October 15, 2025 • 33 mins
This cheese made from stretched curds can be eaten young and tender or aged and sharp. Anney and Lauren melt over the science and history of provolone.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and I come to save a production of iHeartRadio.
I'm Anny rec and I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Lauren vogel Bomb and today we have an episode for
you about provolone cheese or provolone if you prefer the
actual Italian pronunciation.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yesof what's an episode it is? Is any particular reason
this was on your mind, Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It seemed like an interesting story. I kind of have
just like a list of cheeses yes, in a spreadsheet somewhere,
and I was kind of doing like a like a
brief Google and I was like, oh, yeah, sure, let's
that sounds cool. Let's talk about that one. Uh, I'm
(00:54):
that's a head. That's a heavy sigh, because this is
another one where I severely underestimated the stickiness of the
reading for it. It's it's a little bit more difficult
to get to the bottom of than I was thinking
it was gonna be because most of the information about
it is in like poorly translated Italian. Yeah, yeah, this
(01:19):
is one of those episodes. I know we've discussed before,
but sometimes I feel like I do a lot of reading.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
To get very little. Yeah, and I read so much.
I was trying really hard to get to the bottom
of American style problom especially and I just couldn't I
couldn't find so listeners. If you have any knowledge or
resources about any of this, please let us go. Oh
(01:47):
my goodness. Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And it's also like I I'm starting to wonder, I'm
just like, is Google just irreparably broken right now? Like,
like are people mucking with things in a way that
because like like like we don't get the same quality
of search results that we used to.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And I'm like, oh, no, I don't like this, Lauren.
This has been a concern of mine that I was worried,
I was being paranoid about for a long time. I
have looked into it. You're not wrong. And also this
is something else i've kind of I don't know really
(02:24):
what to do about, because people need to make money
to make content. But there's so many paywalls now.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
It's becoming harder I feel like to get to get
to some sources that I would like to get to.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
But here we are. Yeah, and you know, we are
only two humble podcasters. We cannot subscribe to literally every
publication on the planet.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
No, and especially like some things are so specific. Yeah,
and a lot of this stuff was very very specific. Yeah,
but we did do our best. We did, we did.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Sorry that that was just like a solid three minutes
of us, like low key complaining about our crazy dream jobs.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yes, yes, it's just we want the information. Yeah, yes,
it can be frustrating if you can't find it. But
we do love talking about cheese, you know, we love
Oh yeah, we do.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, and you can specifically see our episodes on Mozzarella
and Buffalo Mozzarella. Those are those are related. But yeah,
any any cheese episode, all of them probably. Oh yes,
make yourself a little cheese plate of episodes.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, cheese plate of episodes. I don't like that. Okay, Well,
I guess that brings us to our question.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Oh sure, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Provolone what is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Uh, Provolone is a category of stretched cheeses, usually made
from cow milk, that are aged different amounts of time
to produce finished cheeses with different textures and flavors, but
always this kind of like sweet, milky, kind of bouncy base.
As the cheese ages, it'll go from like tender and
mellow to firm and kind of buttery nutty to crumbly
(04:14):
and sort of tangy spiced. They tend to deeper in
color from a creamy white to gold and yellow as
they age, and will develop a slightly tougher, drier natural rind.
Prevalons are sometimes smoked to give them an extra layer
of flavor and a deeper color. The younger versions especially
are just real good at melting. They turn into, you know,
(04:35):
just like a stretchy pully dream when they're heated. So
they're often used in like hot savory dishes that you
want some stretchy cheese in, which is like all of
the dishes probably, I don't know, I can't tell you
what to do.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
The older versions are more likely to be used as
like a table cheese perhaps eaten with other cheeses and
or meats and acoutremonon like a cheeseplate sort of deal,
maybe with a glass and nice red wine to play
off of that spice. Provolone. Provolone is a beautiful spectrum,
you know, depending on the age, it can be like
(05:13):
like playing with like a new right out of the box,
like still has a plastic smell toy, or like finding
a kind of weird vintage tin and wood toy. You know,
the experience is anywhere from just like kind of like
super elastic to a little bit funky.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I love that, you know. I think I've only had
provolone on sandwiches, which I suspect of American provolone.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, I don't know what. I've got
some examples later, so we'll we'll, we'll look in here.
I think I've only had the very young kind for
the most part, so but again maybe okay, but so so.
Provolones are this style of stretched cheese. They originate in Italy,
(06:02):
where the term for that is pasta fialada or spun
paste cheese. Mozzarellas are another stretched cheese, though mozzarella is
sold fresh, like as fresh as possible, so it retains
a lot of spring and moisture, whereas provolone is aged,
leading to it sometimes being referred to as Mozzarella's older brother.
(06:23):
But before we get to the aging, let's go over
some cheese and stretchy cheese in particular basics. All right, So,
cheese is, as we say all the time on here,
a tasty way of preserving milk and condensing its nutrients.
Milk being an emulsion, a stable blend of little globs
of fats, and stuff spread throughout water and stuff, so
(06:45):
to condense it, you convince the fats and stuff to
clump together into kurds so that you can drain off
most of the water and stuff, which is the way
that also works to preserve it because many microbes need
water to live, so reducing the water reduces the microbes.
In the case of provolone, you traditionally use a type
(07:06):
of enzyme called rennet, and rennet is found in the
stomachs of baby ruminants and there it helps them digest
milk by separating it into curds and whey. Rennet can
also be extracted from certain plants or grown in labs
using microbes. You might also add another animal derived enzyme
called liepaste to the mix, which will further help break
(07:27):
down compounds in the milk for our purposes here to
provide like buttery and sharp flavors in the finished cheese.
