January 12, 2018 • 40 mins
From elaborate cheddar heists to a Serbian donkey cheese scandal to the most sacred grilled cheese ever (#blessed), Will and Mango dive headlong into dairy to praise cheeses. Featuring Rotten’s Christine Haughney.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what mango? What's that? Well, now you're a Wallace
and Grammt fan, right, definitely, I love Wallas and Gramut.
Well I've got a fact. You may not know about them,
but did you know they actually helped save a cheese No,
how's that. It was in the early nineties and these
cheesemakers behind Wensleydale Cheeses, they were struggling and according to
the Yorkshire Post, things were so bad at the creamery
(00:20):
that the company was actually considering closing up shop. And
then this little phenomenon called Wallace and Grommt came along.
So for you listeners who don't know, and the animations
the crackpot inventor Wallace loves cheese and especially Wensleydale, and
the animators chose it because it sounds charming and British
and yeah, I've kind of made for a good punch line.
(00:41):
But it was just a coincidence. Actually, they were unaware
of the hardships the Little Cheese company was going through,
but the short films actually caused sales to jump by
twenty three and before long this little forgotten cheese was
getting imported in big numbers to the US, Canada and
Mango France and then just one of the stories we're
(01:01):
gonna tell you today about cheese. So let's dive in
(01:24):
a their podcast. Listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Man Guess and on the other side of the
soundproof glass tucking into the most lavish cheese straight imaginable,
that is our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now, for
today's show, we're giving cheese it's due by checking out
the science and history behind everyone's favorite golden curds. We're
(01:44):
gonna explore some fun origins, peek into what makes rotten
milk so delicious, and along the way, we'll also take
a look at the state of American cheese today. Yeah,
but before we get started, we wanted to give a
quick shout out to our researcher Gabe, who was under
the weather this week, but it did an amazing job
working through it to get us some facts and stories
for today's episode. So gave your real hero and a
(02:05):
traditional get well creative Stinky cheeses has headed your way. Man, Okabe,
you are such a hero. But anyway, all right, well
mego We've got a whole wide world of cheese is
to dive into. So so where do you want to start? Well,
I know we were talking before the show about how
cheese is this universally beloved food, Like kids go crazy
for mac and cheese. It's uh. I think it's pizza
(02:25):
rat's favorite type of pizza, and sophisticated adults eat it
for a course instead of dessert. But actually, speaking of
mac and cheese, you know, one of the things I
read this week was that Kraft mac and cheese is
actually more popular in Canada than anywhere else in the world.
Did you know this? So Food Republic had this article
about it and they cite that of the seven million
boxes sold around the globe every week, Canadians consume one
(02:49):
point seven million of those. That's incredible. Yeah, Canada eats
twice as much mac and cheese as we do here
in the States, and most people referred to it as
Kraft Dinners or just k D for short. I'm serious,
Kevin Durant isn't the default k D and Canada Craft
Dinners are. That's how big it is. You know, it's
even referred to as the national dish of Canada and
(03:10):
I had no idea about this before we were doing
our research this week. That's pretty funny. So I always
think of craft is such an American thing, and I
actually wanted to talk about craft cheese in a bit,
but before we do, did you realize that cheese is
actually the most shoplifted item in the entire world? You know,
I feel like it heard about that in Europe, but
but actually worldwide. I know. So I would have thought
(03:31):
it was candy or maybe c d s back when
c ds were a thing. But according to the Center
for Retailed Research, which is this British organization, cheese is
the most frequently stolen item in the entire world. And
this is nuts, but they claim that four percent of
the world's cheese supply winds up being shoplifted. Four percent. Actually,
I read in five thirty eight that the US produces
(03:52):
about a billion pounds of cheese every month, So that
seems like a lot of stolen cheese. So any idea
why it's such a tempting target. Well, I think it
mostly comes down to practical reasons, like it's pretty easy
to pocket some cheese if you need to. I that
might be easy, but I don't know. They want to
like stick some brie in my pockets or anything like that,
But you're right, it probably wouldn't look suspicious, I guess,
(04:14):
or just like pour some not to cheese down a
short pocket, you know. But you know, cheeses are generally
packaged in tiny serving so it's not like the majority
of shoplifters are trying to steal these giant wheels of
cheese or anything. But I think the real appeal is
the cheese itself. So for anyone who's hungry or desperate,
cheese is rich in vitamins and protein, and plus it
(04:36):
can keep for months at a time, and of course
it tastes delicious, right, But that isn't actually the only
type of cheese theft I read about. So I was
reading about this cheese crime earlier this summer at a
food competition in England, and there were these two enormous
blocks of cheddar that one first and second place at
the Yovil Show, which I guess is a big festival
in Summerset. But then after the judging, some cat burglars
(05:00):
snuck into the tent and made off with the big cheese.
And I mean that literally, so like according to an
article in the Daily Mail. Each cheese was about the
weight of a bag of cement and the size of
a traditional bulky TV sets. Oh my god, that is
some big cheese. Yeah, and apparently the crime was premeditated because,
like the authorities agreed, quote, the blocks are not the
(05:20):
sort of thing you can put in a handbag or
hide up your jumper. But but if the thieves can
get these stolen goods to like the U s or France,
they should actually be able to make a few thousand
dollars for their efforts on the black market or um,
you know, like just end up with a year's worth
of the best grilled cheese sandwiches ever. That sounds pretty
good to me. Yeah, so keep your eyes peeled for
(05:42):
its especially big cheddar blocks on even I guess well,
I definitely will. But let's talk a little bit more
broadly about cheese and how it's actually made. I don't
know if you saw this number, but did you realize
there over fourteen hundred different types of cheese out there?
So that allows for a variety and flavors and textures
and of course aromas that's really unparalleled by any other food. Yeah,
(06:05):
there's actually this overview of cheeses from the nineteen sixties
called the Cheese Book, and uh, it refers to cheese
as the wine of foods. And that's partially because the
fermentation makes it possible to have this like tremendous amount
of variants, even though cheeses are generally made from the
same ingredients. And I know you looked into some of
the early history of cheese. I definitely want to hear
(06:25):
about that. But before we get into that, can I
redo this one quote game found because it just made
me really happy? Sure, So what is it? So it's
by this American writer Clifton Fatiman, who used to write
for The New Yorker, and he wrote a cheese may disappoint,
it may be dull, it may be naive, it may
be oversophisticated, yet it remains cheese. Milks leap towards immortality.
(06:50):
Oh man, I've got goose bumps from that. Man said,
milks leap towards immortality. That's a big quote. I like that. Yeah,
I love it too. But let's talk about cheese's humble beginnings.
So when you find out in your research, al right,
so there are a lot of happy accidents in the
history of the world so of course the discovery of
penicillin falls into that category. So does the discovery of
corn flakes and the invention of the slinky, and then
(07:11):
of course there's cheese. I like the idea that, like
penicilla and corn flakes, the slinky and cheese can all
sort of hang out and have this one thing in common.
So I've read basically the same story in a few places,
but this is how Wired told it. The whole thing
began when a herdsman carrying a ruminate stomach brimming with
milk found that by journeys in he had a bag
full of curds and way. Now some stories claim this
(07:34):
guy was an Arabian merchant, but whatever the case, for
some reason he looked into this bag and it was
using it to transport this milk, and he wasn't put
off by the smell. And then he decided to stuff
that cheese in his mouth. I mean, I don't know
why he would do this, but it was either good
enough or interesting enough that he decided to do it again.
And you know, that's the most common theory. But in
(07:55):
terms of things we can point to the first real
evidence of cheesemaking that we have is from like seventy
years ago, and it was from an old pot in Poland,
and the researchers at the University of Bristol found a
vessel that looks like it was used to make cheeses.
Apparently the inners of the thing look very much like
a modern cheese trainer, and after analyzing the nooks and
(08:16):
the crevices of the thing that the scientists realized they
were right. They found fatty acids still stuck in the container,
which proved it had been used to separate the way
from the Kurds in order to make cheese. So I'm
always amazed by this sort of like historical detective work.
So I don't even understand, like, how do you know
to look for fatty acids because something kind of looks
(08:37):
like a cheese trainer. It's amazing. So do you know
anything about why are Polish forefathers, I mean your Polish
forefathers and my Polish forefathers father to make cheese? Like
it feels like such a laborious effort when you've already
got meat and milk at the ready. Well, if you
think about it, a lot of it comes down to convenience.
So then transporting you know, cheese is a lot easier
(08:58):
and its stores pretty well, and eating it meant you
could settle down and sustain yourself without having to kill
livestock for food. And the truth is the process hasn't
changed all that much in years. I mean, the basic
elements are still pretty much all the same. You let
fresh milk ferment with bacteria that can be wild or cultured,
and when there's enough facidity in your spoiled milk, you
(09:20):
had these enzymes to make it coagulate. So in that
Origin of Cheese story I was telling, these enzymes would
have come from the lining of the stomach bag that
was being used to transport this milk. And it's called rennet,
but it can be made in a lab now. And
then you cut, stir and heat the product to remove
the fluid or the way. And finally you take the curds,
you put them in the mold with salt and press
(09:41):
them to get out all that extra liquid, and then
you let it mature until it blooms into a delicious
cheese that everybody wants to shoplift, I guess. But yeah,
here's what's interesting. You remember those four hundred types of
cheese I mentioned earlier well. According to food scientists Paul
Kinstead at the University of Vermont, the reason there's so
many distinct types of cheese is because there are so
many pre industrial communities that all needed a way to
(10:04):
preserve milk, so they all figured out their own cheese recipes.
