and the holes just kept getting bigger? Especially if they were left in the sun or in a hot warehouse somewhere?  I can imagine those big blocks going off as each hole bursts and sounding like poporn or fireworks. I know that I'm going to look very carefully at Swiss cheese chunks in the store from now on and if any of them are bulging, I'm not going to buy them.  If I do buy any, I'm going to ask for fresh Swiss cheese with only small holes. That way, maybe we'll get 10 years. And what about the workers in cheese stores who cut those blocks up into pieces all day long? Do they get light-headed from exposure to carbon dioxide? I wish I knew.  I was thinking about blue cheese too the other day...           -djf)