And you might add some whey from a previous batch
of cheese, which will contain lactic acid bacteria that eat
the sugars in the milk and poop acids which will
also coagulate milk bacteria poop. Yeah, so whatever coagulants you're
(07:52):
using you add them to your milk and it will
start to separate into the curds. In the way you
cut the curds, cook them a bit to firm them up,
then and squeeze them in cloth to drain away. The
way you might let the curds sit out at room
temperature for like a whole half a day. And that way,
even if you haven't added any bacterial starter culture the
(08:13):
lactic acid bacteria that live all around us, we'll get
to work eating the sugars in the curds and pooping acids.
You want a pasta filata cheese to acidify a bunch
because those acids will will dissolve some of the calcium
phosphate in the milk proteins, which lets them hydrate more,
which will keep them flexible during the next step, which
(08:34):
is stretching. So basically what you're looking to do is
to muck around with the proteins in the curd, encouraging
them to form up in these long, flexible parallel chains.
So you heat the curd in very hot water, like
like at least eighty degrees celsius or one hundred and
seventy five fahrenheit, like near to boiling and the curds
(08:57):
will start to melt and fuse, and you keep taking
this resulting massive cheese out and stretching it over and
over again in a single direction, which lines up the
protein strands and traps fat in water among them in
these tiny threadlike pockets or channels. And this is going
to lead to something that's very different from the structure
(09:19):
of something like say a scheddar, which is more like
an even web of proteins in fats with less moisture involved.
So after stretching, you wind up with these big ribbons
or like ropes of cheese, which you then for provolone
wind tightly into rounds, pushing out any air bubbles. Afterwards,
(09:39):
you salt the rounds in brine for at least several hours,
and then take them out and separate the big rounds
into however many bits you want and hand form or
mold them into whatever size and shape, often a cylinder
or maybe a kind of like parish bulb form.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
The pieces are then sometimes given a wax or wax
and paper rind, and each will be tied up with
twine in like specific traditional patterns so that they can
be hung up for aging. Because Essentially they're too soft
to sit on a shelf. They would just sort of
blob off. Also, parts of this process can be mechanized.
(10:22):
I've been talking about, like the mostly traditional form of
the process, you know, like like the stretching spinning process.
For example. I can't imagine why someone wouldn't want to
dip their hands in near boiling water and stretch a
cheese over and over again. But if you do, you
can probably get a lot of money for them. And
of course different producers have different specifications, like you know,
(10:45):
you might brind the formed cheeses instead of the whole rounds.
I don't know whatever they want to do. Yeah, at
any rate, this brings us to aging. So how long
a provlone is aged will determine its category. Younger ones
are called dulce or mild, versus the older ones, which
are called pecante or strong. And if you've never had
(11:08):
an aged provolone, you can think of it a little
like the differences between again, using cheddar as an example,
like a mild versus a sharp cheddar. And yeah, for provolone,
the younger ones are going to melt better. I will
say that when a deli or cheese shop receives a
whole provolone, like a whole, big old provolone, they might
(11:29):
continue to age it in house before ever serving it,
which I adore. The finished cheeses might be sold whole
to a consumer or a cut and packaged in smaller units.
If you don't need an entire few kilos of cheese,
I don't know. I don't know what you're up to.
There are a couple of pdos for provolones in Italy.
A PDO meaning protected designation of origin, which is a
(11:52):
label that indicates the product was made in a particular
way in a particular place, you know, like sparkling wine
versus champagne. So there's a provolone del Monaco or Monks
Provolone which is made in southern Italy in the Campagna region,
specifically in the Litari Mountains and Sorrento Peninsula around like
(12:12):
Naples and Pompeii, that kind of area. At least twenty
percent of the milk that Del Monaco is made of
has to come from this local breed of cattle called
a geralise. The cows have to be fed on at
least forty percent fresh fodder. The raw milk is coagulated
using rennet only, no starter culture, and the cheese will
(12:33):
be ripened for six months to two years. The resulting
cheese is a rounded pear shape, usually with a creamy
white interior and a smooth, yellowish rind, sometimes sort of
lobed with vertical ridges from the twine, making it look
like a melon or gourd sort of. Typical sizes are
(12:54):
around three kilos or five kilos. Then there's also the
Provoloneveldna pedo, a named for the region it's from, which
is the Po River valley up in northern Italy, stretching
from like south of Venice in the east up to
the foothills of the mountains in the west. Volpadana Pedo
specifies that it's mild or dulce varieties aged from ten
(13:18):
days to like two or three months should be made
using mostly calf rennet, whereas the strong or pecante varieties
aged three months to over a year should be made
with mostly kid or lamb rennet, and that goador sheet
product in there will add a little bit of a
different like gamey, funky spiced flavor to the final product.
(13:39):
Both ages might be smoked. This style comes in a
number of different shapes, in like long cylindrical salami shapes,
in large cone shapes, in those lobed melon shapes, and
in these smaller bottle or flask shapes, which are like
a larger bulb on the bottom with a smaller bulb
on the top, formed with twine tied around the neck
(14:02):
between the two bulbs.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, all the.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Different shapes can come in all kinds of different sizes,
from like a fraction of a kilo to over one
hundred kilos, and there are different aging requirements for each.