You know, these different solutions for making cheese given their
regions distinct climate or milk types or all sorts of
other conditions there. That's really fascinating. And you know, you
always hear that term tarawa associated with wine, like all
the elements of a region's terrain and these unquantifiable conditions
(10:25):
that give a wine it's unique flavor, and you can
see why that word gets applied to cheese as well.
Speaking of tarawa, I was reading this BBC article on
this cheese called baster Boten Soast. I'm obviously reading that
off my notes because there's no way I could remember that.
But this cheese is super famous in Sweden. It's like
this hard yellow cheese with tiny holes, and according to
(10:47):
the BBC article, it's served everywhere. It's sort of like
royal weddings, that the Nobel Prize dinner the at that
restaurant Noma it's like the most famous rest armor whatever,
and there's even been poetry written about it. I mean,
I feel like that's the ultimate compliment for cheese, is
when a poem gets written about it and the Prince
of Jordan claims it's what he loves about Sweden most.
(11:10):
But the craziest thing about this cheese isn't that it's
in such high demand, but that no one can replicate
the cheese and other regions, and not even the dairy
that produces it itself. So apparently some years ago they
tried to expand their operation to a nearby city, but
none of the cheese they made there came out the same.
Like they commissioned this elaborate research to figure out why
(11:32):
they did all these like big chemical analyzes on the cheese,
but their scientists just couldn't figure it out. And they're
all these theories, right, Like some people think there's this
distinct micro flora in the building and and boor cross
where the building where the cheese is aged and that
supposedly gives it a distinct layer of flavor. Or there
are these old spruce shelves and people think like that
(11:54):
the cheese is aged on that is contributing to the
flavor or um. Some people think the cows in the
usun get more sunlight and that affects their milk. Like
they're all these theories in fact, like like one of
the more far out ones is that, like there was
a meteorite that hit the lake in town, and people
think that affected the region's soil, So the soil is
what's contributing. Anyway, There are a lot of ideas, but
(12:15):
for whatever reason, no one's been able to replicate the
cheese's distinct flavor anywhere else. That really is fascinating. All right, well,
why don't we pick this up with the origin of
a cheese that's very replicable and that's American cheese. But
let's do that right after a break. Welcome back to
(12:44):
part time Genius. All right, Mango, before the break, I
think you said something about how poetry about cheese might
be the ultimate compliment you can give a cheese. I
really I'm going to have to disagree with you on this,
So I'm curious where you're going with this, because I
think the highest compliment might be when the Virgin Mary's
face shows up on the side of your grilled cheese sandwich.
You know, just to let you know you've got a
(13:04):
superior cheese on your hands. You know, I remember that
Jesus cheeto, like the one that looked like Jesus on
the cross, And I know there was a Jesus image
that someone found on a marmite lid in Australia, But
I don't really remember the grilled cheese Madonna you're talking about.
Oh man, the story was pretty incredible and I remember
it from the news as a kid. But it was
in this Florida woman made herself a grilled cheese. She
(13:28):
then cut it in half, took a bite, and then
stopped because she saw the Mother Mary staring back at
her right there in her toast. I mean, this must
have been an amazing experience. And then for some reason
she decided to box the thing that this half sandwich,
and and she put some cotton balls around it, and
she kept it on her nightstand as a good luck charm.
And she claims the blessed grilled cheese helped her win
(13:50):
seventy thousand dollars in a casino, among other things. And
in that time it never actually sprouted mold, and that
just increased her faith. And it's hours you know. But
then in two thousand four, she decided to sell it
on eBay, and the auction side initially took the listing
down because I thought it was a hoax, but then
they allowed it to go back up, and the Miracle
(14:12):
on Toast sold for twenty eight thousand dollars to Golden
Palace dot Com, which is this online casino. So between
her like seventy thousand and winning and this twenty thousand
from this other casino, she basically, like milt a hundred
thousand dollars out of casinos. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah,
So was it really a ten year old sandwich? Like,
(14:33):
how come I didn't have any mold on it? Well,
Brendan Corner at Slate actually did this analysis on and
talked about all the factors that could have been contributing
to this. So the wonder bread would have had plenty
of preservatives. I know, you might like wonder bread, but
you might not be surprised to know there are a
few preservatives in there. And the margine that was slathered
on it would also protect the bread with its trans fats.
And you know, the cook cheese itself could have changed
(14:55):
the pH which would have slowed the molds growth as well.
But that said, Corner did think it was pretty special
that there was no mold at all on this sandwich.
I mean that that is unbelievable. But there's a bigger
shock to this mego, and that was that a copycat
sandwich with Hello Kitty's face, and you think that'd be
a big deal. It only had a high bit on
it of eighties cents, So sad well, I like that.
(15:17):
No one saying top dollar for a miracle kitty sandwich. Actually, also,
just for the record, when she sold the grilled cheese,
the Florida woman insisted that whoever the next buyer was
not devour the Mother Mary sandwich, and the casino not
surprisingly agreed to this. I mean, it's a ten year
old sandwich. But speaking of special cheeses, I know you
looked into the history of American cheese, so why don't
(15:39):
you take a minute just to give us a quick
rundown of it. So America rallied around making cheddar pretty early,
and Cheddar was this incredibly hearty cheese. It weathered the
temperatures and humidity really well on like some of the
other European cheeses. But it still tasted great, and by
the seventeen nineties, the US was exporting cheese to England
as quote Yankee cheese. It was also called American cheese
(16:02):
back then too, and the upper classes in England looked
down on this stuff, partially because it came from America,
but also because they didn't think it stood up to
the traditional English cheddars. And the quality really varied from
cheese to cheese. But it's sold to the lower classes
in England because it's so cheap, and America sort of
rallied around this cheddar cheese. So I don't know if
(16:22):
you've gone to Upstate New York. Is my mother in
law's from Upstate New York. But um, they're all these
stores there that sells store cheese in the windows. Yeah,
and I I never heard that term before. But the
first time I saw it, I was so confused, like,
what's store cheese? But that's just the term for local cheddar.
And it's almost like a house wine. But Upstate New
(16:43):
York's love affair with cheese really took off in the
eighteen fifties and eighteen fifty one in particular. That's when
this gentleman named Jesse Williams started a cheese revolution by
starting the first big cheese factory in upstate New York.
Like his son wasn't a very good cheesemaker, apparently, and
he decided to help him out by buying look from
the surrounding areas, and together they made this more consistently
(17:03):
quality cheese. And according to David Clark, who was our
you might remember who was our cheese historian at Mental Floss,
the factories just took off in the region from there,
and by the eighteen seventies, the US was sending over
three hundred million pounds of cheese back to England every year.
So Cheddar sort of became the default cheese. That's really interesting,
(17:24):
and I like that we claim we had a cheese
historian at Mental Flaws. That's pretty great. He was awesome, though.
So I do want to touch on things like Monterey
Jack and other American cheeses, But how do we get
from Cheddar to craft singles? Like? Is there actually a
thread there? Yeah? Definitely. So one of the things I
was stunned by was how early James Kraft was in
(17:44):
the business. And actually Canada kind of comes to their
love of craft honestly because he was a Canadian who
moved to the States and saw this opportunity in whole
selling cheese. I guess he was trying to figure out
how to reduce waste, because at first he was just
trying to cram cheese into jars and then into cans apparently,
(18:04):
which just seems so gross. But then in uh in
nineteen sixteen, he stumbled into this genius idea and here
I'm quoting Clark again. By shredding refuse cheese, repasteurizing it,
and mixing in some sodium phosphate, Kraft produced the strange
wonder we now know as American processed cheese, and apparently
(18:25):
it was this huge success from the start, right, Like
Kraft was this true American salesman. He marketed his cheese,
which was obviously made from scrap cheese, as this superior
product because it was more consistent. And by the nineteen thirties,
over the cheese consumed in America was craft, which is crazy, right,
So naturally this processed cheese had this much longer shelf
(18:48):
life than anything that was natural, and when he got
into supplying cheese for the troops, his business really took off.
