March 28, 2024 • 39 mins
This is a cheese of many holes and many imitators. Anney and Lauren dig in to the science and history of Emmental, the original Swiss cheese.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savior production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm ann Aries and I'm going vogel bum and today
we have an episode for you about Emmin Tal cheese.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, you know, we love the cheese episodes. Oh we do,
we do.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It would be a whole cheese podcast if that wouldn't
get incredibly incredibly repetitive.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, but somehow surprisingly unique in certain ways.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yep, Oh absolutely there was. I was excited about this
one because there's so much science in it. But then
there was too much science and I could not complete
the science reading in the time I had allotted myself,
and that's why this episode is going out a little
bit late.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So here we are. Yes, but it's all fascinating. Was
there any particular reason this was on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Nope, nopeurs I was just looking for a cheese to
talk about, and again I was like, oh, that's a
lot of science.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah. I have to say, I don't know i'd ever
heard the term I'm until i'd obviously have switch. I've
had Swiss cheese, which we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
They're basically the same thing.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, yeah, we're going to talk about But yeah, so
I went into this like not knowing what I was
getting into. And there's quite a history as well, so
it's a fun one. It's a fun one. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you can see our past cheese episodes. I would say
maybe greere in specific, maybe fondue, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yes, it is one of the traditional cheeses that goes
into fondue.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, it is, although I've also heard some arguments about
that people like to fight. Yes, well, I guess this
brings us to our question, Yes, emin tal what is it?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well. Amontal cheese, also called a ementoaler or simply Swiss cheese,
is a type of medium hard cow milk cheese that's
a pale yellow white in color and smattered with these
round holes of varying sizes throughout its body. They're called eyes,
and they can be up to the size of a cherry.
It is a firm and smooth and a little like
(02:30):
springy or chewy when it's a cool to room temperature,
and also melts well into a sort of stringy, soft goo.
And I mean that in the best way. The flavor
is nutty and a little buttery or sweet, with a
little bit of fruity tartness and a kind of grassy
hay flavor. Some iterations are pretty mild, but the ones
produce the traditional way tend to be more flavorful, and
(02:52):
they also get more distinctive the longer that they're aged.
It can be eaten on its own as a snack
or on toast, sandwiches, or melted into savory dishes like
fondue or casseroles or baked goods to add a little
bit of nutty richness in there. It's just like a
really nice cheese.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It's what cartoon mice love eating. It's like if a
large sponge were delicious. It's like, Okay, this is pretty specific,
but if you've ever line dried a sweater and then
it smells all like fresh air and sunshine, and then
(03:31):
you've worn it on a day that was a little
cool and you kind of needed a hug, that's what
it's like.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, I have done that. Some days you need that.
You need these little comforting soft yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And feeling a little bit enclosed, like a little thunderjacket.
Mm hmm, yeah, I'm until. Cheese is traditionally made in
certain areas of Switzerland by certain traditional processes. Its quality
and style are upheld by European Union protected designation of
(04:10):
Origin laws, also called a PEDO or an AOP, depending
on which a language you're abbreviating or acronym. Yeah. However,
similar styles are made around the world. More on that,
a lot more on that in the history section. To
get that pdo ementtol cheese must be made from whole
raw milk from cows raised in and treated in certain
(04:31):
ways in certain areas of Switzerland, then processed less than
twenty four hours later within twenty kilometers of distance away.
The wheels have to be a certain size and aged
in certain conditions for a certain amount of time. That
milk has to have been processed in either copper kettles
or finishers, and the only things you can add to
(04:52):
it are rennet local lactic acid bacteria, specific propionic acid bacteria,
salt and water. The pressed wheel must undergo a fermentation,
storage process and an aging process for one of three
lengths of time at least four months, eight months, or
twelve months before they can be sold. They have to
be evaluated on a twenty point system of qualities like
(05:14):
eye size and earn at least eighteen points. But I'm
getting a little bit ahead of myself. Okay, so cheese.
It is a way of preserving milk before it goes bad.
Going bad is a lay term for microbes eating your
food before you get a chance to and making it
(05:34):
therefore anywhere from like unappetizing to downright toxic. In order
to preserve milk, there are a number of different steps
you can take, and one of them is to introduce
helpful microbes before the harmful ones have a chance to grow.
As we have talked about several times before, a type
of bacteria called lactic acid bacteria help preserve cheese because
(05:54):
they eat some of the sugars in milk and poop acids,
which helps separate out the water stuff that the way
from the solid stuff the kurds, which in this case
you then press into a wheel. You may also add
rennet here, which is a natural product that helps the
coagulation and separation process, which was originally found in baby
ruminant stomachs, but where it helps them digest milk. It's
(06:16):
often made from vegetarian sources today. Anyway, getting rid of
the water content helps prevent harmful microbes from growing. The
lactic acid itself also helps prevent microbes from growing and
In this case, you additionally apply saltwater brine to the
outside of the pressed wheel before storing it. And okay,
(06:37):
here is where the second type of bacteria that I
mentioned come in, species of propionic bacterium like pe fruit
and riki. Sure, great, great great species name.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
They'll eat lactic acid and then poop carbon dioxide plus
a couple of other acids acetic acid and propionic acids.
Those new acids will further transform into some of the
flavor molecules that make this cheese tasty. For example, its
fruity flavors also necessary BACTERIAO. Yeah, and the carbon dioxide
(07:18):
is useful here too, all right. For over one hundred
years was thought that the holes and mantl cheeses were
solely due to the action of those microbes giving off
carbon dioxide inside the cheese as it ripens, along with
the solidity yet elasticity of the cheese to allow that
gas to expand in the wheel, creating those nice round eyes.
(07:39):
But it turns out that a factor was missing from
the equation nucleation points for the gas bubbles. A little
bit more on this in the history section. But recently
researchers learned that modern, highly sanitary, closed milking systems weren't
mutting in particles of hay the traditionally got into the
milk without those microskuspic particles, which contain tiny air bubbles.
(08:03):
Pretty Much any carbon dioxide produced by the bacteria will
escape out through the cheese as the cheese like settles,
but with those particles as nucleation sites, the carbon dioxide
produced creates the characteristic bubbles. This can be a totally
sanitary process, by the way, like makers can add in
a few milligrams of just clean hay particles.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
To do the trick.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Interesting, love it, Love it. The aforementioned copper kettles and
or finishers also help make the cheese what it is
in ways that science hasn't actually figured out yet. The
idea is that the copper somehow helps the helpful bacteria
create a tasty cheese. In some regions that don't use
(08:47):
traditional copperware, makers will add copper sulfate to compensate.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Huh, I feel like we've read about that before. I
think we've come into this before.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, yeah, a real, real interesting, real interesting metal. We'll
have to I'm avoiding doing an episode on copper cookware
for this very reason.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Isn't that that was supposed to be our anniversary?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
We were like no, yeah, yeah, because because seven years
is copper traditionally and like wedding stuff. So but anyway, yeah,
here we go. Anyway, the wheels of cheese that are
produced are traditionally large, on average, about eighty five centimeters
in diameter, twenty two centimeters tall, and about ninety kilos.