That's like a few ounces to over two hundred pounds.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Wow, I yes, yes they do. Look it looks kind
of cool, all the shapes that provolone comes.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, if you've never seen them, look up pictures. But yeah,
other places do make cheeses more or less of this
style and call it provolone or provolone if you're American. Yeah,
different milks like buffalo might be used. American provolone does
tend to be at the youngest end of aging and
very mild in flavor. I saw a real spicy opinion
(14:53):
about this in Culture the Cheese magazine from this Italian
style deli employee by the name of Jeffrey Demyo who
called it fauvolone. But you can find American provolones made
pecante style too.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Ovalone.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
I know, right, I think I said oh no out
loud to my computer.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
It's pretty solid burn though. We've gotta acknowledge that absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
But yeah, a prolone can be used in all kinds
of savory dishes in the US. You often find younger
provolones on like a pizza kind of situation, and the
older ones adding a little bit of a twang to
like a Philly cheese steak or a muffalata sandwich. So, Annie,
if you've ever had a good muffalata, and I believe
(15:48):
you have, there's a deep chance that you had a
decent problon on that one.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Okay, I believe I have as well.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, New Orleans. Yeah, I've not experienced the full chili
Philly cheese steak things, so we'll have to come back
to it anyway. But yeah, you can bake a dulce
in a dish to make like a little melty, stretchy
cheese dip, or layer it into a baked pasta or
other casserole type dish, or maybe shred some on top
(16:17):
of a risotto, or just make like a real kick
and grilled cheese sandwich. Yeah oh yeah, oh right, you
can use a pecante. It's more like a seasoning for
rich sauce or meat or roasted veg or something like that.
Or maybe baked into a cheese bread or a soup
fle or yeah, just on a nice cheeseplate.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
So many options options.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Need to buy some cheese. Always never ends, the need
to buy cheese. Okay, well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Cheese is a neutrient dense product on purpose. Again, it's
literally made to be nutrient dents, you know. But but
if if, if that makes it a treat. Treats are
so nice and nutrient dents isn't bad. That's just that's productive.
You're being efficient, that's right, cheese productive. Well, we do
(17:23):
have some numbers for you, uh, frustratingly few, if you
can tell based on my sig right there. So, the
volpadana pedio provolone alone accounts for some one point one
percent of all cheese consumption by Italians, with a value
of some seventy seven million euros a year.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Oh, I'm so curious about all the other cheeses. I
want to know.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Uh, one large provolone provolone manufacturer in or Then, Italy
produces some one point two million kilos of provolone a year. Meanwhile,
in the United States, as of twenty twenty one, cheesemakers
were producing over three hundred and seventy six million pounds
(18:17):
of provolone, which is over one hundred and seventy million kilos.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Wow, it's a lot of provolone.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Oh yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Well, we do have a history for you, as difficult
as it was to wrangle. Yep, yeah, we do.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
We do, and we are going to get to it
as soon as we get back from a quick break
forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And we're back. Thank you sponsoring, Yes, thank you, so
yes see our previous cheese episode of Mozzarella. Specifically, but basically,
the history of cheese is often credited to an accident
related to environmental factors, often with some kind of legend
around love and or royalty simultaneously in different places. I
have to say, your Alsburg cheese really did put that
(19:19):
changed my whole outlook. That was a different one. It
was an outlier. It was specifically researched, but in general
that's usually right.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Right, there's a lovelorn or a love lucky shepherd or
shepherdess involved.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
It depends on the telling of whether the shepherd lost
the love or found it. Finally, right, cheese is very
romantic in that way. I suppose it is very romantic.
It is good cheese, plate some nice wine. Right, it's
a good time. That's a good time, all right. But
specifically about provolomne domestication and farming of dairy cattle got
(20:00):
underway on the Sorrento Peninsula and what would become Italy
as far back as two hundred and sixty BCE and
for centuries. The peoples in this region transformed the landscape
and created traditions, culture, and economy using these cattle and
the products that they produced. Over time, the cattle were
selectively bred for meat and milk production again see our
(20:24):
mozzarella episode. But by the twelfth century CE, buffalo milk
cheeses similar to mozzarella existed in parts of Italy. These
cheeses were made by hand stretching the curds and then
forming them into balls, and this cheese grew in popularity
in the eighteenth century. Specifically, and the same method would
be used to make provolone. Records indicate provolone originated in
(20:48):
southern Italy in the seventeen hundreds. Cheese producers used cow
and or buffalo milk to create curds and then stretch
and spin it.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And agent afterwards. Think the cheeses were called provola from
their globe like shape, Prova being a Neapolitan word for globe.
Provolone means large provola. That's unclear whether provolone sorry was
being used yet.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yes, yes, And the story goes that cheese producers from
the Sorrento Peninsula and specifically the Litari Mountains, arriving via
ship in Naples and the cool early mornings, would wear
these sackcloths as cloaks as they set out to sell
their wares, including provolone, And because of those people started
to think that these farmers were monks.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Or just that they looked like monks, like ah, hey,
the monks are.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Back, yeah, yeah, so the cheese the game known as
provolone del Monaco. During the Italian Unification period of the
nineteenth century, after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, regional travel
became easier for Italians. Southern Italians migrated into the northern
part of the country, specifically into Po Valley, and they
(22:07):
brought their dairy cattle and cheese making traditions with them,
particularly in this case their tradition of stretching curds to
make cheeses. And the Po Valley was particularly conducive for
milk production and the environment was great for aging this
type of cheese. There are a lot of aromatics for
the livestock to graize on as well, from what I read,
which probably helped flavor the cheese. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Po Valley already had a really good dairy industry going
by that time. It was a really natural place for
this form of cheesemaking to take root.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
The cheese came to be known as provolone val Padonna,
after the Po Valley ur Valpadana. The term provolone referring
to the cheese first appeared in the written record in
eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Which specifically lines up more with the Po Valley cheesemaking
timeline or tradition. Also the volpaedana tendency to produce cheeses
in larger sizes, so not again again the term like
provola versus provolone yeah, I found it very sticky to
(23:15):
try to unravel. Yes, but it was around this time
that one of the popular brands, Ariccio, got its start
in southern Italy, though they did soon move north.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Italian immigrants coming to the US in the late nineteenth
century and early twentieth century brought provolone with them.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Also, right around the turneth century, a number of dairy
co ops started setting up in Italy to help manage
and promote local production, including two that still produce provolone today.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
And the first detailed description of the breed of cow
quy to production of sub promolone adrialise, appeared in writing
in nineteen o nine.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
There's this smallish breed that comes from a mix of
local and imported cattle stocks. They're known for not producing
a lot of milk, but like milk of really good
calling m.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
The salami shape of provolone was invented in the early
nineteen hundreds, which made for easier slicing. And this is
where I tried so hard to learn about American provolone, which,
if you're thinking, what does that exactly mean, it's it's
kind of a different thing in a lot of cases.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Again, it's usually it's usually very mild and yeah, just
just a nice mild, good melting cheese.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
And so a lot of the like strong like like the.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Aging, the aging and the flavor process that I was
talking about earlier doesn't really apply to most of it. Yeah,
most of it is pretty strictly a It comes in
these giant cylinders to be easily sliced in delies, added
to whatever sandwich you're making.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yes, but I did find this. In nineteen forty seven,
a processed cheese that was a combination of cheddar, Swiss provolone,
and smoke flavor called Provel was patented in the US.