Of course, later cheese manufacturer's lobby to have Crafts product
called a cheese product instead of a natural cheese. Yeah,
that's right, because you know, anything with less than I
think it's fifty one cheese and it can't legally be
called cheese, which which to me seems pretty fair if
(19:10):
it's less than that. But you know, whatever, I hear
the phrase cheese product, I always think of cheese whiz
and how you told me that story about when the
inventor of cheese was tried a jar of it. Decades later,
he actually called up the hotline for the company because
it tasted so terrible. Yeah, they changed the formula to
not use any cheese, and he called up the hotline
(19:31):
to tell him it tasted like axle grease, like his
exact words. But back to the graft single. So that
was James's brother, Norman's invention. Norman Craft and he knew
that sliced cheese from the store was pretty inconsistent, like
it came in all sorts of sizes and thickness. So
in he started playing with ways to make a more
convenient cheese and this was going to be a godsend
(19:53):
to people, but it actually took him fifteen years to
do it, but the way he did is kind of cool,
Like he had these ribbons of cheese like hot cheese
that would get poured and then cut by a machine
and packaged in a block of eight peelable slices. It
was a huge improvement, and the press actually raved about it.
They called him Mom Deluxe Process slices. And according to
the New York Times, cheese slices used to curl and
(20:16):
dry out and this solved those problems. So sales of
Craft just skyrocketed after the innovation, all thanks to Norman.
That just sounds like the name of the guy that
should have invented Craft cheese, or should have invented this
process cheese. But so so when did they actually start
coming individually wrapped? Yeah, so I looked at that too,
and that wasn't until nine when this other inventor, I
(20:37):
think he's in Indiana. He wasn't working for Craft, but
he solved the problem of these sliced cheese blocks sticking together,
and Craft saw the genius of the idea and came
up with their own tweak on the process. So Bonap
did this article glorifying the Craft single and as they
put it, quote American cheese is the greatest cheese known
to man, even if it really isn't cheese at all.
(20:58):
Oh ouch. So, actually, we always had craft singles in
my house growing up, and partially it was because we
use them for grilled cheese, like they were there for
me and my sister to toast our own as a snack,
but increasingly we only kept them in the house around
for my dog. Your dog, Yeah, she was like really
(21:18):
greedy and she'd fly out the door and just stay
a little out of range, and as a pup, we'd
like chase her around until we caught her, Like our
whole family would be out there trying to tackle her
because she so widely. But then I think my mom
realized that she loved American cheese. So as my dog
ruled her, you'd call my dog's name and she just
kind of ignore you. But then when you yelled the
(21:40):
word cheese and then you prove it. But with the
sounds like the plastic just peeling off that craft single,
then she'd suddenly come bounding back. I like that she
needed the two pieces of proof there. That's pretty crazy. Well,
like all my neighbors knew it, like they knew when
we had like waving this craft single. They're like, what
was going on? That's pretty great. Well, craft obviously has
(22:01):
a big part in American nostalgia, and you know, there's
been this huge swing back from manufactured foods to the
super artisanal stuff. And there was an article in Scientific
American last year that said there are over four hundred
craft cheesemakers in the US now, which is I think
it's like double what it was just fifteen sixteen years ago. Yeah,
and I'm sure it's a similar trend for like reason
(22:22):
artisanal pickle makers or whatever, pickle makers. Yeah. But what
struck me about the Scientific American article was that it
made this interesting point about how the American tarawa versus
the European concept of it. And let me quote this
article by the writer Leila Epplett. She says other European
counterparts have an invention of tradition. Americans have what cultural
(22:44):
anthropologists than m I T. Professor Heather Packson calls a
tradition of invention. You see, I flipped that thing. There's
a little different, but it emphasizes this innovation and prioritizes
change over continuity. So in France, the flavor of terrain
described how the region and the people and the cultural
tradition were all involved, and also like the technique, they
(23:06):
all contribute to the taste of the cheese. But in
the United States, tear wise given this kind of more
of an entrepreneurial and maybe an individualist twist, and and
that helps to designate the taste of a particular farm
and its products rather than you know, sort of that
the taste of the cultural or the geographic region that
you might see from the European cheeses. And that's actually
(23:26):
pretty interesting, uh, And I guess it makes sense because
the US always has like this more individual spin on things,
and it makes sense for cheese as well. But I
actually remember reading this article in an anthropology class in
college about baseball and how unusual it is in sports
for one person to face off against an entire team
and you know that that's what every batter does one
(23:47):
by one, right, but also how that's part of what
makes it such an American game, like this mythic belief
in the individual. And I don't know if it's a
great argument, but I actually never thought about it that way.
But we should probably do another episode on cheese at
some point, because there's so much we won't get to
cover in this episode. And because as I've said many times,
(24:08):
I could live on cheese. I love cheese so much.
But I do want to cover some cheese super relatives
because I love cheese so much. So how about we
tackle that after a quick break. That's great, Okay, man,
go today. We've got Christine Haney on the line now.
(24:29):
Christine is an old friend of ours from her previous
life at the New York Times. She's a wonderful reporter
and she's got a terrific news show on Netflix called
Rot and it's all about food crimes. Welcome to the program, Christine.
Thank you, it's great to be here. So tell us
you're doing this show for Anthony Bourdain's production company, and
it looks really beautiful. So I have to ask, why
(24:50):
did you choose to focus on food crimes? When I
was at the Times, they had a conversation with some
of the heads of Zero Points Are Productions, and one
thing I found was that it was on maternity leave
and I was watching bourdain show and just thought, as
you said, it was a beautiful program, and I thought, like,
why am I watching this? I haven't slept in months,
(25:11):
there's something here really compelling, And so it actually just
grew out of a conversation with VPD about the fact
that I had covered a lot of crime. I've sent
you people to prison with my reporting and how that
intersects with food. And they've done a lot of wonderful
food shows like Mind of a Chef, Parts Unknown, and
they've also done some crime shows like The Hunt with
(25:34):
John Walsh, and I just said, why don't you marry
the two? So they hired me to start looking into
this area. And then when you start looking into food
crimes and what has now become rotten, you see that
food fraud is just so rich with stories. And sorry
to say, but if you're a criminal, this is the
place to go. Anyone, any you know, job leads here.
(25:56):
But because it's incredibly underregulated and you can make a
lot of money, you can commit a lot of crime
and you won't serve as much time. Well, I love
that you're giving criminals advice on our show, and we
in that sky with criminals, so that's great. But I
just watched the show on Garlic and it really is
(26:18):
beautifully shy. It's fascinating, and and it was called Garlic breath,
which I was just lighted by. But one of the
things I thought was just so crazy was that you've
got those clips of how garlic wasn't super popular before
I think it's the sixties or seventies, and then they're
all these commercials trying to introduce it to the public.
Like that footage was hilarious and and obviously the documentary
(26:39):
is super serious, but how did you learn that story?
We talked about how did you grow up with as
much garlic? And then it really got into these free
ranging conversations with my colleagues and CPZ about when you
start eating more garlic? Were you influenced by Um Emerald?
I mean, I remember watching Emeral logos when I was
a federal courts reporter in Alabama covering death row cases,
(27:02):
and he was just comfort So I always think of
him with him saying like Garla, garlic, garlic, and so um.
That's where we kind of picked up on that history
of how it's really taken off and it's integrated into
everything that we eat now. But then it's married to
this crazy crime that a lot of garlic in the
US comes by way of Chinese prisons. I mean, that's
(27:22):
just astounding to me, and can you tell us a
little bit about how you discovered that story and how
you managed to get that footage. So basically, I carried
the sixty seven page lawsuit everywhere I went and just
kept reading it over and over. And you see in
the episode there are all these people who have been
sued in a rico case, like a racketeering case against
(27:43):
this garlic company out in California, Harmony, which has offices
in China and California. And I just really started digging
in and reaching out to the different players who had
been sued Um, and one of them was this wonderful
and then they makes use you who is from China,
grew up in the Shandong province, came to New York
(28:06):
to be a professor, lost his professorship after UM funding
went away. Um during made off and then Um went
back into the garlic business and realized when he was
home in a family vacation that the local housewives were
complaining to him about how his their work had been
(28:26):
taken there like at home work had been taken by
where they used to peel garlic was now being done
by all the local prisons. So his son, he's this
great tech guy who went to Columbia, helped him by
a undercover camera, and he snuck into the prisons, presented
himself as like an American businessman now and got us
this incredible footage. And it is extraordinary also because his
(28:50):
son knows like gadgets so well that the quality of
the footage we have from inside of prison is his
I think extraordinary. Yeah, it really is. I'm a little
bit concerned about about maybe we're not working hard enough
because we haven't sent anyone to prison with our work
on Part Time Genius, and we haven't had to sneak
anyone out of China. We really got to step up
our game here. But we are talking about cheese, which
(29:15):
is awesome today, and so we we've talked about some
funny cheese stuffs in this episode. But Christine, I'm curious,
are there any cheese related scandals or just weird facts
that you're obsessed with. First, one thing everyone should know
is that the way cheese is regulated is if you
buy a pepperoni pizza, if the pepperoni makes you sick,
that's regulated by the U. S d A. If the
(29:36):
cheese makes you sick, it's regulated by the FDA. Well,
I love that every bite of a slice of pepperoni
pizza is like a delicious taste of bureaucracy. It is
absolutely yes. So, Christine, my favorite thing about you as
a reporter is when you find whimsical stories. And and
I know I've talked to you about your Bird Talk
(29:58):
magazine story the at Food, which I loved so much,
and and you found royalty and taxi cab drivers, and
you just find great stories. But is there anything delightful
going on in food or agriculture right now that you're
kind of fascinated by. I am still three years in
really enjoying writing about food and agriculture, and I think
(30:18):
the characters are wonderful. I've been spending a lot of
time talking to this wonderful turkey farmer who won't eat
turkey to be so close to with turkeys, so we
eat pork on Thanksgiving and um, and I basically I'm
talking to farmers at all hours now, so it's I'm
getting very attuned to like the habits of livestock and
(30:41):
how turkeys can be very sensitive. And it's just like
a very entertaining and fun beats that's really wonderful. Well,
I hope all of our listeners will check out Rotten
on Netflix right now. Christine Honey, thanks so much for
being on Part Time Genius. Thank you. It's great chatting
with you. Okay, so before we get off American Cheese
(31:12):
is I do want to tell one last story, and
that's the Jack and Monterey Jack. So there's actually a
real jack behind that shoes. Yeah, it was this this scott.