(09:32):
That's like two feet nine inches wide, about nine inches
tall and weighing some two hundred pounds. Wow, yeppurs, who all.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Right, well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
As as as always, a cheese is a calorically dense food,
which is the entire idea. You've condensed all the nutrition
from milk into the cheese. Uh. You know, it's got
a got a good punch of protein, good punch, a
good punch of fats, some good good smattering of micro nutrients. Yeah,
you know, watch your portion sizes, eat a vegetable, drink
(10:12):
of water, milk, some cheese on your vegetables.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I don't know, this did make me crave a sandwich.
I haven't really craved a sandwich in a long time,
but doing the research for this, I was like, I
could really get some cheese on the sandwich. Yeah, very
happy right now? Man.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, I don't think that I've ever had real Amontal cheese.
I think I've only had like Swiss cheese varieties from
other places. So now I'm like, okay, projects.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yep, me as well. Projects, Well, we do have some numbers.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
For you, we do, Okay. Each wheel of emmental uses
over one thousand liters of milk. Wow, and Mmental style
cheeses are a one point six billion dollar industry worldwide.
As of twenty twenty three. North America is the largest
(11:11):
producer and consumer, which is big if true, because apparently
French consumption of mental is something like twenty two pounds
per person per year, which equals up to like a
gram per person per day. And based on that number,
like some researchers were like, okay, we need to study
(11:31):
the microbial and or probiotic effects of mental on the
human gut because of the sheer amount that French people
are eating.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
That's amazing. Yeah, wow, I've eaten so much cheese my
biomes is worthyarly effected study.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I mean, I mean we yeah, science call us where weep?
Probably have you heard about my chi giving that pdo
does take itself real seriously in Switzerland. Also in twenty seventeen,
a seller who was trying to pass off some thirty
(12:15):
five hundred metric tons of not Pdo cheese wound up
being sentenced to three years in prison and a one
million Swiss franc fine. That's a little bit over a
million dollars USD. The last I read, the case was
going to a federal court.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
They do indeed take it seriously, and they have like
a thing that they test for.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
We're oh, yeah, yeah, more on that, more on that, yeah,
in a minute, but for one more number for you,
or a number of more numbers for you in a
single bullet point. As of twenty twenty two, one hundred
and one mental Pdo cheese makers, working with some twenty
six thousand cows, were producing about fifteen thousand tons of
(13:00):
cheese per year and exporting about two thirds of that
to thirty countries, which might sound like a lot of cheese,
but it's actually a lot less production than it used
to be, and only some eight percent of total Swiss
cheese production. That is production of cheese in Switzerland, not
(13:20):
production of Swiss style cheese, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Which is something we're going to get into in the
history section.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Oh yeah, oh, this one goes places.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Okay, so we're going to get into that, but first
we are going to get into a quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay.
So reminder, if you've listened to our cheese episodes, a
lot of our episodes, honestly, but our cheese episodes, lots
of cheeses were probably discovered at different times or even
at the same time, simultaneously but separately around the world.
(14:08):
We've told the story a million times. It's almost always
kind of some kind of accidental event and there you go.
People liked it. Let's make it cheese.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, let's make it even better.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Great, Yeah, let's do it. That being said, most historians
trace imental cheese to Switzerland out of the thirteenth century.
The earliest records we know of in the written record
come from a twelve ninety three mention of cheese being
made out of the Burn region of Switzerland. That being said,
the name imental didn't appear until centuries later, in the
(14:43):
mid fifteen hundreds, which, by the way, we're trying our best,
but imental is so easy to say a number of
different ways. I'm very tempted to keep saying elemental, but yep,
yep in Intel. One record from around then suggest that
this cheese was given as a wedding present. In one instance, heck, yeah,
(15:07):
good present. Yeah yeah, I mean I would love it too.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
The name Emmantal comes from the region where it's from,
the Emma River valley. Tall is a word for valley
in German, and you can add the er to the
end to mean from the Emma River valley. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yes. And when it comes to how exactly this cheese
arose in the region, many point to the cows, the temperature,
and the water, like basically the whole environment just came
together for this.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah yeah. It's this relatively low altitude area of the Alps,
so warm weather lasts longer there than in higher up regions,
meaning grass is available to the cows longer, meaning they
can produce more high quality milk every year.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And as we've discussed in various cheese episodes specifically from
this region, a lot of the stories of its creation
are kind of vague, but involves shepherds making cheese from
their livestock. In this case, cows and aging it in dark, cool,
damp caves. I have to say we didn't get the
love story that we normally get.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
But oh man, we didn't. Yeah, there was no There
was no sad cowherd pining over some lady, or ditching
his work in order to go chase some lady.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah exactly, or like impressed some lady.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
But yeah, or some lady saving her father's farm by
coming up with it. That's another popular one. Maybe to
impress a guy.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I don't know that's true. That was not there here,
but the basics are still there though, Like a shepherd
milk cheese cave. Let's aage it in there.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah, a note here. Not all the cheese being produced
there originally was what we now know as emmental. The
style developed it and solidified over the next few centuries.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
One of the things I found really interesting about that
is that there's a popular legend that the large wheel
size of imintel cheese is due to a loophole in
the tax code. Essentially, cheeses were taxed not by weight,
but by the wheel, So why not just make a
huge wheel of product and pay less taxes. I don't
(17:21):
know if that's true, but we do run into a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Of tax related Oh yeah, issue, Absolutely, it wouldn't that
one wouldn't surprise me. A lot of stories. I'm kind
of like, Oh, that's clearly apocryphal, but that's what I'm like.
Oh yeah, evading taxes has been around forever.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I can totally see it. Yes, However, despite the large
wheel size, until the early eighteen hundreds, this cheese stayed
largely local. But perhaps because these producers start making so
much in these big wheels, like they've just had so
much product to spread across Europe. I'm sure things like
(18:03):
industrialization for transportation and increasing travel and globalization helped to
According to Imentaler's Switzerland website, which is kind of an
authority on this whole thing, many cheese dairies opened in
the Burn region during this time, increasing the production and
selling product on a larger scale, so more people were
(18:25):
eating it, more people wanted it, productions going up. The
Swiss started introducing Swiss cheese to North America as they
settled there in the mid eighteen fifties. Some set up
small cheese places in New York, eventually moving further west
to dairy hubs like Wisconsin, where they set up some
brought their copper pots for traditional cheesemaking with them. Others
(18:49):
got them in the United States, But as the popularity
of the cheese grew in the US, it went through
a rebrand, becoming largely known as Swiss cheese, in part
I read because it was easier for non Swiss folks
to pronounce Swiss as opposed to immantal imtaler.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
In.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
This in turn inspired more Americanized Swiss cheeses that further
confused the category slash name. Some of these cheeses have
been dubbed American Swiss cheeses since then.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, I've read that there's only one cheesemaker in the
United States doing like the full traditional method. But I'm
not an expert in this, and I didn't cite the
source here in my notes, so who knows. Who knows
if that's correct. I'm just saying things into microphones now. However,
I can tell you for a fact that this is
(19:44):
where we get cheeses like baby Swiss from those are
like kind of like sub varietals that branched off, right.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
But you know, during the all of this happening, of course,
in Switzerland, they're like, wait a minute, they're hold up.