And Wow, people are opinionated about this cheese. I found
(25:24):
a whole podcast series about this cheese. I cannot wait
to do an episode on it. Listeners, please write in
if you have opinions. It's really from only this one
place and people people have thoughts.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Okay, Yeah, I mean I love talking about a processed
cheese and yes, I've never heard of it before, so yeah,
I'm so excited. Heck yeah. Meanwhile, back in Italy, regulations
around making provolone first went in to law in nineteen
(26:01):
thirty eight and were updated in the mid fifties, at
which point products made to these new specifications were given
the denomination provolone typical. The Consortium for the Protection of
Valpadana Provolone formed in nineteen seventy five. Then in the
(26:22):
early nineties in Italy there was this argument about provolone
typical being too generic a term or not referring specifically
enough to what these cheesemakers wanted to say was cool,
and so groups started lobbying for more specific pdos.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yes, it wasn't until nineteen ninety six that the PDO
for Valpadonna provolone was accepted by the EU.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Delmonico got theirs in twenty ten, and in twenty seventeen
Italy honored over local products with an illustration on postage stamps,
and one of them was a melon shaped provolon.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
That's fantastic. Yeah. I was thinking about this the other day,
about just how many things are so specific and people
feel so much tradition or pride around it when it
comes to food, and I love put it on a
potion stamp.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Yeah yeah, oh well, listeners, definitely we would love to
hear from you.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
You've got any thoughts, resources opinions, please let us know.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yes, yes, we love all opinions that cheese ones, perhaps especially.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Indeed, but that is what we have to say about
provolone for now. It is.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we're going to get into that as soon as
we get back from one more quick break for word
from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
We're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're
back with.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Listen the old cheese rolling down the hill.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I know provolone couldn't.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Really roll, but depends on depends on the shape of
the problem. Yeah, and also like, if you get enough
momentum going, I think.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, anything can roll. Oh okay, So John wrote about
our Apricot episode. I blame my old ears. I was
listening to this episode and y'all said, bring dimension to
meat dishes. What I heard was bring dementia to meat dishes. WTF.
(28:56):
That's so rude. Oh now, I understand you would never
bring dementia to meat dishes if we could help it. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, that's that's uh route at best and hazardous at worst.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So yeah, yeah, it's hard when you hear something though
you can't canon ripes.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, even even when I'm listening to us sometimes I'm like,
what did we just say?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yes, when we listen back, there's several times I'm like,
what's that that makes sense? Is that?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Is that understandable to humans?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Usually it is, but sometimes it's questionable.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah. Uh, Haley wrote, You've read my mail a couple
of times on the show, once about my big chili
opinions trademark, and again about my weird cookies never forget
the canon bear cookie. Well, both of those topics crossed
over a few days ago. I had a request for
a peanut butter and chili cookie as goes the tradition
(30:03):
of dipping a peanut butter sandwich into your bowl as
you go. This is one of my favorite meals and
mentioned in my original letter, so of course I did it.
No cookie was fine, if not unremarkable, aside from this
soggy texture and clash of the crunchy vegetables. However, that
taste test video has been one of the most divisive
(30:26):
things I've ever posted on the Internet. It turns out
everyone has big chili opinions trademark. I touched the video
of me taste testing the cookie and a follow up
poll with lots of heated arguing in the comments. I
never expected my life to turn this way, but I'm
loving every minute of it.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Okay, this is amazing and it doesn't surprise me at all.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Oh certainly not.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Now.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Chili is certainly something that people have big opinions about,
and I have to say the sense the cookie was fine,
if not unremarkable, aside from the soggy texture and clash
of the crunchy vegetables. I no one has put together
those words in quite that order before. Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
It's an excellent sentence. You should get it, frank, absolutely stunning.
Oh that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I again like this kind of
absolutely groundbreaking cookie boldness is really what we need more
of in the world.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
It's true, it's true. So we always love hearing more
about that and keep going. I just that's what I
gotta say. Yeah, yeah, people will weigh in. Oh yeah,
I find if you give them something like this, Yeah,
you're gonna get a lot of opinions and comments.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
So yeah, congratulations or we're sorry.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I'm sure you're learning a lot o getting some ideas. Oo.
Yeah yeah, Well, thank you to both of those listeners
for writing in. If you would like to write to us,
you can or email us hello at saborpod dot com.