His name was David Jack, and he came to the
US in the eighteen forties. He was a contractor and
he wasn't exactly like the laid back California dude, and
he made a lot of money and started owning land
(31:33):
and was supposedly this ruthless landlord, but he ended up
with shares in a number of local dairy farms. Now,
the truth is that Franciscan friars in the Monterey area
had been making this distinctive cheese in the region for
quite a while. But since he already had the milk,
David Jack decided to co opt the friar's recipe and
get into the cheese business for himself. Initially, he called
(31:56):
the product Jack's Cheese, but then he rebranded it Monterey Jack.
So I mean, that's pretty cool that like monks have
given us chantagne and cheese and and they get a
little credit for it. Yeah, don't forget genetics, maga. I
meant Mindel and his pea plants and all that. You're
right though, they don't get credit. So, uh well, why
don't we do a few superlatives before we get to
the fact off, what would you have on your side?
(32:19):
All right? Well, how about the best cheese for when
you want to spoil yourself? And I'm gonna go with
with Puel for this, And it's that crumbly cheese from Serbia.
It's actually donkey cheese. Do you remember when there are
all those rumors that Djokovic, after going on that insane
windstreak in tennis, decided to buy up all the donkey
(32:39):
cheese in Serbia. It was so absurd and it was
in the headlines for like a long time. I mean,
you got a dream big when you're somebody like that.
And maybe it's a smart business strategy to corner that market.
Because Puel sells for five hundred and seventy six dollars
a pound. That's insane. So what makes it so expensive? Well,
apparently it takes about twenty five leaders just to make
(33:01):
a single kilogram of donkey cheese. Donkey cheese feels like
it should be a phrase, like the synonym for going bananas.
Like one second, Hector and I were having a normal
conversation and then he went all donkey cheese on me.
I like that, who's Hector? Mango? I know, Hector don't
want to I'm not sure this phrase is going to
(33:21):
take off, but all right, what cheese would you like
to honor? Actually, before I go, I read about this
moose cheese from Sweden that sells for over four dollars
a pound, and I think the idea is similar to
your donkey cheese, except that I think moose might be
more temperamental, Like if a moose senses any sort of disturbance,
(33:42):
it'll go dry for a while. So milky one has
to be done super patiently and in total silence. And
even then it's not like you're walking away with like
a bucket of moose milk. The return for those two
hours of quiet is pretty sparse. But I think the
cheese is supposed to be like extraordinary. That is pretty interesting.
But I feel like you're stalling, Mango. I mean, you
(34:04):
haven't given me your cheese award yet. I know, because
I'm not really prepared for this. Uh, let me look
through my notes. So, um, I don't want to say
something about costume Marza, which is that illegal magot cheese,
because it's too gross. How about the cheese worth losing
your head over? And that would be brie. So, according
to the story, Louis the sixteenth was fleeing from revolutionaries
(34:25):
in France, but along the way, the monarch decided to
take a pit stop at a tavern because his tom
tom was growling. And when he was apprehended before being
taken to the guillotine, mind you, he was caught with
this giant plate of brie in front of him, and
he was just enjoying the cheese in a very leisurely manner,
which is ridiculous. But I actually find it a little Shakespearean. Wait,
(34:49):
first of all, did you say tom tom? I just
wanted to be clear on that. I think that you did.
But so, so, why why is this? Why is this Shakespearean? Uh?
Because it's like a big question for her monarch right
to breathe or not to breathe? Oh gosh, I didn't
think it could get worse than Tom. Tom, you really
did say that, And now you've said to bree or
(35:10):
not to breathe. But all right, well, why don't we
pretend neither of those things happened, and let's just get
straight into the fact. Off. All right, here's one for you.
Did you know that, before lawmakers settled on the term
process cheese, cheesemakers were lobbying to classify craft cheeses as
embalmed cheese. Do you know what Richard Nixon's last meal
(35:35):
as president was? What's that? So? He had a pineapple slices,
a glass of milk, and a bowl of cottage cheese.
There's a photo of it online and it's actually so sad.
But apparently cottage cheese was one of Nixon's favorite snacks,
and he especially liked to eat it with ketchup. Oh.
I actually am a fan of cottage cheese, but I
(35:56):
don't understand. Actually I like all of those things, but
I don't understand that combat nation. If you've ever eaten
pineapple and had anything with dairy in it, you know
along with it, it is disgusting. That is so strange.
Nixon was a strange man. Well, according to the site
Addie McDonald's used the clever trick to cut costs back
in two thousand and eight. They pulled one of the
two slices of cheese from their double cheeseburger and renamed
(36:20):
it the Mick Double. The move saved six cents per
sandwich and fifteen thousand dollars a year per restaurant. Wow,
that's gonna add up. Do you know that the phrase
the big cheese actually comes from Hindi like cheese and
Hindi and or do actually means thing and the British
picked up on it when they colonized India. The real
cheese meant something that was top notch or like the
(36:41):
real thing, and a big cheese evolved into this like
important person. Not everyone loved the term, though, so Wired
reports that by people were using the word cheesy with
sarcasm and using it to describe something negative, like I
didn't realize that was that old? Yeah I didn't either.
All right, Well you I have talked about the giant
wheel of cheese Andrew Jackson received during his presidency, but
(37:04):
apparently big wheels used to be a common present in America.
When Thomas Jefferson was elected, he received the Mammoth of Cheshire.
It was this twelve hundred pound wheel of cheese and
it was rolled through towns from Massachusetts, you know, like
much fanfare along the way, and of course some ridiculed
along the way as well. The cheese even had a
Jefferson quote on the rind. It said, rebellion to tyrants
(37:26):
is obedience to God. And you know that this wasn't
just in America, like a big wheel of cheese was
a great way to show someone you cared in England too.
When Queen Victoria got married, her subjects pooled the milk
of seven fifty cows to create a thousand pound wheel,
and the townspeople were so impressed with their feet that
they asked if they could put it on display and
delay giving the present to her, which he agreed to.
(37:49):
But when the exhibition was over and they tried to
wheel the cheese back her way, the queen declined to
give it a home. All right, what did you know
that Philadelphia Cream Cheese isn't actually named for Philly, but
actually for the ont of Philadelphia, New York. It kind
of ruins because I was just pictured Ben Franklin. They're
smearing his toast within the mornings. I know, I always
had such pride, like I lived near Philly, I thought
(38:10):
it was from Philly. Um. This is a great one.
In the eighteen sixties when Brazil was fighting the sea
battle against Uruguay, Uruguayan ship ran out of ammunition, so
they used cannonballs made out of stale eat um cheese
that they had on board. But the weirdest part is
that it actually worked and they won the sea battle. Ah,
(38:31):
that is a great story. But actually I've got one
I've been saving that. I really think it's gonna be
hard to top. So have you heard about the origin
of the Packers cheese head hats? So it goes back
to this guy named Ralph Bruno, and he was reappulstering
his mom's couch when he realized he had an extra cushion.
So he decided to get playful with it, and he
burned some holes into it and painted it yellow. Now,
(38:52):
his mom banished him from the house because it smelled
so bad, but he wore it to a Brewers game
later that night, and somehow the ease head took off
across Wisconsin sports. That's where it all began. I love that,
and I also love that like, burnt cheese smells bad,
but burnt cheese hats also smell bad. Yeah, well, I
mean I like that you found the guy behind the
(39:14):
American cheese trends, So I'm gonna give it to you.
Thanks so much. I feel like I needed this one.
This is this is a good one. Well, thank you
guys all for listening. Now, if we've forgotten any facts
about cheese that you feel like we need to know,
feel free to email us part Time Genius at how
stuff Works dot com. You can also call us on
our seven fact hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius,
(39:36):
or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so
much for listening, Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius
is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be
(39:57):
possible without several brilliant people who do the important things
we couldn't even begin to understand. Noel Brown made the
theme song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing gave.
