Blue Cheese: The Shortest History Ever

The French

It all starts with Roquefort.  The earliest reference to blue cheese shows up in 79 AD.  Pliny the elder noted it's rich flavor.   Legend has it that a young shepherd was having his lunch of curds and bread inside one of the caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon.  A beautiful young maiden walked past the opening to the cave and he put down his lunch and chased after her.  Some months later, he returned to find his lunch still there but it had developed a blue mould.  He tasted it and thought it delicious.  The milk can only come from three breeds of sheep raised in an oval shaped region across the Larzac plain in western central France. 

Whether this legend is true or not we are graced with so many varieties today that one could get lost in searching.  What I will attempt to do here is point out the major players and showcase their products. 

The Italians

Gorgonzola shows up about 879 AD.   Predominately cow’s milk, but can contain some goat depending upon the maker.  Gorgonzola is most often innoculated with penecillium glaucum, but penecillium roqueforti may also be used.  Most of these come from the Piemonte and Lombardi regions of northern Italy.  Before we had the ability to grow mass quantities in laboratories, the bacteria were grown on bread in the caves at Roquefort.  The mould was shaved off, then added to the curds.  Some makers add the bacteria to the milk and others add a powdered form to the curds. 

The Spanish

Cabrales, Valdeon and La Peral are the three main cheeses from Spain in the blue category.  Cabrales and La Peral from Asturias and Valdeon from Leon.  Cabrales the dominant name in blue from Spain, is known by many as the signature Spanish Blue.  Cabrales can be made from raw cow's milk or blended with sheep's and or goat's milks for richer more complex flavors.  Blending is the traditional farmhouse method. Valdeon is milder and less yellow in color.  It is made with Cow's and sometimes goat's milks.  The signature of a traditional Valdeon is it’s wrapping of sycamore maple or chestnut leaves.  La Peral like Valdeon comes from a single maker.  Esther Alvarez and husband Jose Luis Lopez produce this firm yet moist entry.

The English

The Brits come along in the early 18^th century.  Specific reference is made to stilton in the early 19^th.  Stilton is not pressed so that it results in a flaky almost pastry crust effect in the way the blue is layered in the cheese.  Both cheeses are pierced to bloom the mould.  The Shropshire has a denser paste.  The stilton is formed in tall forms resembling a top hat and called hoops. 

The Americans

In 1938 The grandsons of Fredrick Maytag I began making their signature cheese from a recipe developed by microbiologists at Iowa State University.  From Roelli Cheese Haus we have the Dunbarton Blue and Red Rock.  Both are cheddar blues.  The cheese is innoculated at the outset and cut and stacked just like any classic cheddar.  These are then pierced about half way through the aging period to bloom the mould.  Salemville Amish Blue is very mild.  The paste at the center has a dry texture like a crumbly farmer's cheese.  The Americans as we all know are willing to inject a bit of innovation to their tradition.  The results are all over the board as we can see with Roelli’s Red Rock. 

Cook's Bison Ranch

In mid May the JDY Gourmet crew and friends set out on a little jaunt to the Bison Ranch. Cold and rainy even for May, we were in search of fun and adventure. The ride on the big yellow school bus turned out to be quite a bit longer than expected. I had not looked at the map before the trip so when I was told that it would be a "couple hours", I believed. It was over three hours. If I had checked the distance I would have seen that Wolcottville is clear across the state and only 20 miles shy of Ohio.

Upon arrival we were treated to slow smoked bison brisket. Delicious and tender all the way through. After lunch we boarded the covered wagon and Pete climbed on the tractor to haul us out onto the pasture. Once out on the range these magnificent animals readily took grain pellets from our hands.
At first they were wary but with Pete at the wheel they edged closer to the wagon and once the feed was proffered they lost their shyness. Cook's has a calving operation in the Dakotas, and when weaned they are brought to Indiana for finishing. Some calving occurs down here so they are present but they have mostly finishing animals here. The meat produced here is like a richer sweeter beef. This is a result of the free choice system that Cook's has put in place. The animals are on rotating pasture with hay, silage and grain always available. The bison choose what they want and according to Jason "they choose grain about as often as we choose chocolate." The meat is very lean with only 2.42g of fat and 143 calories per 100g.

After our encounter with the beasties we were loaded back onto the bus with samples in hand. the three hour trip back was broken up with a short stop at Three Floyds Brewery. With s few Gunballheads and some apps in us we ended our roundtrip, a little later than expected but no less satisfied. Cook's has regular tours and a number of events at the ranch. Regular tours are available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays between Memorial and Labor days. that season is rapidly closing so look toward next year at this point. In June they have their annual calf day celebration. It was a lot of fun and informational as well.

