CHEESEMAKING
For many, the mild, slightly nutty flavor of Gruyère is the perfect addition to a steaming bowl of French onion soup or a ham sandwich, but for the medieval peasants who first created it, the flavor was secondary to matters of survival and location.
Gruyère resulted from the historic collision of food scarcity and a mountainous geography, yielding a distinct and rigorous cheese-making process.
In fact, all cheese types—there are now more than 1,400--initially arose due to the unique constraints forced by geography and the human effort to preserve the valuable commodity that is milk, says food scientist Paul Kindstedt, of the University of Vermont.
How cheese is made: Eight steps have made up the cheese making process for every cheese since they were first made, and those steps have three objectives: to expel water, to de-mineralize the casein with bacterial acids, and to add salt.
Step 1Setting: Bacteria (either already swimming around in the milk or added to it) and enzymes derived from the stomach linings of milk.
Step 2Cutting: The curd is “cut” into smaller particles—the smaller the particle, the less water it holds, thus more whey is expelled from the curd.
Step 3Cooking: The curd is heated and stirred, which expels more whey.
Step 4Draining: Draining separates more whey from the curd, depending on how dry the final cheese is supposed to be.
Step 5Knitting: This step overlaps with draining; as the whey drains away, the curd particles come into contact with each other and stick into a bigger mass.
Step 6Pressing: Weight is applied to the cheese to give it its final shape and to squeeze out more whey, depending on the type of cheese of course.
Step 7Salting:salt can be added by sprinkling or rubbing it on the cheese or by submerging the cheese in a salt brine; it continues to draw out whey.
Step 8Special applications: These can include applying specific environmental conditions such as humidity and temperature or physical manipulations like turning the cheese while it ages.