Louesier is our lead researcher, with support from the research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown, and Lucas Adams. If
(40:18):
you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, and
if you really really like what you've heard, maybe you
could leave a good review for US. Jason who
Guess what mango? What's that? Well, now you're a Wallace
and Grammt fan, right, definitely, I love Wallas and Gramut.
Well I've got a fact. You may not know about them,
but did you know they actually helped save a cheese No,
how's that. It was in the early nineties and these
cheesemakers behind Wensleydale Cheeses, they were struggling and according to
the Yorkshire Post, things were so bad at the creamery
(00:20):
that the company was actually considering closing up shop. And
then this little phenomenon called Wallace and Grommt came along.
So for you listeners who don't know, and the animations
the crackpot inventor Wallace loves cheese and especially Wensleydale, and
the animators chose it because it sounds charming and British
and yeah, I've kind of made for a good punch line.
(00:41):
But it was just a coincidence. Actually, they were unaware
of the hardships the Little Cheese company was going through,
but the short films actually caused sales to jump by
twenty three and before long this little forgotten cheese was
getting imported in big numbers to the US, Canada and
Mango France and then just one of the stories we're
(01:01):
gonna tell you today about cheese. So let's dive in
(01:24):
a their podcast. Listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Man Guess and on the other side of the
soundproof glass tucking into the most lavish cheese straight imaginable,
that is our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now, for
today's show, we're giving cheese it's due by checking out
the science and history behind everyone's favorite golden curds. We're
(01:44):
gonna explore some fun origins, peek into what makes rotten
milk so delicious, and along the way, we'll also take
a look at the state of American cheese today. Yeah,
but before we get started, we wanted to give a
quick shout out to our researcher Gabe, who was under
the weather this week, but it did an amazing job
working through it to get us some facts and stories
for today's episode. So gave your real hero and a
(02:05):
traditional get well creative Stinky cheeses has headed your way. Man, Okabe,
you are such a hero. But anyway, all right, well
mego We've got a whole wide world of cheese is
to dive into. So so where do you want to start? Well,
I know we were talking before the show about how
cheese is this universally beloved food, Like kids go crazy
for mac and cheese. It's uh. I think it's pizza
(02:25):
rat's favorite type of pizza, and sophisticated adults eat it
for a course instead of dessert. But actually, speaking of
mac and cheese, you know, one of the things I
read this week was that Kraft mac and cheese is
actually more popular in Canada than anywhere else in the world.
Did you know this? So Food Republic had this article
about it and they cite that of the seven million
boxes sold around the globe every week, Canadians consume one
(02:49):
point seven million of those. That's incredible. Yeah, Canada eats
twice as much mac and cheese as we do here
in the States, and most people referred to it as
Kraft Dinners or just k D for short. I'm serious,
Kevin Durant isn't the default k D and Canada Craft
Dinners are. That's how big it is. You know, it's
even referred to as the national dish of Canada and
(03:10):
I had no idea about this before we were doing
our research this week. That's pretty funny. So I always
think of craft is such an American thing, and I
actually wanted to talk about craft cheese in a bit,
but before we do, did you realize that cheese is
actually the most shoplifted item in the entire world? You know,
I feel like it heard about that in Europe, but
but actually worldwide. I know. So I would have thought
(03:31):
it was candy or maybe c d s back when
c ds were a thing. But according to the Center
for Retailed Research, which is this British organization, cheese is
the most frequently stolen item in the entire world. And
this is nuts, but they claim that four percent of
the world's cheese supply winds up being shoplifted. Four percent. Actually,
I read in five thirty eight that the US produces
(03:52):
about a billion pounds of cheese every month, So that
seems like a lot of stolen cheese. So any idea
why it's such a tempting target. Well, I think it
mostly comes down to practical reasons, like it's pretty easy
to pocket some cheese if you need to. I that
might be easy, but I don't know. They want to
like stick some brie in my pockets or anything like that,
But you're right, it probably wouldn't look suspicious, I guess,
(04:14):
or just like pour some not to cheese down a
short pocket, you know. But you know, cheeses are generally
packaged in tiny serving so it's not like the majority
of shoplifters are trying to steal these giant wheels of
cheese or anything. But I think the real appeal is
the cheese itself. So for anyone who's hungry or desperate,
cheese is rich in vitamins and protein, and plus it
(04:36):
can keep for months at a time, and of course
it tastes delicious, right, But that isn't actually the only
type of cheese theft I read about. So I was
reading about this cheese crime earlier this summer at a
food competition in England, and there were these two enormous
blocks of cheddar that one first and second place at
the Yovil Show, which I guess is a big festival
in Summerset. But then after the judging, some cat burglars
(05:00):
snuck into the tent and made off with the big cheese.
And I mean that literally, so like according to an
article in the Daily Mail. Each cheese was about the
weight of a bag of cement and the size of
a traditional bulky TV sets. Oh my god, that is
some big cheese. Yeah, and apparently the crime was premeditated because,
like the authorities agreed, quote, the blocks are not the
(05:20):
sort of thing you can put in a handbag or
hide up your jumper. But but if the thieves can
get these stolen goods to like the U s or France,
they should actually be able to make a few thousand
dollars for their efforts on the black market or um,
you know, like just end up with a year's worth
of the best grilled cheese sandwiches ever. That sounds pretty
good to me. Yeah, so keep your eyes peeled for
(05:42):
its especially big cheddar blocks on even I guess well,
I definitely will. But let's talk a little bit more
broadly about cheese and how it's actually made. I don't
know if you saw this number, but did you realize
there over fourteen hundred different types of cheese out there?
So that allows for a variety and flavors and textures
and of course aromas that's really unparalleled by any other food. Yeah,
(06:05):
there's actually this overview of cheeses from the nineteen sixties
called the Cheese Book, and uh, it refers to cheese
as the wine of foods. And that's partially because the
fermentation makes it possible to have this like tremendous amount
of variants, even though cheeses are generally made from the
same ingredients. And I know you looked into some of
the early history of cheese. I definitely want to hear
(06:25):
about that. But before we get into that, can I
redo this one quote game found because it just made
me really happy? Sure, So what is it? So it's
by this American writer Clifton Fatiman, who used to write
for The New Yorker, and he wrote a cheese may disappoint,
it may be dull, it may be naive, it may
be oversophisticated, yet it remains cheese. Milks leap towards immortality.
(06:50):
Oh man, I've got goose bumps from that. Man said,
milks leap towards immortality. That's a big quote. I like that. Yeah,
I love it too. But let's talk about cheese's humble beginnings.
So when you find out in your research, al right,
so there are a lot of happy accidents in the
history of the world so of course the discovery of
penicillin falls into that category. So does the discovery of
corn flakes and the invention of the slinky, and then
(07:11):
of course there's cheese. I like the idea that, like
penicilla and corn flakes, the slinky and cheese can all
sort of hang out and have this one thing in common.
So I've read basically the same story in a few places,
but this is how Wired told it. The whole thing
began when a herdsman carrying a ruminate stomach brimming with
milk found that by journeys in he had a bag
full of curds and way. Now some stories claim this
(07:34):
guy was an Arabian merchant, but whatever the case, for
some reason he looked into this bag and it was
using it to transport this milk, and he wasn't put
off by the smell. And then he decided to stuff
that cheese in his mouth. I mean, I don't know
why he would do this, but it was either good
enough or interesting enough that he decided to do it again.
And you know, that's the most common theory. But in
(07:55):
terms of things we can point to the first real
evidence of cheesemaking that we have is from like seventy
years ago, and it was from an old pot in Poland,
and the researchers at the University of Bristol found a
vessel that looks like it was used to make cheeses.
Apparently the inners of the thing look very much like
a modern cheese trainer, and after analyzing the nooks and
(08:16):
the crevices of the thing that the scientists realized they
were right. They found fatty acids still stuck in the container,
which proved it had been used to separate the way
from the Kurds in order to make cheese. So I'm
always amazed by this sort of like historical detective work.
So I don't even understand, like, how do you know
to look for fatty acids because something kind of looks
(08:37):
like a cheese trainer. It's amazing. So do you know
anything about why are Polish forefathers, I mean your Polish
forefathers and my Polish forefathers father to make cheese? Like
it feels like such a laborious effort when you've already
got meat and milk at the ready. Well, if you
think about it, a lot of it comes down to convenience.
So then transporting you know, cheese is a lot easier
(08:58):
and its stores pretty well, and eating it meant you
could settle down and sustain yourself without having to kill
livestock for food. And the truth is the process hasn't
changed all that much in years. I mean, the basic
elements are still pretty much all the same. You let
fresh milk ferment with bacteria that can be wild or cultured,
and when there's enough facidity in your spoiled milk, you
(09:20):
had these enzymes to make it coagulate. So in that
Origin of Cheese story I was telling, these enzymes would
have come from the lining of the stomach bag that
was being used to transport this milk. And it's called rennet,
but it can be made in a lab now. And
then you cut, stir and heat the product to remove
the fluid or the way. And finally you take the curds,
you put them in the mold with salt and press
(09:41):
them to get out all that extra liquid, and then
you let it mature until it blooms into a delicious
cheese that everybody wants to shoplift, I guess. But yeah,
here's what's interesting. You remember those four hundred types of
cheese I mentioned earlier well. According to food scientists Paul
Kinstead at the University of Vermont, the reason there's so
many distinct types of cheese is because there are so
many pre industrial communities that all needed a way to
(10:04):
preserve milk, so they all figured out their own cheese recipes.