(32:28):
We are also on social media.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
You can find us on Instagram and Blue Sky at
saber pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from
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
(32:50):
more good things are coming your way
Hello, and I come to save a production of iHeartRadio.
I'm Anny rec and I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Lauren vogel Bomb and today we have an episode for
you about provolone cheese or provolone if you prefer the
actual Italian pronunciation.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yesof what's an episode it is? Is any particular reason
this was on your mind, Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It seemed like an interesting story. I kind of have
just like a list of cheeses yes, in a spreadsheet somewhere,
and I was kind of doing like a like a
brief Google and I was like, oh, yeah, sure, let's
that sounds cool. Let's talk about that one. Uh, I'm
(00:54):
that's a head. That's a heavy sigh, because this is
another one where I severely underestimated the stickiness of the
reading for it. It's it's a little bit more difficult
to get to the bottom of than I was thinking
it was gonna be because most of the information about
it is in like poorly translated Italian. Yeah, yeah, this
(01:19):
is one of those episodes. I know we've discussed before,
but sometimes I feel like I do a lot of reading.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
To get very little. Yeah, and I read so much.
I was trying really hard to get to the bottom
of American style problom especially and I just couldn't I
couldn't find so listeners. If you have any knowledge or
resources about any of this, please let us go. Oh
(01:47):
my goodness. Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And it's also like I I'm starting to wonder, I'm
just like, is Google just irreparably broken right now? Like,
like are people mucking with things in a way that
because like like like we don't get the same quality
of search results that we used to.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And I'm like, oh, no, I don't like this, Lauren.
This has been a concern of mine that I was worried,
I was being paranoid about for a long time. I
have looked into it. You're not wrong. And also this
is something else i've kind of I don't know really
(02:24):
what to do about, because people need to make money
to make content. But there's so many paywalls now.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
It's becoming harder I feel like to get to get
to some sources that I would like to get to.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
But here we are. Yeah, and you know, we are
only two humble podcasters. We cannot subscribe to literally every
publication on the planet.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
No, and especially like some things are so specific. Yeah,
and a lot of this stuff was very very specific. Yeah,
but we did do our best. We did, we did.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Sorry that that was just like a solid three minutes
of us, like low key complaining about our crazy dream jobs.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yes, yes, it's just we want the information. Yeah, yes,
it can be frustrating if you can't find it. But
we do love talking about cheese, you know, we love
Oh yeah, we do.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, and you can specifically see our episodes on Mozzarella
and Buffalo Mozzarella. Those are those are related. But yeah,
any any cheese episode, all of them probably. Oh yes,
make yourself a little cheese plate of episodes.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, cheese plate of episodes. I don't like that. Okay, Well,
I guess that brings us to our question.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Oh sure, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Provolone what is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Uh, Provolone is a category of stretched cheeses, usually made
from cow milk, that are aged different amounts of time
to produce finished cheeses with different textures and flavors, but
always this kind of like sweet, milky, kind of bouncy base.
As the cheese ages, it'll go from like tender and
mellow to firm and kind of buttery nutty to crumbly
(04:14):
and sort of tangy spiced. They tend to deeper in
color from a creamy white to gold and yellow as
they age, and will develop a slightly tougher, drier natural rind.
Prevalons are sometimes smoked to give them an extra layer
of flavor and a deeper color. The younger versions especially
are just real good at melting. They turn into, you know,
(04:35):
just like a stretchy pully dream when they're heated. So
they're often used in like hot savory dishes that you
want some stretchy cheese in, which is like all of
the dishes probably, I don't know, I can't tell you
what to do.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
The older versions are more likely to be used as
like a table cheese perhaps eaten with other cheeses and
or meats and acoutremonon like a cheeseplate sort of deal,
maybe with a glass and nice red wine to play
off of that spice. Provolone. Provolone is a beautiful spectrum,
you know, depending on the age, it can be like
(05:13):
like playing with like a new right out of the box,
like still has a plastic smell toy, or like finding
a kind of weird vintage tin and wood toy. You know,
the experience is anywhere from just like kind of like
super elastic to a little bit funky.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I love that, you know. I think I've only had
provolone on sandwiches, which I suspect of American provolone.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, I don't know what. I've got
some examples later, so we'll we'll, we'll look in here.
I think I've only had the very young kind for
the most part, so but again maybe okay, but so so.
Provolones are this style of stretched cheese. They originate in Italy,
(06:02):
where the term for that is pasta fialada or spun
paste cheese. Mozzarellas are another stretched cheese, though mozzarella is
sold fresh, like as fresh as possible, so it retains
a lot of spring and moisture, whereas provolone is aged,
leading to it sometimes being referred to as Mozzarella's older brother.
(06:23):
But before we get to the aging, let's go over
some cheese and stretchy cheese in particular basics. All right, So,
cheese is, as we say all the time on here,
a tasty way of preserving milk and condensing its nutrients.
Milk being an emulsion, a stable blend of little globs
of fats, and stuff spread throughout water and stuff, so
(06:45):
to condense it, you convince the fats and stuff to
clump together into kurds so that you can drain off
most of the water and stuff, which is the way
that also works to preserve it because many microbes need
water to live, so reducing the water reduces the microbes.
In the case of provolone, you traditionally use a type
(07:06):
of enzyme called rennet, and rennet is found in the
stomachs of baby ruminants and there it helps them digest
milk by separating it into curds and whey. Rennet can
also be extracted from certain plants or grown in labs
using microbes. You might also add another animal derived enzyme
called liepaste to the mix, which will further help break
(07:27):
down compounds in the milk for our purposes here to
provide like buttery and sharp flavors in the finished cheese.