So in nineteen oh one, Swiss cheese sellers, milk producers,
and some federal authorities came together to form the Swiss
Cheese Union Great name. It was later broken up into
different organizations in nineteen ninety six. Some of them are
(20:15):
still around. But yeah, spread out.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, yeah, that's where that emmentaler Switzerland Great eventually would
come from. But anyway, in nineteen seventeen, an American researcher
by the name of William Clark published to study the
first study about how bacteria produced carbon dioxide leads to
those eyes in Swiss style cheese.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
In the aftermath of World War Two, the Swiss government
needed to find ways to make some money and up
their exports while also sustaining their population, so they offered
funding to boost the production and distribution of various cheeses,
including mental. By the following year, producers increased production of
mental to fifty thousand tons, which was it was. It
(21:01):
was a market increase.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
A big jump, yes, another big jump. Skipping ahead to
nineteen ninety there were some eight hundred mentol cheesemakers in Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
And then I just had to put this in here.
If you want to look up the pictures. I highly recommended.
In nineteen ninety four, the Olympic Swiss ski team wore
speed suits designed to look like Swiss cheese.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
So great.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I don't know what I was expecting, Like it's a
clear idea, but it was more vibrant than I thought
it would be. I highly recommend looking up. Moving on,
in two thousand and six, the Swiss were granted the
AOP protected designation of origin for Mental cheese.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Then in two thousand and eight, Swiss scientists developed this
method for genetically marking cheeses so that you can test
the finished product for authenticity. It involves adding specific lactic
acid bacteria that can be easily genetically tested for and
that also, furthermore, will not change the traditional makeup of
(22:18):
the cheese. They started applying this technology to Mental in
twenty eleven, and it was the first cheese in fact,
that they applied it to.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
And it's kind of funny to read the producers talk
about it, because they're like, will no one what they'd
just my cheese. It's gonna be legit. You make the
fake stuff, they're gonna get you. Emental was recognized as
Switzerland's first geographical brand in twenty fifteen by the Swiss
(22:51):
Federal Institute of Intellectual Property. That being said, in several
articles I read that are pretty recent, the popularity of
Swiss cheese in the US has really muddied the waters
of understanding imintel here and elsewhere. One of the reasons
given for this is that after the market was flooded
with imitators but also with the real thing after World
(23:14):
War Two, it became viewed as a staple cheese, almost
a substance cheese, and that people started to view it
as old fashioned. And yes, I know we've talked about
it before, but in cartoons, animated cheese almost always has
holes in it. It's almost always associated this kind of
like white yellow thing with holes.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah. But because of that, because a lot of those
cartoons are older, although it still persists today, it just
became associated with old timey.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I would assume that also the perceived old timiness of
fondue in this country is probably a little bit of
the issue as well, since it is one of those
three traditional ingredients of cheeses in fon Due that, yeah,
it kind of got wrapped up into that and so
now we're like, oh, that's old cheese.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Who wants old cheese? That's not that's not a thing.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Wrapped Up in all of this as well is a
number of really complicated agricultural policies and like supply demand issues.
In Switzerland, for example, going back to the nineteen nineties
and before, there were dairy subsidies for the production of milk,
and the surplus often went to the manufacture of the
popular emental, which led to like too much cheese, and
(24:38):
then the price absolutely dove as the industry tried to
sell off their stock. A few agricultural reforms helped solve that,
but then heading into the two thousands, the Pedo Consortium
tried to further enforce quotas to keep prices stable, but
some cheesemakers didn't like that, and then the system borked
(24:59):
and destabilized for it. Yeah, it's been, it's been from this.
This is I don't understand like this kind of economic
politics very well. That's not really my forte. But I
almost just said fortnite.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Where did that come from?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
I love this okay anyway.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And forte is also not fortnite, clearly not.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
But but right, this is a very brief summary of
a number of very complicated political issues at any rate.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah, speaking of brief summaries and going back to something
you mentioned earlier, Lauren. Also in twenty fifteen, the Swiss
government's food research center Agroscope, published a steady detailing research
that they'd done into why the number of holes or
eyes in this cheese was decreasing, which was which, Yes,
(25:55):
they were going down, and as you said, this is
a factor that the cheese is graded on. So their
theory was that the milk being used had become too clean.
Little bits of hay debris, for instance, were great for
carbon dioxide bubbles to attach to and make the holes
in the process, but as tech had modernized and become
increasingly cleaner, that went away. So in twenty twenty three,
(26:18):
the assembly of the Imentaler Consortium again great debated allowing
for hay particles to be allowed back in. I don't
know if they've reached a verdict yet, but they were
debating it recently.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Okay, some more weird science for you. In twenty eighteen,
a group of students from the University of Bern helped
a local horse veterinarian slash cheese celler owner run an
experiment where wheels of mmentol were exposed to different kinds
of music while they aged for eight months. I'm speaking
(26:57):
slowly because I want you to really absorb every element
of wackadoo sentence.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I really am, all right.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So they got nine relatively small wheels of mmental from
this award winning Swiss cheesemaker. The wheels were just ten
kilos or twenty two pounds each. They then constructed these
nine wooden boxes and rigged up each wheel of cheese
with its own like personal entertainment system that piped sound
waves directly into the cheese. All right, so it was
(27:28):
getting like the full vibration. Yeah, there was one control
wheel that actually got silence, three that received non musical
tones of high, mid or low frequency, and then five
that got a song on loop. Annie, judging by your
horrified expression, you agree with me that this is torture,
like cheese torture.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
What monsters would do this to a cheese?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (27:53):
What monsters?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
I you know, I can only assume that the cheese
didn't to that much, But I you know, I don't know,
all right, Uh, Because of course you want to know
what songs these perhaps bonstrous experimenters played. They chose examples
from five different categories of music. Classical represented by Mozart's
(28:17):
The Magic Flute, rock represented by led Zeppelins, Stairway to Heaven,
hip hop represented by tribe called Quests, Jazz, ambient represented
by Yellow's Monolith, and techno represented by Vrill. I've never
heard that name out loud Rill's UV all right.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
They played.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
They played the sounds twenty four hours a day, and
apparently the cheeses exposed to sound were generally more mild
than the control cheese, except for the hip hop cheese,
which was notably sweeter and stronger in terms of smell
and taste. The quote was remarkably frue It was remarkably fruity.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Oh wow. I was hoping at the end of this
we'd have like an emo cheese, just clearly somehow. Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Based on this, the aforementioned horse veterinarian slash cheese seller
owner really wants to set up another experiment with like
different kinds of hip hop and see what happens. So
oh interesting.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I like that. As judgy as I was, I was
worried for the cheese only. Oh yeah, yeah, don't I
guess that's better than silence. I just feel like listening
to the same song over and over.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Oh yeah, no, I'm thinking of that episode of Walking
Dead where they're like torturing Darryl.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
And oh yeah, see, I love listening to the same
song over and over. But when it's done, it's done,
and I never want to hear it years years later.