You know, these different solutions for making cheese given their
regions distinct climate or milk types or all sorts of
other conditions there. That's really fascinating. And you know, you
always hear that term tarawa associated with wine, like all
the elements of a region's terrain and these unquantifiable conditions
(10:25):
that give a wine it's unique flavor, and you can
see why that word gets applied to cheese as well.
Speaking of tarawa, I was reading this BBC article on
this cheese called baster Boten Soast. I'm obviously reading that
off my notes because there's no way I could remember that.
But this cheese is super famous in Sweden. It's like
this hard yellow cheese with tiny holes, and according to
(10:47):
the BBC article, it's served everywhere. It's sort of like
royal weddings, that the Nobel Prize dinner the at that
restaurant Noma it's like the most famous rest armor whatever,
and there's even been poetry written about it. I mean,
I feel like that's the ultimate compliment for cheese, is
when a poem gets written about it and the Prince
of Jordan claims it's what he loves about Sweden most.
(11:10):
But the craziest thing about this cheese isn't that it's
in such high demand, but that no one can replicate
the cheese and other regions, and not even the dairy
that produces it itself. So apparently some years ago they
tried to expand their operation to a nearby city, but
none of the cheese they made there came out the same.
Like they commissioned this elaborate research to figure out why
(11:32):
they did all these like big chemical analyzes on the cheese,
but their scientists just couldn't figure it out. And they're
all these theories, right, Like some people think there's this
distinct micro flora in the building and and boor cross
where the building where the cheese is aged and that
supposedly gives it a distinct layer of flavor. Or there
are these old spruce shelves and people think like that
(11:54):
the cheese is aged on that is contributing to the
flavor or um. Some people think the cows in the
usun get more sunlight and that affects their milk. Like
they're all these theories in fact, like like one of
the more far out ones is that, like there was
a meteorite that hit the lake in town, and people
think that affected the region's soil, So the soil is
what's contributing. Anyway, There are a lot of ideas, but
(12:15):
for whatever reason, no one's been able to replicate the
cheese's distinct flavor anywhere else. That really is fascinating. All right, well,
why don't we pick this up with the origin of
a cheese that's very replicable and that's American cheese. But
let's do that right after a break. Welcome back to
(12:44):
part time Genius. All right, Mango, before the break, I
think you said something about how poetry about cheese might
be the ultimate compliment you can give a cheese. I
really I'm going to have to disagree with you on this,
So I'm curious where you're going with this, because I
think the highest compliment might be when the Virgin Mary's
face shows up on the side of your grilled cheese sandwich.
You know, just to let you know you've got a
(13:04):
superior cheese on your hands. You know, I remember that
Jesus cheeto, like the one that looked like Jesus on
the cross, And I know there was a Jesus image
that someone found on a marmite lid in Australia, But
I don't really remember the grilled cheese Madonna you're talking about.
Oh man, the story was pretty incredible and I remember
it from the news as a kid. But it was
in this Florida woman made herself a grilled cheese. She
(13:28):
then cut it in half, took a bite, and then
stopped because she saw the Mother Mary staring back at
her right there in her toast. I mean, this must
have been an amazing experience. And then for some reason
she decided to box the thing that this half sandwich,
and and she put some cotton balls around it, and
she kept it on her nightstand as a good luck charm.
And she claims the blessed grilled cheese helped her win
(13:50):
seventy thousand dollars in a casino, among other things. And
in that time it never actually sprouted mold, and that
just increased her faith. And it's hours you know. But
then in two thousand four, she decided to sell it
on eBay, and the auction side initially took the listing
down because I thought it was a hoax, but then
they allowed it to go back up, and the Miracle
(14:12):
on Toast sold for twenty eight thousand dollars to Golden
Palace dot Com, which is this online casino. So between
her like seventy thousand and winning and this twenty thousand
from this other casino, she basically, like milt a hundred
thousand dollars out of casinos. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah,
So was it really a ten year old sandwich? Like,
(14:33):
how come I didn't have any mold on it? Well,
Brendan Corner at Slate actually did this analysis on and
talked about all the factors that could have been contributing
to this. So the wonder bread would have had plenty
of preservatives. I know, you might like wonder bread, but
you might not be surprised to know there are a
few preservatives in there. And the margine that was slathered
on it would also protect the bread with its trans fats.
And you know, the cook cheese itself could have changed
(14:55):
the pH which would have slowed the molds growth as well.
But that said, Corner did think it was pretty special
that there was no mold at all on this sandwich.
I mean that that is unbelievable. But there's a bigger
shock to this mego, and that was that a copycat
sandwich with Hello Kitty's face, and you think that'd be
a big deal. It only had a high bit on
it of eighties cents, So sad well, I like that.
(15:17):
No one saying top dollar for a miracle kitty sandwich. Actually, also,
just for the record, when she sold the grilled cheese,
the Florida woman insisted that whoever the next buyer was
not devour the Mother Mary sandwich, and the casino not
surprisingly agreed to this. I mean, it's a ten year
old sandwich. But speaking of special cheeses, I know you
looked into the history of American cheese, so why don't
(15:39):
you take a minute just to give us a quick
rundown of it. So America rallied around making cheddar pretty early,
and Cheddar was this incredibly hearty cheese. It weathered the
temperatures and humidity really well on like some of the
other European cheeses. But it still tasted great, and by
the seventeen nineties, the US was exporting cheese to England
as quote Yankee cheese. It was also called American cheese
(16:02):
back then too, and the upper classes in England looked
down on this stuff, partially because it came from America,
but also because they didn't think it stood up to
the traditional English cheddars. And the quality really varied from
cheese to cheese. But it's sold to the lower classes
in England because it's so cheap, and America sort of
rallied around this cheddar cheese. So I don't know if
(16:22):
you've gone to Upstate New York. Is my mother in
law's from Upstate New York. But um, they're all these
stores there that sells store cheese in the windows. Yeah,
and I I never heard that term before. But the
first time I saw it, I was so confused, like,
what's store cheese? But that's just the term for local cheddar.
And it's almost like a house wine. But Upstate New
(16:43):
York's love affair with cheese really took off in the
eighteen fifties and eighteen fifty one in particular. That's when
this gentleman named Jesse Williams started a cheese revolution by
starting the first big cheese factory in upstate New York.
Like his son wasn't a very good cheesemaker, apparently, and
he decided to help him out by buying look from
the surrounding areas, and together they made this more consistently
(17:03):
quality cheese. And according to David Clark, who was our
you might remember who was our cheese historian at Mental Floss,
the factories just took off in the region from there,
and by the eighteen seventies, the US was sending over
three hundred million pounds of cheese back to England every year.
So Cheddar sort of became the default cheese. That's really interesting,
(17:24):
and I like that we claim we had a cheese
historian at Mental Flaws. That's pretty great. He was awesome, though.
So I do want to touch on things like Monterey
Jack and other American cheeses, But how do we get
from Cheddar to craft singles? Like? Is there actually a
thread there? Yeah? Definitely. So one of the things I
was stunned by was how early James Kraft was in
(17:44):
the business. And actually Canada kind of comes to their
love of craft honestly because he was a Canadian who
moved to the States and saw this opportunity in whole
selling cheese. I guess he was trying to figure out
how to reduce waste, because at first he was just
trying to cram cheese into jars and then into cans apparently,
(18:04):
which just seems so gross. But then in uh in
nineteen sixteen, he stumbled into this genius idea and here
I'm quoting Clark again. By shredding refuse cheese, repasteurizing it,
and mixing in some sodium phosphate, Kraft produced the strange
wonder we now know as American processed cheese, and apparently
(18:25):
it was this huge success from the start, right, Like
Kraft was this true American salesman. He marketed his cheese,
which was obviously made from scrap cheese, as this superior
product because it was more consistent. And by the nineteen thirties,
over the cheese consumed in America was craft, which is crazy, right,
So naturally this processed cheese had this much longer shelf
(18:48):
life than anything that was natural, and when he got
into supplying cheese for the troops, his business really took off.