And you might add some whey from a previous batch
of cheese, which will contain lactic acid bacteria that eat
the sugars in the milk and poop acids which will
also coagulate milk bacteria poop. Yeah, so whatever coagulants you're
(07:52):
using you add them to your milk and it will
start to separate into the curds. In the way you
cut the curds, cook them a bit to firm them up,
then and squeeze them in cloth to drain away. The
way you might let the curds sit out at room
temperature for like a whole half a day. And that way,
even if you haven't added any bacterial starter culture the
(08:13):
lactic acid bacteria that live all around us, we'll get
to work eating the sugars in the curds and pooping acids.
You want a pasta filata cheese to acidify a bunch
because those acids will will dissolve some of the calcium
phosphate in the milk proteins, which lets them hydrate more,
which will keep them flexible during the next step, which
(08:34):
is stretching. So basically what you're looking to do is
to muck around with the proteins in the curd, encouraging
them to form up in these long, flexible parallel chains.
So you heat the curd in very hot water, like
like at least eighty degrees celsius or one hundred and
seventy five fahrenheit, like near to boiling and the curds
(08:57):
will start to melt and fuse, and you keep taking
this resulting massive cheese out and stretching it over and
over again in a single direction, which lines up the
protein strands and traps fat in water among them in
these tiny threadlike pockets or channels. And this is going
to lead to something that's very different from the structure
(09:19):
of something like say a scheddar, which is more like
an even web of proteins in fats with less moisture involved.
So after stretching, you wind up with these big ribbons
or like ropes of cheese, which you then for provolone
wind tightly into rounds, pushing out any air bubbles. Afterwards,
(09:39):
you salt the rounds in brine for at least several hours,
and then take them out and separate the big rounds
into however many bits you want and hand form or
mold them into whatever size and shape, often a cylinder
or maybe a kind of like parish bulb form.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
The pieces are then sometimes given a wax or wax
and paper rind, and each will be tied up with
twine in like specific traditional patterns so that they can
be hung up for aging. Because Essentially they're too soft
to sit on a shelf. They would just sort of
blob off. Also, parts of this process can be mechanized.
(10:22):
I've been talking about, like the mostly traditional form of
the process, you know, like like the stretching spinning process.
For example. I can't imagine why someone wouldn't want to
dip their hands in near boiling water and stretch a
cheese over and over again. But if you do, you
can probably get a lot of money for them. And
of course different producers have different specifications, like you know,
(10:45):
you might brind the formed cheeses instead of the whole rounds.
I don't know whatever they want to do. Yeah, at
any rate, this brings us to aging. So how long
a provlone is aged will determine its category. Younger ones
are called dulce or mild, versus the older ones, which
are called pecante or strong. And if you've never had
(11:08):
an aged provolone, you can think of it a little
like the differences between again, using cheddar as an example,
like a mild versus a sharp cheddar. And yeah, for provolone,
the younger ones are going to melt better. I will
say that when a deli or cheese shop receives a
whole provolone, like a whole, big old provolone, they might
(11:29):
continue to age it in house before ever serving it,
which I adore. The finished cheeses might be sold whole
to a consumer or a cut and packaged in smaller units.
If you don't need an entire few kilos of cheese,
I don't know. I don't know what you're up to.
There are a couple of pdos for provolones in Italy.
A PDO meaning protected designation of origin, which is a
(11:52):
label that indicates the product was made in a particular
way in a particular place, you know, like sparkling wine
versus champagne. So there's a provolone del Monaco or Monks
Provolone which is made in southern Italy in the Campagna region,
specifically in the Litari Mountains and Sorrento Peninsula around like
(12:12):
Naples and Pompeii, that kind of area. At least twenty
percent of the milk that Del Monaco is made of
has to come from this local breed of cattle called
a geralise. The cows have to be fed on at
least forty percent fresh fodder. The raw milk is coagulated
using rennet only, no starter culture, and the cheese will
(12:33):
be ripened for six months to two years. The resulting
cheese is a rounded pear shape, usually with a creamy
white interior and a smooth, yellowish rind, sometimes sort of
lobed with vertical ridges from the twine, making it look
like a melon or gourd sort of. Typical sizes are
(12:54):
around three kilos or five kilos. Then there's also the
Provoloneveldna pedo, a named for the region it's from, which
is the Po River valley up in northern Italy, stretching
from like south of Venice in the east up to
the foothills of the mountains in the west. Volpadana Pedo
specifies that it's mild or dulce varieties aged from ten
(13:18):
days to like two or three months should be made
using mostly calf rennet, whereas the strong or pecante varieties
aged three months to over a year should be made
with mostly kid or lamb rennet, and that goador sheet
product in there will add a little bit of a
different like gamey, funky spiced flavor to the final product.
(13:39):
Both ages might be smoked. This style comes in a
number of different shapes, in like long cylindrical salami shapes,
in large cone shapes, in those lobed melon shapes, and
in these smaller bottle or flask shapes, which are like
a larger bulb on the bottom with a smaller bulb
on the top, formed with twine tied around the neck
(14:02):
between the two bulbs.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, all the.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Different shapes can come in all kinds of different sizes,
from like a fraction of a kilo to over one
hundred kilos, and there are different aging requirements for each.