The cheese, you know, well, well again. You never know
where the research will go. But back to legal matters.
(30:10):
In twenty twenty three, Switzerland lost a case trying to
secure the rights to an emmental trademark in the European Union.
Swiss producers brought this about largely because both Germany and
France produced an emmental cheese, but the court ruled it
was too late, that it was too ubiquitous a term,
and that they didn't bring enough proof that these cheeses
(30:31):
were taking away. These cheeses from France and Germany were
taking away from the cheeses from Switzerland's business, and usually
the label mentioned Switzerland in some way when it was
from France or Germany. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
They were hoping to regulate the cheeses of this style
from other places be labeled mental from you know, wherever,
and that the Swiss mental would be the only ones
allowed to label their cheese simply m entall in the EU.
But right, nope, nope, Yeah, it has been a struggle.
(31:07):
Production has been decreasing steadily over the past few decades.
In just the last ten years, it's dropped from about
twenty five thousand tons a year to only fifteen thousand.
The industry cites lack of demand for the more expensive
PDO version and like the current strength of the Swiss franc,
making it just way cheaper to get a hold of
(31:29):
copies being made wherever you are, and says the traditional
Swiss cheesemakers have because of that, started pivoting to making
other types of cheese, but bless they are trying. For example,
in October of twenty twenty three, a promotional event from
a couple of Swiss dairy producers involved this one hundred
(31:50):
kilo wheel of emental being rolled ninety kilometers from its
factory in m Andaal all the way to Zurich, like
by hand, I'm pretty sure, like up and down all
through the heck and mountains. That is a two hundred
and twenty pound wheel being rolled fifty five miles through
the mountains. It was displayed along the way in several locations,
(32:15):
accompanied by cheese and wine tastings, and was ushered across
the finish line by a local mayor and a rapper
by the name of stephla Chef. I don't know who
that is, but I adore the name. Yeah, and then
chunks of it were sent to Swiss embassies around the
world for tastings.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Wow, that sounds fun and delicious. Yes, also pretty wild
promotional event. Hey, cheese rolling is a thing people have
written in about it. So it's a big hunk of
cheese to roll.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yes, that's like a a that's a solid, person sized
wheel of cheese.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
It's a big wheel of cheese. Hey, if anybody happened
to witness this, please let us know because that's that's amazing.
That's a sight to any to behold. Oh yeah, oh.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yeah, I mean if you've ever rolled cheeses yourself.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Oh yes, any cheese we will accept. But I think woof,
we've gone all over the place. I think that's what
we have to say for now, though.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
It is it is we. We do already have some
listener mail for you, though, and we are going to
get into that as soon as we get back from
one more quick break for a word from our sponsors,
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
(33:59):
we're back with no.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I do always think of Tom and Jerry when I
think of Swiss Cheese. I didn't even watch it that
much as a kid, but it was very I think
even if you didn't watch it, it's pretty iconic. Yeah. Yeah,
well a lot of traps with the cheese.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah yeah, between that and like itching and scratchy.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay, First off, I have two short
notes that I very much enjoyed and wanted to share
that were in response to our recent anniversary special. First
from Jen release the Lauren Curse Words super Cut, and
then from David Hi, I just wanted to say, a
(34:45):
live show featuring Lauren's unfiltered profanity sounds like a feature,
not a book. So if you didn't, if you haven't
heard that episode yet, we discussed one of the things
holding us back from a live show is that to Lauren,
it does curse quite a bit and it gets cut out.
(35:05):
But I've appreciated hearing from the people Lauren.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, this is slightly embarrassing but delightful. Thank you, Thank
you all for appreciating weird nerd who happened to Custolic
sailors a long stream too.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I'm trying, I'm trying.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Oh impressed me. Oh gosh, A mill.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Wrote a bit late to the party. But I just
listened to your Lincoln Berry episode and it was very
good and interesting. I'm Swedish, so must if it was
not that new, but still always fun to listen to
you too. One thing you didn't bring up, and it's
quite a bummer, so I understand if you didn't want to.
Is that a lot of Lincoln berries used in commercial
products are picked by seasonal workers from Asia, working in
(36:02):
very poor conditions for low wages. I was just part
of a big berry research conference here in Sweden and
a common sentiment among most researchers and presenters was that
wild berries and lincoln berries are very healthy. We pick
too little, we need to eat more, but a lot
of the workers need better conditions. Now a lot of
speeds pick their own berries and that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
But it's just something to keep in mind. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, I gosh, I feel like this came
up in maybe our cloud berry episode as well. About yeah, yeah,
it's certainly a problem here in the United States too,
and a very real concern of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
I mean, honestly, your kind of summary of like they're healthy,
we pick too little, we need to eat more, and
workers need better conditions. I feel like that fits for
a lot of things we talk about, absolutely, and it
is important to talk about. Yes, oh goodness, of course
always yeah, always ride in with a kill joy corner
if you have one. Uh, we're fans over here of
(37:08):
thinking about stuff as it turns out. Also, I need
you to understand that that the phrase big Berry research
conference was so cool that I that my brain stopped
and I had to restart that sentence. Yeah, I mean,
I want to know so much more about this conference,
this conference. Please, you're like dangling something in front of us.