The Return of the Blog

The Coppa Iberico

Hello again. It has indeed been a long time since I last posted here. Since 11 December 2010 to be precise. My work and personal lives have both been very full in that time. The blogging will be fast and furious. I have a lot of ground to cover. the plan is to post two to three times per week until I am up to date. First thing to cover is the Coppa Iberico. When last we met I had described the laying into cure of a piece of Iberico collar to cure and a piece of commodity ct butt as well. The commodity never survived. It was a large piece and had to cure for a longer time. The Iberico seen in the photos here did quite well. What happened with the commodity was that after I took the Iberico out of the cure the commodity needed to go further. However, my inexperience could not properly interpret the level of cure. Basically it was way beyond cured, almost into tanned. I left it in too long. My apologies go to the beast that gave that shoulder and to the people who might have taken nourishment from it had I not spoiled it. Please forgive me. The Iberico, as I have said fared much better.
The first photo shows the piece before opening. Still in the bung casing. Second photo is after slicing. The fat is marvelous. Salting was perfect. My only mistake here is letting it dry too long. Amazingly delicious, though a bit hard to slice. The slices require a very sharp knife and a keen attention on it's stroke. This coppa hung for sixty days. The general comment is that forty-five would have sufficed but the flavor did not suffer.
Here the marbling is well evidenced. This photo explains why the flavor was so good. The fat is so well distributed that every bite contains a little bit. The seasonings and curing salts, as important to the process as they may be, are there to work with and enhance the experience presented by the delicious fat. This fat begins melting at low room temperatures. When you slice Jamon or this it glistens with liquid fat. Every surface becomes coated with it. Truly a unique experience the Iberico Pork is alone in it's place at the top of the category.

Coppa

Back on May third I blogged from Spain about the Iberico pigs and here sits the collar from one of those pigs. The collar or coppa is the top of the back of the neck. It is one special cut. Of all the Italian style cold cuts once cured this is my favorite. It's rich flavor comes from the well marbled meat and seams of fat that run through the cut combined with curing salt and seasonings. We are going for hot coppa here so chile flake is included in the mix. Also, this being a Spanish pig one of the central flavors will be Pimenton de la Vera, sweet smoked paprika. Basic curing mix, ground cinnamon and ground clove finish up the mix.

This second hunk of pork is good ol' USDA commodity pork from downstate somewhere. Why is this here, in the rarified company of La Pata Negra? Because of a challenge that was issued by a Lake street pork butcher. I went to Grant Park Packing to get a bung casing to hold the coppa for the drying stage. Joe Maffei the owner, likes to break stones so when I asked for the casing of course his response was "What da hell are ya doin' now?" When I told him, he asked after the cut of pork I was using. Thus prompting the challenge. "Whadya payin' fifteen dollars a pound for? I bet you can get just as good from the regular stuff." So of course he had a ct butt brought out from the back. He handed it to me and said, "I want to taste them when they're done."
And so here they are about five minutes into the cure. In bags and massaged once daily. As this is written they are halfway through day eleven. The meat is firming up nicely. Only a few more days for the Iberico. The commodity will take a little longer because of it's different configuration. The drying stage will take weeks. The objective is to dry gradually so the flesh and the fat do not separate. The casing helps with this also. Keeping the whole muscle/fat package tight.

Greenhouse

When I decided that a greenhouse was needed, the first decision was where to put it. This was not a difficult one. There is a small alcove next to the garage which is quite suitable. It is a rectangle ten feet long and five feet wide. Having never built anything before I needed to consult the authorities. There are hundreds of sites that will show you how to frame a wall. The keys are to begin on a flat surface, measure carefully and cut precisely where you measured. Sixty percent of this greenhouse is salvaged wood. This presents it's own set of challenges. Here some of the wood is nice store bought framing lumber, but most of it has holes from old screws. Some boards are rough cut and others are planed. The rough cut pieces have over time warped and require some adjusting when connected to the whole structure. Salvaged wood is also often drier and thus harder, so when using screws, pilot holes are required. This took three Sundays and some prior planning and labor to reach this point and there is yet some work to do. On the first Sunday, I erected this basic frame. As it happens Lisa's cousin Brian came in from San Francisco. On Saturday morning we decided to attempt to move the frame into the alcove. It was not strong enough to withstand our jostling and collapsed exposing critical flaws in my design and execution. Luckily it did not fail completely. the two side walls were mostly intact. The connecting lumber separated from the structure leaving the project wounded but not dead. The most important stroke of luck is that Brian is a civil engineer. He was able to identify solutions to my problems. Get a better drill and longer screws. We got the screws and I was about to go to a big box retailer and buy a new drill with more torque, when I decided that he had already spent an hour of his vacation with my folly and should spend no more. The next morning I dropped Brian, his lovely wife Katy and their beuatiful daughter Savannah off at the airport. On the way home I bought the drill and re-connected the frame. The bricks were laid in some weeks before. All of the bricks were salvaged from a hundred year old building that was torn down last year. The frame is wrapped with a piece of 3.5 mil plastic, ten feet wide and twenty-five feet long. Then another identical piece is overlapped across the top and sides. Currently stapled and held down with bricks, the next step is to add a door. This will make it more heat retentive. For the moment it is used to store garden things. This week I am adding the interior plastic and working on a better seal. If possible the door will be added today. When the house is capable of generating and holding heat I will start some seeds. I want to finish by saying thank you very much to Brian, Katy and Savannah for coming into town. We had a great time seeing the sights of Chicago with you. You are always welcome here.