That's like a few ounces to over two hundred pounds.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Wow, I yes, yes they do. Look it looks kind
of cool, all the shapes that provolone comes.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, if you've never seen them, look up pictures. But yeah,
other places do make cheeses more or less of this
style and call it provolone or provolone if you're American. Yeah,
different milks like buffalo might be used. American provolone does
tend to be at the youngest end of aging and
very mild in flavor. I saw a real spicy opinion
(14:53):
about this in Culture the Cheese magazine from this Italian
style deli employee by the name of Jeffrey Demyo who
called it fauvolone. But you can find American provolones made
pecante style too.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Ovalone.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
I know, right, I think I said oh no out
loud to my computer.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
It's pretty solid burn though. We've gotta acknowledge that absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
But yeah, a prolone can be used in all kinds
of savory dishes in the US. You often find younger
provolones on like a pizza kind of situation, and the
older ones adding a little bit of a twang to
like a Philly cheese steak or a muffalata sandwich. So, Annie,
if you've ever had a good muffalata, and I believe
(15:48):
you have, there's a deep chance that you had a
decent problon on that one.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Okay, I believe I have as well.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, New Orleans. Yeah, I've not experienced the full chili
Philly cheese steak things, so we'll have to come back
to it anyway. But yeah, you can bake a dulce
in a dish to make like a little melty, stretchy
cheese dip, or layer it into a baked pasta or
other casserole type dish, or maybe shred some on top
(16:17):
of a risotto, or just make like a real kick
and grilled cheese sandwich. Yeah oh yeah, oh right, you
can use a pecante. It's more like a seasoning for
rich sauce or meat or roasted veg or something like that.
Or maybe baked into a cheese bread or a soup
fle or yeah, just on a nice cheeseplate.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
So many options options.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Need to buy some cheese. Always never ends, the need
to buy cheese. Okay, well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Cheese is a neutrient dense product on purpose. Again, it's
literally made to be nutrient dents, you know. But but
if if, if that makes it a treat. Treats are
so nice and nutrient dents isn't bad. That's just that's productive.
You're being efficient, that's right, cheese productive. Well, we do
(17:23):
have some numbers for you, uh, frustratingly few, if you
can tell based on my sig right there. So, the
volpadana pedio provolone alone accounts for some one point one
percent of all cheese consumption by Italians, with a value
of some seventy seven million euros a year.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Oh, I'm so curious about all the other cheeses. I
want to know.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Uh, one large provolone provolone manufacturer in or Then, Italy
produces some one point two million kilos of provolone a year. Meanwhile,
in the United States, as of twenty twenty one, cheesemakers
were producing over three hundred and seventy six million pounds
(18:17):
of provolone, which is over one hundred and seventy million kilos.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Wow, it's a lot of provolone.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Oh yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Well, we do have a history for you, as difficult
as it was to wrangle. Yep, yeah, we do.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
We do, and we are going to get to it
as soon as we get back from a quick break
forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And we're back. Thank you sponsoring, Yes, thank you, so
yes see our previous cheese episode of Mozzarella. Specifically, but basically,
the history of cheese is often credited to an accident
related to environmental factors, often with some kind of legend
around love and or royalty simultaneously in different places. I
have to say, your Alsburg cheese really did put that
(19:19):
changed my whole outlook. That was a different one. It
was an outlier. It was specifically researched, but in general
that's usually right.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Right, there's a lovelorn or a love lucky shepherd or
shepherdess involved.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
It depends on the telling of whether the shepherd lost
the love or found it. Finally, right, cheese is very
romantic in that way. I suppose it is very romantic.
It is good cheese, plate some nice wine. Right, it's
a good time. That's a good time, all right. But
specifically about provolomne domestication and farming of dairy cattle got
(20:00):
underway on the Sorrento Peninsula and what would become Italy
as far back as two hundred and sixty BCE and
for centuries. The peoples in this region transformed the landscape
and created traditions, culture, and economy using these cattle and
the products that they produced. Over time, the cattle were
selectively bred for meat and milk production again see our
(20:24):
mozzarella episode. But by the twelfth century CE, buffalo milk
cheeses similar to mozzarella existed in parts of Italy. These
cheeses were made by hand stretching the curds and then
forming them into balls, and this cheese grew in popularity
in the eighteenth century. Specifically, and the same method would
be used to make provolone. Records indicate provolone originated in
(20:48):
southern Italy in the seventeen hundreds. Cheese producers used cow
and or buffalo milk to create curds and then stretch
and spin it.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And agent afterwards. Think the cheeses were called provola from
their globe like shape, Prova being a Neapolitan word for globe.
Provolone means large provola. That's unclear whether provolone sorry was
being used yet.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yes, yes, And the story goes that cheese producers from
the Sorrento Peninsula and specifically the Litari Mountains, arriving via
ship in Naples and the cool early mornings, would wear
these sackcloths as cloaks as they set out to sell
their wares, including provolone, And because of those people started
to think that these farmers were monks.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Or just that they looked like monks, like ah, hey,
the monks are.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Back, yeah, yeah, so the cheese the game known as
provolone del Monaco. During the Italian Unification period of the
nineteenth century, after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, regional travel
became easier for Italians. Southern Italians migrated into the northern
part of the country, specifically into Po Valley, and they
(22:07):
brought their dairy cattle and cheese making traditions with them,
particularly in this case their tradition of stretching curds to
make cheeses. And the Po Valley was particularly conducive for
milk production and the environment was great for aging this
type of cheese. There are a lot of aromatics for
the livestock to graize on as well, from what I read,
which probably helped flavor the cheese. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Po Valley already had a really good dairy industry going
by that time. It was a really natural place for
this form of cheesemaking to take root.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
The cheese came to be known as provolone val Padonna,
after the Po Valley ur Valpadana. The term provolone referring
to the cheese first appeared in the written record in
eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Which specifically lines up more with the Po Valley cheesemaking
timeline or tradition. Also the volpaedana tendency to produce cheeses
in larger sizes, so not again again the term like
provola versus provolone yeah, I found it very sticky to
(23:15):
try to unravel. Yes, but it was around this time
that one of the popular brands, Ariccio, got its start
in southern Italy, though they did soon move north.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Italian immigrants coming to the US in the late nineteenth
century and early twentieth century brought provolone with them.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Also, right around the turneth century, a number of dairy
co ops started setting up in Italy to help manage
and promote local production, including two that still produce provolone today.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
And the first detailed description of the breed of cow
quy to production of sub promolone adrialise, appeared in writing
in nineteen o nine.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
There's this smallish breed that comes from a mix of
local and imported cattle stocks. They're known for not producing
a lot of milk, but like milk of really good
calling m.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
The salami shape of provolone was invented in the early
nineteen hundreds, which made for easier slicing. And this is
where I tried so hard to learn about American provolone, which,
if you're thinking, what does that exactly mean, it's it's
kind of a different thing in a lot of cases.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Again, it's usually it's usually very mild and yeah, just
just a nice mild, good melting cheese.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
And so a lot of the like strong like like the.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Aging, the aging and the flavor process that I was
talking about earlier doesn't really apply to most of it. Yeah,
most of it is pretty strictly a It comes in
these giant cylinders to be easily sliced in delies, added
to whatever sandwich you're making.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Yes, but I did find this. In nineteen forty seven,
a processed cheese that was a combination of cheddar, Swiss provolone,
and smoke flavor called Provel was patented in the US.