(37:37):
I want it so cool. Oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Also, I had to restart twice because a second time
I read I'm sorry the first time that I restarted, Uh,
I read the phrase like it was big Berry, as
though it's like it's like big government or like you know, yeah,
big oil. Yeah, and that was not the correct inflection.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Right inflection matters, it really does, Oh gosh. Yeah, Well again,
you listeners are doing all kinds of cool things, yes,
and we do really appreciate when you let us know
about that or something that we missed. We also love
hearing your thoughts on a possible live show, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Thank you to these listeners for writing in. If you
would like to write to us, you can. Our email
is hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots of more good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Savior production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm ann Aries and I'm going vogel bum and today
we have an episode for you about Emmin Tal cheese.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, you know, we love the cheese episodes. Oh we do,
we do.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It would be a whole cheese podcast if that wouldn't
get incredibly incredibly repetitive.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yeah, but somehow surprisingly unique in certain ways.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yep, Oh absolutely there was. I was excited about this
one because there's so much science in it. But then
there was too much science and I could not complete
the science reading in the time I had allotted myself,
and that's why this episode is going out a little
bit late.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So here we are. Yes, but it's all fascinating. Was
there any particular reason this was on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Nope, nopeurs I was just looking for a cheese to
talk about, and again I was like, oh, that's a
lot of science.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah. I have to say, I don't know i'd ever
heard the term I'm until i'd obviously have switch. I've
had Swiss cheese, which we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
They're basically the same thing.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, yeah, we're going to talk about But yeah, so
I went into this like not knowing what I was
getting into. And there's quite a history as well, so
it's a fun one. It's a fun one. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you can see our past cheese episodes. I would say
maybe greere in specific, maybe fondue, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yes, it is one of the traditional cheeses that goes
into fondue.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, it is, although I've also heard some arguments about
that people like to fight. Yes, well, I guess this
brings us to our question, Yes, emin tal what is it?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well. Amontal cheese, also called a ementoaler or simply Swiss cheese,
is a type of medium hard cow milk cheese that's
a pale yellow white in color and smattered with these
round holes of varying sizes throughout its body. They're called eyes,
and they can be up to the size of a cherry.
It is a firm and smooth and a little like
(02:30):
springy or chewy when it's a cool to room temperature,
and also melts well into a sort of stringy, soft goo.
And I mean that in the best way. The flavor
is nutty and a little buttery or sweet, with a
little bit of fruity tartness and a kind of grassy
hay flavor. Some iterations are pretty mild, but the ones
produce the traditional way tend to be more flavorful, and
(02:52):
they also get more distinctive the longer that they're aged.
It can be eaten on its own as a snack
or on toast, sandwiches, or melted into savory dishes like
fondue or casseroles or baked goods to add a little
bit of nutty richness in there. It's just like a
really nice cheese.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It's what cartoon mice love eating. It's like if a
large sponge were delicious. It's like, Okay, this is pretty specific,
but if you've ever line dried a sweater and then
it smells all like fresh air and sunshine, and then
(03:31):
you've worn it on a day that was a little
cool and you kind of needed a hug, that's what
it's like.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah, I have done that. Some days you need that.
You need these little comforting soft yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And feeling a little bit enclosed, like a little thunderjacket.
Mm hmm, yeah, I'm until. Cheese is traditionally made in
certain areas of Switzerland by certain traditional processes. Its quality
and style are upheld by European Union protected designation of
(04:10):
Origin laws, also called a PEDO or an AOP, depending
on which a language you're abbreviating or acronym. Yeah. However,
similar styles are made around the world. More on that,
a lot more on that in the history section. To
get that pdo ementtol cheese must be made from whole
raw milk from cows raised in and treated in certain
(04:31):
ways in certain areas of Switzerland, then processed less than
twenty four hours later within twenty kilometers of distance away.
The wheels have to be a certain size and aged
in certain conditions for a certain amount of time. That
milk has to have been processed in either copper kettles
or finishers, and the only things you can add to
(04:52):
it are rennet local lactic acid bacteria, specific propionic acid bacteria,
salt and water. The pressed wheel must undergo a fermentation,
storage process and an aging process for one of three
lengths of time at least four months, eight months, or
twelve months before they can be sold. They have to
be evaluated on a twenty point system of qualities like
(05:14):
eye size and earn at least eighteen points. But I'm
getting a little bit ahead of myself. Okay, so cheese.
It is a way of preserving milk before it goes bad.
Going bad is a lay term for microbes eating your
food before you get a chance to and making it
(05:34):
therefore anywhere from like unappetizing to downright toxic. In order
to preserve milk, there are a number of different steps
you can take, and one of them is to introduce
helpful microbes before the harmful ones have a chance to grow.
As we have talked about several times before, a type
of bacteria called lactic acid bacteria help preserve cheese because
(05:54):
they eat some of the sugars in milk and poop acids,
which helps separate out the water stuff that the way
from the solid stuff the kurds, which in this case
you then press into a wheel. You may also add
rennet here, which is a natural product that helps the
coagulation and separation process, which was originally found in baby
ruminant stomachs, but where it helps them digest milk. It's
(06:16):
often made from vegetarian sources today. Anyway, getting rid of
the water content helps prevent harmful microbes from growing. The
lactic acid itself also helps prevent microbes from growing and
In this case, you additionally apply saltwater brine to the
outside of the pressed wheel before storing it. And okay,
(06:37):
here is where the second type of bacteria that I
mentioned come in, species of propionic bacterium like pe fruit
and riki. Sure, great, great great species name.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
They'll eat lactic acid and then poop carbon dioxide plus
a couple of other acids acetic acid and propionic acids.
Those new acids will further transform into some of the
flavor molecules that make this cheese tasty. For example, its
fruity flavors also necessary BACTERIAO. Yeah, and the carbon dioxide
(07:18):
is useful here too, all right. For over one hundred
years was thought that the holes and mantl cheeses were
solely due to the action of those microbes giving off
carbon dioxide inside the cheese as it ripens, along with
the solidity yet elasticity of the cheese to allow that
gas to expand in the wheel, creating those nice round eyes.
(07:39):
But it turns out that a factor was missing from
the equation nucleation points for the gas bubbles. A little
bit more on this in the history section. But recently
researchers learned that modern, highly sanitary, closed milking systems weren't
mutting in particles of hay the traditionally got into the
milk without those microskuspic particles, which contain tiny air bubbles.
(08:03):
Pretty Much any carbon dioxide produced by the bacteria will
escape out through the cheese as the cheese like settles,
but with those particles as nucleation sites, the carbon dioxide
produced creates the characteristic bubbles. This can be a totally
sanitary process, by the way, like makers can add in
a few milligrams of just clean hay particles.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
To do the trick.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Interesting, love it, Love it. The aforementioned copper kettles and
or finishers also help make the cheese what it is
in ways that science hasn't actually figured out yet. The
idea is that the copper somehow helps the helpful bacteria
create a tasty cheese. In some regions that don't use
(08:47):
traditional copperware, makers will add copper sulfate to compensate.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Huh, I feel like we've read about that before. I
think we've come into this before.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, yeah, a real, real interesting, real interesting metal. We'll
have to I'm avoiding doing an episode on copper cookware
for this very reason.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Isn't that that was supposed to be our anniversary?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
We were like no, yeah, yeah, because because seven years
is copper traditionally and like wedding stuff. So but anyway, yeah,
here we go. Anyway, the wheels of cheese that are
produced are traditionally large, on average, about eighty five centimeters
in diameter, twenty two centimeters tall, and about ninety kilos.