Of course, later cheese manufacturer's lobby to have Crafts product
called a cheese product instead of a natural cheese. Yeah,
that's right, because you know, anything with less than I
think it's fifty one cheese and it can't legally be
called cheese, which which to me seems pretty fair if
(19:10):
it's less than that. But you know, whatever, I hear
the phrase cheese product, I always think of cheese whiz
and how you told me that story about when the
inventor of cheese was tried a jar of it. Decades later,
he actually called up the hotline for the company because
it tasted so terrible. Yeah, they changed the formula to
not use any cheese, and he called up the hotline
(19:31):
to tell him it tasted like axle grease, like his
exact words. But back to the graft single. So that
was James's brother, Norman's invention. Norman Craft and he knew
that sliced cheese from the store was pretty inconsistent, like
it came in all sorts of sizes and thickness. So
in he started playing with ways to make a more
convenient cheese and this was going to be a godsend
(19:53):
to people, but it actually took him fifteen years to
do it, but the way he did is kind of cool,
Like he had these ribbons of cheese like hot cheese
that would get poured and then cut by a machine
and packaged in a block of eight peelable slices. It
was a huge improvement, and the press actually raved about it.
They called him Mom Deluxe Process slices. And according to
the New York Times, cheese slices used to curl and
(20:16):
dry out and this solved those problems. So sales of
Craft just skyrocketed after the innovation, all thanks to Norman.
That just sounds like the name of the guy that
should have invented Craft cheese, or should have invented this
process cheese. But so so when did they actually start
coming individually wrapped? Yeah, so I looked at that too,
and that wasn't until nine when this other inventor, I
(20:37):
think he's in Indiana. He wasn't working for Craft, but
he solved the problem of these sliced cheese blocks sticking together,
and Craft saw the genius of the idea and came
up with their own tweak on the process. So Bonap
did this article glorifying the Craft single and as they
put it, quote American cheese is the greatest cheese known
to man, even if it really isn't cheese at all.
(20:58):
Oh ouch. So, actually, we always had craft singles in
my house growing up, and partially it was because we
use them for grilled cheese, like they were there for
me and my sister to toast our own as a snack,
but increasingly we only kept them in the house around
for my dog. Your dog, Yeah, she was like really
(21:18):
greedy and she'd fly out the door and just stay
a little out of range, and as a pup, we'd
like chase her around until we caught her, Like our
whole family would be out there trying to tackle her
because she so widely. But then I think my mom
realized that she loved American cheese. So as my dog
ruled her, you'd call my dog's name and she just
kind of ignore you. But then when you yelled the
(21:40):
word cheese and then you prove it. But with the
sounds like the plastic just peeling off that craft single,
then she'd suddenly come bounding back. I like that she
needed the two pieces of proof there. That's pretty crazy. Well,
like all my neighbors knew it, like they knew when
we had like waving this craft single. They're like, what
was going on? That's pretty great. Well, craft obviously has
(22:01):
a big part in American nostalgia, and you know, there's
been this huge swing back from manufactured foods to the
super artisanal stuff. And there was an article in Scientific
American last year that said there are over four hundred
craft cheesemakers in the US now, which is I think
it's like double what it was just fifteen sixteen years ago. Yeah,
and I'm sure it's a similar trend for like reason
(22:22):
artisanal pickle makers or whatever, pickle makers. Yeah. But what
struck me about the Scientific American article was that it
made this interesting point about how the American tarawa versus
the European concept of it. And let me quote this
article by the writer Leila Epplett. She says other European
counterparts have an invention of tradition. Americans have what cultural
(22:44):
anthropologists than m I T. Professor Heather Packson calls a
tradition of invention. You see, I flipped that thing. There's
a little different, but it emphasizes this innovation and prioritizes
change over continuity. So in France, the flavor of terrain
described how the region and the people and the cultural
tradition were all involved, and also like the technique, they
(23:06):
all contribute to the taste of the cheese. But in
the United States, tear wise given this kind of more
of an entrepreneurial and maybe an individualist twist, and and
that helps to designate the taste of a particular farm
and its products rather than you know, sort of that
the taste of the cultural or the geographic region that
you might see from the European cheeses. And that's actually
(23:26):
pretty interesting, uh, And I guess it makes sense because
the US always has like this more individual spin on things,
and it makes sense for cheese as well. But I
actually remember reading this article in an anthropology class in
college about baseball and how unusual it is in sports
for one person to face off against an entire team
and you know that that's what every batter does one
(23:47):
by one, right, but also how that's part of what
makes it such an American game, like this mythic belief
in the individual. And I don't know if it's a
great argument, but I actually never thought about it that way.
But we should probably do another episode on cheese at
some point, because there's so much we won't get to
cover in this episode. And because as I've said many times,
(24:08):
I could live on cheese. I love cheese so much.
But I do want to cover some cheese super relatives
because I love cheese so much. So how about we
tackle that after a quick break. That's great, Okay, man,
go today. We've got Christine Haney on the line now.
(24:29):
Christine is an old friend of ours from her previous
life at the New York Times. She's a wonderful reporter
and she's got a terrific news show on Netflix called
Rot and it's all about food crimes. Welcome to the program, Christine.
Thank you, it's great to be here. So tell us
you're doing this show for Anthony Bourdain's production company, and
it looks really beautiful. So I have to ask, why
(24:50):
did you choose to focus on food crimes? When I
was at the Times, they had a conversation with some
of the heads of Zero Points Are Productions, and one
thing I found was that it was on maternity leave
and I was watching bourdain show and just thought, as
you said, it was a beautiful program, and I thought, like,
why am I watching this? I haven't slept in months,
(25:11):
there's something here really compelling, And so it actually just
grew out of a conversation with VPD about the fact
that I had covered a lot of crime. I've sent
you people to prison with my reporting and how that
intersects with food. And they've done a lot of wonderful
food shows like Mind of a Chef, Parts Unknown, and
they've also done some crime shows like The Hunt with
(25:34):
John Walsh, and I just said, why don't you marry
the two? So they hired me to start looking into
this area. And then when you start looking into food
crimes and what has now become rotten, you see that
food fraud is just so rich with stories. And sorry
to say, but if you're a criminal, this is the
place to go. Anyone, any you know, job leads here.
(25:56):
But because it's incredibly underregulated and you can make a
lot of money, you can commit a lot of crime
and you won't serve as much time. Well, I love
that you're giving criminals advice on our show, and we
in that sky with criminals, so that's great. But I
just watched the show on Garlic and it really is
(26:18):
beautifully shy. It's fascinating, and and it was called Garlic breath,
which I was just lighted by. But one of the
things I thought was just so crazy was that you've
got those clips of how garlic wasn't super popular before
I think it's the sixties or seventies, and then they're
all these commercials trying to introduce it to the public.
Like that footage was hilarious and and obviously the documentary
(26:39):
is super serious, but how did you learn that story?
We talked about how did you grow up with as
much garlic? And then it really got into these free
ranging conversations with my colleagues and CPZ about when you
start eating more garlic? Were you influenced by Um Emerald?
I mean, I remember watching Emeral logos when I was
a federal courts reporter in Alabama covering death row cases,
(27:02):
and he was just comfort So I always think of
him with him saying like Garla, garlic, garlic, and so um.
That's where we kind of picked up on that history
of how it's really taken off and it's integrated into
everything that we eat now. But then it's married to
this crazy crime that a lot of garlic in the
US comes by way of Chinese prisons. I mean, that's
(27:22):
just astounding to me, and can you tell us a
little bit about how you discovered that story and how
you managed to get that footage. So basically, I carried
the sixty seven page lawsuit everywhere I went and just
kept reading it over and over. And you see in
the episode there are all these people who have been
sued in a rico case, like a racketeering case against
(27:43):
this garlic company out in California, Harmony, which has offices
in China and California. And I just really started digging
in and reaching out to the different players who had
been sued Um, and one of them was this wonderful
and then they makes use you who is from China,
grew up in the Shandong province, came to New York
(28:06):
to be a professor, lost his professorship after UM funding
went away. Um during made off and then Um went
back into the garlic business and realized when he was
home in a family vacation that the local housewives were
complaining to him about how his their work had been
(28:26):
taken there like at home work had been taken by
where they used to peel garlic was now being done
by all the local prisons. So his son, he's this
great tech guy who went to Columbia, helped him by
a undercover camera, and he snuck into the prisons, presented
himself as like an American businessman now and got us
this incredible footage. And it is extraordinary also because his
(28:50):
son knows like gadgets so well that the quality of
the footage we have from inside of prison is his
I think extraordinary. Yeah, it really is. I'm a little
bit concerned about about maybe we're not working hard enough
because we haven't sent anyone to prison with our work
on Part Time Genius, and we haven't had to sneak
anyone out of China. We really got to step up
our game here. But we are talking about cheese, which
(29:15):
is awesome today, and so we we've talked about some
funny cheese stuffs in this episode. But Christine, I'm curious,
are there any cheese related scandals or just weird facts
that you're obsessed with. First, one thing everyone should know
is that the way cheese is regulated is if you
buy a pepperoni pizza, if the pepperoni makes you sick,
that's regulated by the U. S d A. If the
(29:36):
cheese makes you sick, it's regulated by the FDA. Well,
I love that every bite of a slice of pepperoni
pizza is like a delicious taste of bureaucracy. It is
absolutely yes. So, Christine, my favorite thing about you as
a reporter is when you find whimsical stories. And and
I know I've talked to you about your Bird Talk
(29:58):
magazine story the at Food, which I loved so much,
and and you found royalty and taxi cab drivers, and
you just find great stories. But is there anything delightful
going on in food or agriculture right now that you're
kind of fascinated by. I am still three years in
really enjoying writing about food and agriculture, and I think
(30:18):
the characters are wonderful. I've been spending a lot of
time talking to this wonderful turkey farmer who won't eat
turkey to be so close to with turkeys, so we
eat pork on Thanksgiving and um, and I basically I'm
talking to farmers at all hours now, so it's I'm
getting very attuned to like the habits of livestock and
(30:41):
how turkeys can be very sensitive. And it's just like
a very entertaining and fun beats that's really wonderful. Well,
I hope all of our listeners will check out Rotten
on Netflix right now. Christine Honey, thanks so much for
being on Part Time Genius. Thank you. It's great chatting
with you. Okay, so before we get off American Cheese
(31:12):
is I do want to tell one last story, and
that's the Jack and Monterey Jack. So there's actually a
real jack behind that shoes. Yeah, it was this this scott.