And Wow, people are opinionated about this cheese. I found
(25:24):
a whole podcast series about this cheese. I cannot wait
to do an episode on it. Listeners, please write in
if you have opinions. It's really from only this one
place and people people have thoughts.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Okay, Yeah, I mean I love talking about a processed
cheese and yes, I've never heard of it before, so yeah,
I'm so excited. Heck yeah. Meanwhile, back in Italy, regulations
around making provolone first went in to law in nineteen
(26:01):
thirty eight and were updated in the mid fifties, at
which point products made to these new specifications were given
the denomination provolone typical. The Consortium for the Protection of
Valpadana Provolone formed in nineteen seventy five. Then in the
(26:22):
early nineties in Italy there was this argument about provolone
typical being too generic a term or not referring specifically
enough to what these cheesemakers wanted to say was cool,
and so groups started lobbying for more specific pdos.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yes, it wasn't until nineteen ninety six that the PDO
for Valpadonna provolone was accepted by the EU.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Delmonico got theirs in twenty ten, and in twenty seventeen
Italy honored over local products with an illustration on postage stamps,
and one of them was a melon shaped provolon.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
That's fantastic. Yeah. I was thinking about this the other day,
about just how many things are so specific and people
feel so much tradition or pride around it when it
comes to food, and I love put it on a
potion stamp.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Yeah yeah, oh well, listeners, definitely we would love to
hear from you.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
You've got any thoughts, resources opinions, please let us know.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yes, yes, we love all opinions that cheese ones, perhaps especially.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Indeed, but that is what we have to say about
provolone for now. It is.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we're going to get into that as soon as
we get back from one more quick break for word
from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
We're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're
back with.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Listen the old cheese rolling down the hill.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I know provolone couldn't.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Really roll, but depends on depends on the shape of
the problem. Yeah, and also like, if you get enough
momentum going, I think.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, anything can roll. Oh okay, So John wrote about
our Apricot episode. I blame my old ears. I was
listening to this episode and y'all said, bring dimension to
meat dishes. What I heard was bring dementia to meat dishes. WTF.
(28:56):
That's so rude. Oh now, I understand you would never
bring dementia to meat dishes if we could help it. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, that's that's uh route at best and hazardous at worst.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So yeah, yeah, it's hard when you hear something though
you can't canon ripes.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, even even when I'm listening to us sometimes I'm like,
what did we just say?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yes, when we listen back, there's several times I'm like,
what's that that makes sense? Is that?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Is that understandable to humans?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Usually it is, but sometimes it's questionable.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah. Uh, Haley wrote, You've read my mail a couple
of times on the show, once about my big chili
opinions trademark, and again about my weird cookies never forget
the canon bear cookie. Well, both of those topics crossed
over a few days ago. I had a request for
a peanut butter and chili cookie as goes the tradition
(30:03):
of dipping a peanut butter sandwich into your bowl as
you go. This is one of my favorite meals and
mentioned in my original letter, so of course I did it.
No cookie was fine, if not unremarkable, aside from this
soggy texture and clash of the crunchy vegetables. However, that
taste test video has been one of the most divisive
(30:26):
things I've ever posted on the Internet. It turns out
everyone has big chili opinions trademark. I touched the video
of me taste testing the cookie and a follow up
poll with lots of heated arguing in the comments. I
never expected my life to turn this way, but I'm
loving every minute of it.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Okay, this is amazing and it doesn't surprise me at all.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Oh certainly not.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Now.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Chili is certainly something that people have big opinions about,
and I have to say the sense the cookie was fine,
if not unremarkable, aside from the soggy texture and clash
of the crunchy vegetables. I no one has put together
those words in quite that order before. Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
It's an excellent sentence. You should get it, frank, absolutely stunning.
Oh that's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I again like this kind of
absolutely groundbreaking cookie boldness is really what we need more
of in the world.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
It's true, it's true. So we always love hearing more
about that and keep going. I just that's what I
gotta say. Yeah, yeah, people will weigh in. Oh yeah,
I find if you give them something like this, Yeah,
you're gonna get a lot of opinions and comments.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
So yeah, congratulations or we're sorry.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I'm sure you're learning a lot o getting some ideas. Oo.
Yeah yeah, Well, thank you to both of those listeners
for writing in. If you would like to write to us,
you can or email us hello at saborpod dot com.
(32:28):
We are also on social media.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
You can find us on Instagram and Blue Sky at
saber pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from
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
(32:50):
more good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.