240 Nor Whey

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Just Cheesy the podcastpresented by Just Cheesy Productions.
Hi there. I'm your host, Fondue.
And I'm Cheesy.
In this week's episode, wetalk all about Scandinavian cheeses.
We talk about a non cheesecheese in Norway, a romance in Sweden,
the woman who created Havarti,a not so secret recipe, and the cheese

(00:26):
slicer. And of course we tella very cheesy joke.
Uh huh joke.
Stay tuned for episode NorWhey. W h e y on Just Cheesy the
podcast. You know, I saidNorway like N o r W h e y. Right?
Norway.
Norway. Get it? And of coursewe're talking about Norway's most
iconic food. Brunas.
Yum.

(00:46):
And I hope I'm pronouncingthat right.
There's no way.
And the first thing that youactually need to know about it is
that it's not technically cheese.
It's not.
According to the cheesescientist and Life in Norway, Brunost
is made by boiling the wheyleftover from regular cheese making
no way. You then add cream andcontinue to boil until the milk caramelized.
This makes a thick, fudgybrown paste that hardens as it cools.

(01:09):
The name literally means browncheese. This produces something that
tastes like a cross betweencaramel and cheese with a slightly
sweet, slightly tangy finish.Man, this episode is just gonna challenge
me. According to the cheesescientist, Brunost was invented in
the Gudbrandsdalen valley inthe 1860s by a milkmaid named Anne

(01:30):
Hoy. She experimented withadding cream to the whey instead
of discarding it. According toCracked, Norway loved the result
so much that the trace ironcontent from cooking brunost in iron
pots became a significantsource of dietary iron for the national
population. When manufacturersswitched to aluminum vessels, the
Norwegian governmentreportedly feared that the entire

(01:52):
country would develop an iron deficiency.
Oh no.
That's probably becauseNorwegians eat approximately 12,000
tons of Brunost every year.About 6 pounds per person.
Holy cow.
And something reallyinteresting that I definitely didn't
know.
Okay.
According to the Visit Norwaysite, the cheese slicer was invented
specifically for brunost in 1925.

(02:15):
No way.
Of course, today the tool isused on cheese boards worldwide.
Did you know that Sweden'smost beloved cheese has an origin
story that has been told forover 150 years?
Really?
And believe it or not, nobodyis entirely sure what really happened.
According to the officialVasterbotten website and multiple
Swedish food history sources,in 1872, a dairy made was making

(02:40):
cheese at a dairy in a smallvillage in Northern Sweden. According
to the Vasterbotten cheese piehistory site. Legend says she became
distracted, possibly byromance and the curds were left unattended.
They were reheated multipletimes and developed for far longer
than she intended. And theresult? It was a hard cheese. It

(03:00):
was intensely flavorful andunlike anything anyone had ever made
before. According to theVasterbottensost official site, the
recipe has been a closelyguarded secret ever since. Really?
It was passed from Dairy Maidto CheeseMaster for over 150 years.
According to Swedishness, onlya handful of people currently know

(03:21):
the recipe. According toWikipedia, the cheese is produced
exclusively at the Butraskdairy and only milk from 61 approved
farms in the region arepermitted. And despite the enormous
demand in many attempts, noother dairy anywhere in the world
has successfully replicatedthe flavor.
They haven't.
The experts. Well, theybelieve it's the unique combination

(03:42):
of local milk specificbacterial cultures and the climate
of northern Sweden that makesit impossible to copy.
Sure.

(04:40):
The Vasterbotensost websitesays that the cheese has been served
at the Nobel Prize dinner andat Swedish royal events. And Swedishness
has a local legend. The claimis the cheese tastes so extraordinary
because a meteor once fellinto the fields where the cows now
graze. There has been noscientific confirmat Chees not a

(05:03):
sponsor, probably because wecan't pronounce it, but if they were,
their ad would go right here.Denmark's contribution to cheese
is Havarti. According toWikipedia and multiple cheese history
sources, Havarti was createdin the mid-1800s by a Danish woman
named Hanne Nielsen.
Wow.
According to Wikipedia,Nielsen traveled across Europe specifically

(05:24):
to learn about cheese making.
She did.
She visited farms and dairiesin multiple countries, including
France and Germany. Accordingto the Costello cheese site, she
studied under cheesemakerTilsit in what was then Eastern Prussia.
When she returned, she beganexperimenting. Hanne's story is very
interesting. She and herhusband sold milk from their cows,
but she was unhappy with theprofit from the milk. So she sold

(05:47):
it as butter and cheese. Andher attempts at selling butter and
milk were successful. But shewas not happy with the final product.
And that's why she traveled toeducate herself on better methods.
Wikipedia says that otherfarmers wives were able to produce
similar butter and cheese. ButNielsen wanted hers to be better
than theirs.
Right.
And those places she studiedwell. She was to learn how to make

(06:07):
cheddar with Joseph Harding inEngland, Brie and Roquefort in France,
and Goethe and Eam in theNetherlands. She was also a teacher,
a writer and an accountant forthe profit made from her butter and
cheese. And the butter andcheese, well, it was served to royal
families, including a cheesemade with cumin that was served to
King Christian IX of Denmark.And then of course there is Jarlsberg,

(06:31):
Norway's most famous exportcheese. According to Culture Cheese
magazine and Jarlsberg'sofficial website, the origins of
Jarlsberg go back to the 1850swhen Norwegian cheesemakers were
experimenting with Swiss styletechniques. According to the Jarlsberg
Q and A site, Norway's firstagricultural college was established
there in 1825. And Swiss stylecheese was produced at the college

(06:55):
until the dairy closed in1832. The recipe was eventually entirely
lost.
Oh no.
According to Culture Cheesemagazine and multiple history sources,
in 1956 a professor at theAgricultural University of Norway
began working to recreate the cheese.
No way.
And the output? The recipe?Well, it's a combination of traditional

(07:16):
Gouda and Swiss emmentalcultures. This gives Jarlsberg its
characteristic large holes andmild nutty flavor. The recipe took
10 years to perfect before itwas considered ready for full scale
production.
Wow.
Jarlsberg accounts for over80% of all Norwegian cheese exports.
Holy cow.
And according to Wiki Cheese,in the United States alone, it is

(07:38):
sold in over 30,000supermarkets. One ton of Jarlsburg
is eaten every hour.
Yeah.
Cheese Atlas says the recipeis still described as a secret.
Really?
Although it is produced underlicense in Ohio and Ireland.
Wow.
It's a not so secret secret.
I'm ready for a joke fondue.
Okay. What did theScandinavian cheese say when it was

(07:59):
dropped?
I don't know.
There's Nor whey. I cansurvive this. Get it? Nor whey.
Oh yeah, it was bad.
Oh yeah, it was bad. And alittle bit get cheesy. Thanks for
listening to Just Cheesy, thepodcast episode. Nor Whey.
Nor Whey.
For silly puns and historyabout cheese, there's only one place

(08:23):
to get it all. Yeah, that'sjustcheesy.com or wherever you get.
Your podcast and stay cheesy. Everybody.

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