(09:32):
That's like two feet nine inches wide, about nine inches
tall and weighing some two hundred pounds. Wow, yeppurs, who all.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Right, well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
As as as always, a cheese is a calorically dense food,
which is the entire idea. You've condensed all the nutrition
from milk into the cheese. Uh. You know, it's got
a got a good punch of protein, good punch, a
good punch of fats, some good good smattering of micro nutrients. Yeah,
you know, watch your portion sizes, eat a vegetable, drink
(10:12):
of water, milk, some cheese on your vegetables.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I don't know, this did make me crave a sandwich.
I haven't really craved a sandwich in a long time,
but doing the research for this, I was like, I
could really get some cheese on the sandwich. Yeah, very
happy right now? Man.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, I don't think that I've ever had real Amontal cheese.
I think I've only had like Swiss cheese varieties from
other places. So now I'm like, okay, projects.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yep, me as well. Projects, Well, we do have some numbers.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
For you, we do, Okay. Each wheel of emmental uses
over one thousand liters of milk. Wow, and Mmental style
cheeses are a one point six billion dollar industry worldwide.
As of twenty twenty three. North America is the largest
(11:11):
producer and consumer, which is big if true, because apparently
French consumption of mental is something like twenty two pounds
per person per year, which equals up to like a
gram per person per day. And based on that number,
like some researchers were like, okay, we need to study
(11:31):
the microbial and or probiotic effects of mental on the
human gut because of the sheer amount that French people
are eating.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
That's amazing. Yeah, wow, I've eaten so much cheese my
biomes is worthyarly effected study.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I mean, I mean we yeah, science call us where weep?
Probably have you heard about my chi giving that pdo
does take itself real seriously in Switzerland. Also in twenty seventeen,
a seller who was trying to pass off some thirty
(12:15):
five hundred metric tons of not Pdo cheese wound up
being sentenced to three years in prison and a one
million Swiss franc fine. That's a little bit over a
million dollars USD. The last I read, the case was
going to a federal court.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
They do indeed take it seriously, and they have like
a thing that they test for.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
We're oh, yeah, yeah, more on that, more on that, yeah,
in a minute, but for one more number for you,
or a number of more numbers for you in a
single bullet point. As of twenty twenty two, one hundred
and one mental Pdo cheese makers, working with some twenty
six thousand cows, were producing about fifteen thousand tons of
(13:00):
cheese per year and exporting about two thirds of that
to thirty countries, which might sound like a lot of cheese,
but it's actually a lot less production than it used
to be, and only some eight percent of total Swiss
cheese production. That is production of cheese in Switzerland, not
(13:20):
production of Swiss style cheese, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Which is something we're going to get into in the
history section.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Oh yeah, oh, this one goes places.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
I'm so excited.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Okay, so we're going to get into that, but first
we are going to get into a quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay.
So reminder, if you've listened to our cheese episodes, a
lot of our episodes, honestly, but our cheese episodes, lots
of cheeses were probably discovered at different times or even
at the same time, simultaneously but separately around the world.
(14:08):
We've told the story a million times. It's almost always
kind of some kind of accidental event and there you go.
People liked it. Let's make it cheese.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, let's make it even better.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Great, Yeah, let's do it. That being said, most historians
trace imental cheese to Switzerland out of the thirteenth century.
The earliest records we know of in the written record
come from a twelve ninety three mention of cheese being
made out of the Burn region of Switzerland. That being said,
the name imental didn't appear until centuries later, in the
(14:43):
mid fifteen hundreds, which, by the way, we're trying our best,
but imental is so easy to say a number of
different ways. I'm very tempted to keep saying elemental, but yep,
yep in Intel. One record from around then suggest that
this cheese was given as a wedding present. In one instance, heck, yeah,
(15:07):
good present. Yeah yeah, I mean I would love it too.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
The name Emmantal comes from the region where it's from,
the Emma River valley. Tall is a word for valley
in German, and you can add the er to the
end to mean from the Emma River valley. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yes. And when it comes to how exactly this cheese
arose in the region, many point to the cows, the temperature,
and the water, like basically the whole environment just came
together for this.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah yeah. It's this relatively low altitude area of the Alps,
so warm weather lasts longer there than in higher up regions,
meaning grass is available to the cows longer, meaning they
can produce more high quality milk every year.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And as we've discussed in various cheese episodes specifically from
this region, a lot of the stories of its creation
are kind of vague, but involves shepherds making cheese from
their livestock. In this case, cows and aging it in dark, cool,
damp caves. I have to say we didn't get the
love story that we normally get.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
But oh man, we didn't. Yeah, there was no There
was no sad cowherd pining over some lady, or ditching
his work in order to go chase some lady.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah exactly, or like impressed some lady.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
But yeah, or some lady saving her father's farm by
coming up with it. That's another popular one. Maybe to
impress a guy.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
I don't know that's true. That was not there here,
but the basics are still there though, Like a shepherd
milk cheese cave. Let's aage it in there.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah, a note here. Not all the cheese being produced
there originally was what we now know as emmental. The
style developed it and solidified over the next few centuries.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
One of the things I found really interesting about that
is that there's a popular legend that the large wheel
size of imintel cheese is due to a loophole in
the tax code. Essentially, cheeses were taxed not by weight,
but by the wheel, So why not just make a
huge wheel of product and pay less taxes. I don't
(17:21):
know if that's true, but we do run into a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Of tax related Oh yeah, issue, Absolutely, it wouldn't that
one wouldn't surprise me. A lot of stories. I'm kind
of like, Oh, that's clearly apocryphal, but that's what I'm like.
Oh yeah, evading taxes has been around forever.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I can totally see it. Yes, However, despite the large
wheel size, until the early eighteen hundreds, this cheese stayed
largely local. But perhaps because these producers start making so
much in these big wheels, like they've just had so
much product to spread across Europe. I'm sure things like
(18:03):
industrialization for transportation and increasing travel and globalization helped to
According to Imentaler's Switzerland website, which is kind of an
authority on this whole thing, many cheese dairies opened in
the Burn region during this time, increasing the production and
selling product on a larger scale, so more people were
(18:25):
eating it, more people wanted it, productions going up. The
Swiss started introducing Swiss cheese to North America as they
settled there in the mid eighteen fifties. Some set up
small cheese places in New York, eventually moving further west
to dairy hubs like Wisconsin, where they set up some
brought their copper pots for traditional cheesemaking with them. Others
(18:49):
got them in the United States, But as the popularity
of the cheese grew in the US, it went through
a rebrand, becoming largely known as Swiss cheese, in part
I read because it was easier for non Swiss folks
to pronounce Swiss as opposed to immantal imtaler.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
In.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
This in turn inspired more Americanized Swiss cheeses that further
confused the category slash name. Some of these cheeses have
been dubbed American Swiss cheeses since then.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Yeah, I've read that there's only one cheesemaker in the
United States doing like the full traditional method. But I'm
not an expert in this, and I didn't cite the
source here in my notes, so who knows. Who knows
if that's correct. I'm just saying things into microphones now. However,
I can tell you for a fact that this is
(19:44):
where we get cheeses like baby Swiss from those are
like kind of like sub varietals that branched off, right.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
But you know, during the all of this happening, of course,
in Switzerland, they're like, wait a minute, they're hold up.