The Combo Project: Al's #1 Taylor Street

I have been going down Taylor street more lately. It just happens to be a route to some new customers. It has also been quite some time since this blog has posted an entry in it's ongoing series The Combo Project. Over due even. What happened to those lazy hazy days of summer?



As beefstands go this is one of the icons. It has always been a standard bearer. Established in 1938, according to the Al's website the original site was a wooden shack at Harrison and Laflin. Most of the beef stands in the city, whether seventy years old or brand new are still in wooden shacks and old trailers. Al's has chosen to build a franchise empire with twenty-one locations as far flung as Arizona and one of the newest locations will open soon in Athens, GA. The sandwich itself is solid. The beef is tender and moist, the sausage freshly grilled and full of flavor. The jus has an underlying tomato flavor which is visually evident in the orange stain on the paper wrapper. The peppers and giardiniera are distinct from one another and the rest of the ingredients. Everything about this sandwich screams freshness. The Taylor location is now considered home base "original" and still runs like a mom and pop operation. You can see a prep cook in back slicing beef. The outward appearance remains "shacky" while the franchises are each as different as you can get. One looks like a Subway outlet, another takes an almost Potbellyish storefront look. One of them looks like a La Quinta Inn for Chrissakes. However, for all the silliness that accompanies independent franchising, the sandwich here at the "original" location remains true to what the concept of a Chicago Italian beef should be. Good fresh ingredients, prepared with care and served fresh. The key to the fresh part as with any restaurant is volume. If the restaurant is busy, everyone gets fresh product. Otherwise everything goes stale. On the day I was there, it was a constant stream. Moms with with kids, laborers, locals and police cadets from the nearby academy. this is without a doubt one of the best sandwiches I have had on the tour. I do not know which is my favorite or if I could even declare one so. I will have to have a lot more different sandwiches and then revisit the better ones. Keep checking back and I'll keep trying the local delicacies.

Cotton Felt

I have been driving past this building for years. In the window is a sign that reads "F. Hyman & Co. Established 1897 Mfg Cotton Felt." These great old buildings dot the city. It is in the middle of the no man's land created by million dollar townhomes on one side and empty lots where Cabrini Green once stood. Intrigued as I may have been, I never stopped and really checked the building out. From the outside you'll see four stories. The ground floor goes all the way back to the alley behind. On the north side is a fenced in truck dock. One sweltering afternoon in August, as I made my way up Clybourn, there it was again. I had a few minutes between appointments so I parked and started snooping around carrying my vintage 2000 Kodak DC3200. Peering in through the window I was startled to see a man sitting at a desk. That man is pictured here on the left. His name is Ashwin. Once I got past the shock of seeing someone inside I waved at him and motioned a request to open the door. He opened it and after introductions he led me on a tour of what is slowly becoming a fading memory. A look into the history of the textile industry in Chicago. Ashwin told me that until recently the factory made cotton felt used in furniture stuffing. I followed him toward the back of the shop to a wide door. The door opened on darkness. He went in about five feet and feeling around he found the light switch. The room holds the machinery for making the felt. Cotton dust covers every surface. It drapes the light fixtures and makes for an eerie horror film atmosphere. The process of felting involves the heat of friction and lubrication of water. The action of pressing moist heated fibers makes them adhere to one another and form felt. One of the legends according to wikipedia is that the process was discovered by Saints Clement and Christopher, who packed their sandals with wool fiber to prevent blisters while fleeing persecution. At the end of their flight the friction and sweat had created wool felt socks. There is also a Sumerian legend of Urnamman of Lagash describing the discovery. The first floor is packed with the machinery of a bygone era in American history. The upper floors according to Ashwin are filled with parts for the machinery as well as more felt. In doing research on the process and industry I found precious little online information. What I did find online was a number of factories in China making felt and wholesaling it to furniture makers and clothiers worldwide. The other gentleman in the picture above is Ravi. He said that they bought the factory from the Hyman family in the mid eighties. They successfully made and sold the felt to customers in the futon industry. Recently though, they have not made felt because they cannot compete with Chinese manufacturers. Thus the vintage thirties machines sit idle, and Ravi and Ashwin sell their customers large, heavy plastic bags. I met Ravi on a follow up visit when I went to ask a few more questions. He asked a few of his own. He asked if I was with the city. The city wants to see more development. He was apprehensive as to whether to indulge my questions or rebuff them. In the end he was friendly and cordial if still somewhat suspicious of my motives. I don't blame him. If you stand in front of the place and look around it is a wasteland of overgrown empty lots. Traffic streams by ignorant of the relic it passes. A fading relic in the midst of a landscape seemingly poised on the brink of upheaval. The lots boast signs of development to come. The signs were all posted before the recession hit so none of the lots has even broken ground in spite of being a quarter mile from North and Clybourn. The last photo I took is the last one that I am posting. It is the original molded tin ceiling. It is beautiful. Ravi's fear is understandable. Any developer who got a good look at this place would fall in love.