His name was David Jack, and he came to the
US in the eighteen forties. He was a contractor and
he wasn't exactly like the laid back California dude, and
he made a lot of money and started owning land
(31:33):
and was supposedly this ruthless landlord, but he ended up
with shares in a number of local dairy farms. Now,
the truth is that Franciscan friars in the Monterey area
had been making this distinctive cheese in the region for
quite a while. But since he already had the milk,
David Jack decided to co opt the friar's recipe and
get into the cheese business for himself. Initially, he called
(31:56):
the product Jack's Cheese, but then he rebranded it Monterey Jack.
So I mean, that's pretty cool that like monks have
given us chantagne and cheese and and they get a
little credit for it. Yeah, don't forget genetics, maga. I
meant Mindel and his pea plants and all that. You're
right though, they don't get credit. So, uh well, why
don't we do a few superlatives before we get to
the fact off, what would you have on your side?
(32:19):
All right? Well, how about the best cheese for when
you want to spoil yourself? And I'm gonna go with
with Puel for this, And it's that crumbly cheese from Serbia.
It's actually donkey cheese. Do you remember when there are
all those rumors that Djokovic, after going on that insane
windstreak in tennis, decided to buy up all the donkey
(32:39):
cheese in Serbia. It was so absurd and it was
in the headlines for like a long time. I mean,
you got a dream big when you're somebody like that.
And maybe it's a smart business strategy to corner that market.
Because Puel sells for five hundred and seventy six dollars
a pound. That's insane. So what makes it so expensive? Well,
apparently it takes about twenty five leaders just to make
(33:01):
a single kilogram of donkey cheese. Donkey cheese feels like
it should be a phrase, like the synonym for going bananas.
Like one second, Hector and I were having a normal
conversation and then he went all donkey cheese on me.
I like that, who's Hector? Mango? I know, Hector don't
want to I'm not sure this phrase is going to
(33:21):
take off, but all right, what cheese would you like
to honor? Actually, before I go, I read about this
moose cheese from Sweden that sells for over four dollars
a pound, and I think the idea is similar to
your donkey cheese, except that I think moose might be
more temperamental, Like if a moose senses any sort of disturbance,
(33:42):
it'll go dry for a while. So milky one has
to be done super patiently and in total silence. And
even then it's not like you're walking away with like
a bucket of moose milk. The return for those two
hours of quiet is pretty sparse. But I think the
cheese is supposed to be like extraordinary. That is pretty interesting.
But I feel like you're stalling, Mango. I mean, you
(34:04):
haven't given me your cheese award yet. I know, because
I'm not really prepared for this. Uh, let me look
through my notes. So, um, I don't want to say
something about costume Marza, which is that illegal magot cheese,
because it's too gross. How about the cheese worth losing
your head over? And that would be brie. So, according
to the story, Louis the sixteenth was fleeing from revolutionaries
(34:25):
in France, but along the way, the monarch decided to
take a pit stop at a tavern because his tom
tom was growling. And when he was apprehended before being
taken to the guillotine, mind you, he was caught with
this giant plate of brie in front of him, and
he was just enjoying the cheese in a very leisurely manner,
which is ridiculous. But I actually find it a little Shakespearean. Wait,
(34:49):
first of all, did you say tom tom? I just
wanted to be clear on that. I think that you did.
But so, so, why why is this? Why is this Shakespearean? Uh?
Because it's like a big question for her monarch right
to breathe or not to breathe? Oh gosh, I didn't
think it could get worse than Tom. Tom, you really
did say that, And now you've said to bree or
(35:10):
not to breathe. But all right, well, why don't we
pretend neither of those things happened, and let's just get
straight into the fact. Off. All right, here's one for you.
Did you know that, before lawmakers settled on the term
process cheese, cheesemakers were lobbying to classify craft cheeses as
embalmed cheese. Do you know what Richard Nixon's last meal
(35:35):
as president was? What's that? So? He had a pineapple slices,
a glass of milk, and a bowl of cottage cheese.
There's a photo of it online and it's actually so sad.
But apparently cottage cheese was one of Nixon's favorite snacks,
and he especially liked to eat it with ketchup. Oh.
I actually am a fan of cottage cheese, but I
(35:56):
don't understand. Actually I like all of those things, but
I don't understand that combat nation. If you've ever eaten
pineapple and had anything with dairy in it, you know
along with it, it is disgusting. That is so strange.
Nixon was a strange man. Well, according to the site
Addie McDonald's used the clever trick to cut costs back
in two thousand and eight. They pulled one of the
two slices of cheese from their double cheeseburger and renamed
(36:20):
it the Mick Double. The move saved six cents per
sandwich and fifteen thousand dollars a year per restaurant. Wow,
that's gonna add up. Do you know that the phrase
the big cheese actually comes from Hindi like cheese and
Hindi and or do actually means thing and the British
picked up on it when they colonized India. The real
cheese meant something that was top notch or like the
(36:41):
real thing, and a big cheese evolved into this like
important person. Not everyone loved the term, though, so Wired
reports that by people were using the word cheesy with
sarcasm and using it to describe something negative, like I
didn't realize that was that old? Yeah I didn't either.
All right, Well you I have talked about the giant
wheel of cheese Andrew Jackson received during his presidency, but
(37:04):
apparently big wheels used to be a common present in America.
When Thomas Jefferson was elected, he received the Mammoth of Cheshire.
It was this twelve hundred pound wheel of cheese and
it was rolled through towns from Massachusetts, you know, like
much fanfare along the way, and of course some ridiculed
along the way as well. The cheese even had a
Jefferson quote on the rind. It said, rebellion to tyrants
(37:26):
is obedience to God. And you know that this wasn't
just in America, like a big wheel of cheese was
a great way to show someone you cared in England too.
When Queen Victoria got married, her subjects pooled the milk
of seven fifty cows to create a thousand pound wheel,
and the townspeople were so impressed with their feet that
they asked if they could put it on display and
delay giving the present to her, which he agreed to.
(37:49):
But when the exhibition was over and they tried to
wheel the cheese back her way, the queen declined to
give it a home. All right, what did you know
that Philadelphia Cream Cheese isn't actually named for Philly, but
actually for the ont of Philadelphia, New York. It kind
of ruins because I was just pictured Ben Franklin. They're
smearing his toast within the mornings. I know, I always
had such pride, like I lived near Philly, I thought
(38:10):
it was from Philly. Um. This is a great one.
In the eighteen sixties when Brazil was fighting the sea
battle against Uruguay, Uruguayan ship ran out of ammunition, so
they used cannonballs made out of stale eat um cheese
that they had on board. But the weirdest part is
that it actually worked and they won the sea battle. Ah,
(38:31):
that is a great story. But actually I've got one
I've been saving that. I really think it's gonna be
hard to top. So have you heard about the origin
of the Packers cheese head hats? So it goes back
to this guy named Ralph Bruno, and he was reappulstering
his mom's couch when he realized he had an extra cushion.
So he decided to get playful with it, and he
burned some holes into it and painted it yellow. Now,
(38:52):
his mom banished him from the house because it smelled
so bad, but he wore it to a Brewers game
later that night, and somehow the ease head took off
across Wisconsin sports. That's where it all began. I love that,
and I also love that like, burnt cheese smells bad,
but burnt cheese hats also smell bad. Yeah, well, I
mean I like that you found the guy behind the
(39:14):
American cheese trends, So I'm gonna give it to you.
Thanks so much. I feel like I needed this one.
This is this is a good one. Well, thank you
guys all for listening. Now, if we've forgotten any facts
about cheese that you feel like we need to know,
feel free to email us part Time Genius at how
stuff Works dot com. You can also call us on
our seven fact hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius,
(39:36):
or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so
much for listening, Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius
is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be
(39:57):
possible without several brilliant people who do the important things
we couldn't even begin to understand. Noel Brown made the
theme song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing gave.
Louesier is our lead researcher, with support from the research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown, and Lucas Adams. If
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