So in nineteen oh one, Swiss cheese sellers, milk producers,
and some federal authorities came together to form the Swiss
Cheese Union Great name. It was later broken up into
different organizations in nineteen ninety six. Some of them are
(20:15):
still around. But yeah, spread out.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, yeah, that's where that emmentaler Switzerland Great eventually would
come from. But anyway, in nineteen seventeen, an American researcher
by the name of William Clark published to study the
first study about how bacteria produced carbon dioxide leads to
those eyes in Swiss style cheese.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
In the aftermath of World War Two, the Swiss government
needed to find ways to make some money and up
their exports while also sustaining their population, so they offered
funding to boost the production and distribution of various cheeses,
including mental. By the following year, producers increased production of
mental to fifty thousand tons, which was it was. It
(21:01):
was a market increase.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
A big jump, yes, another big jump. Skipping ahead to
nineteen ninety there were some eight hundred mentol cheesemakers in Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
And then I just had to put this in here.
If you want to look up the pictures. I highly recommended.
In nineteen ninety four, the Olympic Swiss ski team wore
speed suits designed to look like Swiss cheese.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
So great.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
I don't know what I was expecting, Like it's a
clear idea, but it was more vibrant than I thought
it would be. I highly recommend looking up. Moving on,
in two thousand and six, the Swiss were granted the
AOP protected designation of origin for Mental cheese.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Then in two thousand and eight, Swiss scientists developed this
method for genetically marking cheeses so that you can test
the finished product for authenticity. It involves adding specific lactic
acid bacteria that can be easily genetically tested for and
that also, furthermore, will not change the traditional makeup of
(22:18):
the cheese. They started applying this technology to Mental in
twenty eleven, and it was the first cheese in fact,
that they applied it to.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
And it's kind of funny to read the producers talk
about it, because they're like, will no one what they'd
just my cheese. It's gonna be legit. You make the
fake stuff, they're gonna get you. Emental was recognized as
Switzerland's first geographical brand in twenty fifteen by the Swiss
(22:51):
Federal Institute of Intellectual Property. That being said, in several
articles I read that are pretty recent, the popularity of
Swiss cheese in the US has really muddied the waters
of understanding imintel here and elsewhere. One of the reasons
given for this is that after the market was flooded
with imitators but also with the real thing after World
(23:14):
War Two, it became viewed as a staple cheese, almost
a substance cheese, and that people started to view it
as old fashioned. And yes, I know we've talked about
it before, but in cartoons, animated cheese almost always has
holes in it. It's almost always associated this kind of
like white yellow thing with holes.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah. But because of that, because a lot of those
cartoons are older, although it still persists today, it just
became associated with old timey.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I would assume that also the perceived old timiness of
fondue in this country is probably a little bit of
the issue as well, since it is one of those
three traditional ingredients of cheeses in fon Due that, yeah,
it kind of got wrapped up into that and so
now we're like, oh, that's old cheese.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Who wants old cheese? That's not that's not a thing.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Wrapped Up in all of this as well is a
number of really complicated agricultural policies and like supply demand issues.
In Switzerland, for example, going back to the nineteen nineties
and before, there were dairy subsidies for the production of milk,
and the surplus often went to the manufacture of the
popular emental, which led to like too much cheese, and
(24:38):
then the price absolutely dove as the industry tried to
sell off their stock. A few agricultural reforms helped solve that,
but then heading into the two thousands, the Pedo Consortium
tried to further enforce quotas to keep prices stable, but
some cheesemakers didn't like that, and then the system borked
(24:59):
and destabilized for it. Yeah, it's been, it's been from this.
This is I don't understand like this kind of economic
politics very well. That's not really my forte. But I
almost just said fortnite.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Where did that come from?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
I love this okay anyway.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
And forte is also not fortnite, clearly not.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
But but right, this is a very brief summary of
a number of very complicated political issues at any rate.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah, speaking of brief summaries and going back to something
you mentioned earlier, Lauren. Also in twenty fifteen, the Swiss
government's food research center Agroscope, published a steady detailing research
that they'd done into why the number of holes or
eyes in this cheese was decreasing, which was which, Yes,
(25:55):
they were going down, and as you said, this is
a factor that the cheese is graded on. So their
theory was that the milk being used had become too clean.
Little bits of hay debris, for instance, were great for
carbon dioxide bubbles to attach to and make the holes
in the process, but as tech had modernized and become
increasingly cleaner, that went away. So in twenty twenty three,
(26:18):
the assembly of the Imentaler Consortium again great debated allowing
for hay particles to be allowed back in. I don't
know if they've reached a verdict yet, but they were
debating it recently.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Okay, some more weird science for you. In twenty eighteen,
a group of students from the University of Bern helped
a local horse veterinarian slash cheese celler owner run an
experiment where wheels of mmentol were exposed to different kinds
of music while they aged for eight months. I'm speaking
(26:57):
slowly because I want you to really absorb every element
of wackadoo sentence.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I really am, all right.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So they got nine relatively small wheels of mmental from
this award winning Swiss cheesemaker. The wheels were just ten
kilos or twenty two pounds each. They then constructed these
nine wooden boxes and rigged up each wheel of cheese
with its own like personal entertainment system that piped sound
waves directly into the cheese. All right, so it was
(27:28):
getting like the full vibration. Yeah, there was one control
wheel that actually got silence, three that received non musical
tones of high, mid or low frequency, and then five
that got a song on loop. Annie, judging by your
horrified expression, you agree with me that this is torture,
like cheese torture.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
What monsters would do this to a cheese?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Lord?
Speaker 1 (27:53):
What monsters?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
I you know, I can only assume that the cheese
didn't to that much, But I you know, I don't know,
all right, Uh, Because of course you want to know
what songs these perhaps bonstrous experimenters played. They chose examples
from five different categories of music. Classical represented by Mozart's
(28:17):
The Magic Flute, rock represented by led Zeppelins, Stairway to Heaven,
hip hop represented by tribe called Quests, Jazz, ambient represented
by Yellow's Monolith, and techno represented by Vrill. I've never
heard that name out loud Rill's UV all right.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
They played.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
They played the sounds twenty four hours a day, and
apparently the cheeses exposed to sound were generally more mild
than the control cheese, except for the hip hop cheese,
which was notably sweeter and stronger in terms of smell
and taste. The quote was remarkably frue It was remarkably fruity.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Oh wow. I was hoping at the end of this
we'd have like an emo cheese, just clearly somehow. Wow.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Based on this, the aforementioned horse veterinarian slash cheese seller
owner really wants to set up another experiment with like
different kinds of hip hop and see what happens. So
oh interesting.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I like that. As judgy as I was, I was
worried for the cheese only. Oh yeah, yeah, don't I
guess that's better than silence. I just feel like listening
to the same song over and over.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Oh yeah, no, I'm thinking of that episode of Walking
Dead where they're like torturing Darryl.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
And oh yeah, see, I love listening to the same
song over and over. But when it's done, it's done,
and I never want to hear it years years later.
The cheese, you know, well, well again. You never know
where the research will go. But back to legal matters.
(30:10):
In twenty twenty three, Switzerland lost a case trying to
secure the rights to an emmental trademark in the European Union.
Swiss producers brought this about largely because both Germany and
France produced an emmental cheese, but the court ruled it
was too late, that it was too ubiquitous a term,
and that they didn't bring enough proof that these cheeses
(30:31):
were taking away. These cheeses from France and Germany were
taking away from the cheeses from Switzerland's business, and usually
the label mentioned Switzerland in some way when it was
from France or Germany. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
They were hoping to regulate the cheeses of this style
from other places be labeled mental from you know, wherever,
and that the Swiss mental would be the only ones
allowed to label their cheese simply m entall in the EU.
But right, nope, nope, Yeah, it has been a struggle.
(31:07):
Production has been decreasing steadily over the past few decades.
In just the last ten years, it's dropped from about
twenty five thousand tons a year to only fifteen thousand.
The industry cites lack of demand for the more expensive
PDO version and like the current strength of the Swiss franc,
making it just way cheaper to get a hold of
(31:29):
copies being made wherever you are, and says the traditional
Swiss cheesemakers have because of that, started pivoting to making
other types of cheese, but bless they are trying. For example,
in October of twenty twenty three, a promotional event from
a couple of Swiss dairy producers involved this one hundred
(31:50):
kilo wheel of emental being rolled ninety kilometers from its
factory in m Andaal all the way to Zurich, like
by hand, I'm pretty sure, like up and down all
through the heck and mountains. That is a two hundred
and twenty pound wheel being rolled fifty five miles through
the mountains. It was displayed along the way in several locations,
(32:15):
accompanied by cheese and wine tastings, and was ushered across
the finish line by a local mayor and a rapper
by the name of stephla Chef. I don't know who
that is, but I adore the name. Yeah, and then
chunks of it were sent to Swiss embassies around the
world for tastings.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
Wow, that sounds fun and delicious. Yes, also pretty wild
promotional event. Hey, cheese rolling is a thing people have
written in about it. So it's a big hunk of
cheese to roll.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yes, that's like a a that's a solid, person sized
wheel of cheese.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
It's a big wheel of cheese. Hey, if anybody happened
to witness this, please let us know because that's that's amazing.
That's a sight to any to behold. Oh yeah, oh.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yeah, I mean if you've ever rolled cheeses yourself.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Oh yes, any cheese we will accept. But I think woof,
we've gone all over the place. I think that's what
we have to say for now, though.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
It is it is we. We do already have some
listener mail for you, though, and we are going to
get into that as soon as we get back from
one more quick break for a word from our sponsors,
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
(33:59):
we're back with no.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I do always think of Tom and Jerry when I
think of Swiss Cheese. I didn't even watch it that
much as a kid, but it was very I think
even if you didn't watch it, it's pretty iconic. Yeah. Yeah,
well a lot of traps with the cheese.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah yeah, between that and like itching and scratchy.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Okay, First off, I have two short
notes that I very much enjoyed and wanted to share
that were in response to our recent anniversary special. First
from Jen release the Lauren Curse Words super Cut, and
then from David Hi, I just wanted to say, a
(34:45):
live show featuring Lauren's unfiltered profanity sounds like a feature,
not a book. So if you didn't, if you haven't
heard that episode yet, we discussed one of the things
holding us back from a live show is that to Lauren,
it does curse quite a bit and it gets cut out.
(35:05):
But I've appreciated hearing from the people Lauren.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Yeah, this is slightly embarrassing but delightful. Thank you, Thank
you all for appreciating weird nerd who happened to Custolic
sailors a long stream too.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I'm trying, I'm trying.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Oh impressed me. Oh gosh, A mill.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Wrote a bit late to the party. But I just
listened to your Lincoln Berry episode and it was very
good and interesting. I'm Swedish, so must if it was
not that new, but still always fun to listen to
you too. One thing you didn't bring up, and it's
quite a bummer, so I understand if you didn't want to.
Is that a lot of Lincoln berries used in commercial
products are picked by seasonal workers from Asia, working in
(36:02):
very poor conditions for low wages. I was just part
of a big berry research conference here in Sweden and
a common sentiment among most researchers and presenters was that
wild berries and lincoln berries are very healthy. We pick
too little, we need to eat more, but a lot
of the workers need better conditions. Now a lot of
speeds pick their own berries and that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
But it's just something to keep in mind. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, I gosh, I feel like this came
up in maybe our cloud berry episode as well. About yeah, yeah,
it's certainly a problem here in the United States too,
and a very real concern of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
I mean, honestly, your kind of summary of like they're healthy,
we pick too little, we need to eat more, and
workers need better conditions. I feel like that fits for
a lot of things we talk about, absolutely, and it
is important to talk about. Yes, oh goodness, of course
always yeah, always ride in with a kill joy corner
if you have one. Uh, we're fans over here of
(37:08):
thinking about stuff as it turns out. Also, I need
you to understand that that the phrase big Berry research
conference was so cool that I that my brain stopped
and I had to restart that sentence. Yeah, I mean,
I want to know so much more about this conference,
this conference. Please, you're like dangling something in front of us.
(37:37):
I want it so cool. Oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Also, I had to restart twice because a second time
I read I'm sorry the first time that I restarted, Uh,
I read the phrase like it was big Berry, as
though it's like it's like big government or like you know, yeah,
big oil. Yeah, and that was not the correct inflection.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Right inflection matters, it really does, Oh gosh. Yeah, Well again,
you listeners are doing all kinds of cool things, yes,
and we do really appreciate when you let us know
about that or something that we missed. We also love
hearing your thoughts on a possible live show, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Thank you to these listeners for writing in. If you
would like to write to us, you can. Our email
is hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots of more good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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