Cheese Glossary: A Glossary Of The Different Cheese Types

Page 1: Cheese Glossary A

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• Page 2: Cheese Glossary B
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• Page 12: Cheese Glossary U To Z

A term used to describe a cheese with a lightly sourish flavor.
 

The aging of cheese to its optimum maturity. Affinage is an expertise separate from cheesemaking. It is an analogous division of labor to the agriculturalist who grows the grapes and the winemaker who creates the wine. The affineur manages the cave* in which the cheeses are aged. Fine restaurants noted for their cheeses and which offer many different cheeses, like Picholine and Artisanal in New York City, have a full-time affineur to ensure the cheeses offered to diners are at peak development (“a point”) for their enjoyment.

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*In the industry the French pronunciation, cahve, is used. While some farmstead cheeses in Europe are aged in the same rock caves used 1,000 years ago to acquire the bacteria and other environmental elements that provide their distinctive qualities, today’s aging caves are state-of-the-art units that allow for different temperature zones and other settings that accommodate the needs of different types of cheese.

Refers to cheeses made from Alpine meadow milk
 

Certain cheeses past their prime and overripe, particularly soft cheeses such as Brie and Camembert, can smell and often taste of ammonia. They are still safe to eat.

A natural food coloring derived from the ground seed pods of the achiote tree (Bixa orellana, also known as the Lipstick Tree), native to Central and South America. The seeds are lightly peppery with a hint of nutmeg. Cheese is naturally the color of the milk from which it is made. Some traditional cheeses once had a natural orange hue caused by the vitamin D that cows ingested from grazing on green plants. But commercial cheeses are made from milk from cows that aren’t permitted to graze. Even with fine cheese, winter milk comes from cows that are fed silage (forage plants that are stored in a silo); the cheeses that result from this milk are white. This variation persuaded some cheesemakers to color their cheeses so they would look uniformly nutritious.

The earliest cheese colorings were carrot juice and marigold petals. For the last century at least, cheesemakers who wish to use color have used annatto instead. It is used in cheeses such as Brie and Cheddar, in butter and margarine and in custard powder (and has numerous non-dairy applications, such as smoked fish). While annatto adds a slightly sweet and peppery flavor to recipes, it does not impact the flavor of the cheese.
 

Controlled designation of origin, the AOC mark guarantees, among other things, that the cheese originates from a specific region of France and has been produced in a traditional way. There are 35 types of cheese carrying the AOC mark, which guarantees that: (1) The cheese was produced within a specific geographical area, from milk from specific herds of animals in the same area and partly matured there. (2) The cheese was made using strictly defined methods that have been handed-down over several centuries. (3) The characteristics of the cheese that have been precisely defined—its size, type of rind, texture and minimum fat content—are adhered to strictly.
(4) The producers submit themselves to review by a public control commission, which guarantees the authenticity and quality of the products. See also D.O. and D.O.P.

Limberger may be the most famous “stinky” cheese because of the old TV series, Spanky And Our Gang, where the kids hated the aroma. This washed rind cheese, or aromatic, was originally created by Belgian Trappist monks. It originated in the historical Duchy of Limburg, which is now divided between modern-day Belgium, Germany and Netherlands. In the 1880s, New Yorker Emil Frey copied the recipe for Limburger and created Liederkranz. This pasteurized cow’s milk cheese has a tangy, creamy, Brie-like flavor with an incredibly pungent aroma. Photo courtesy iGourmet.com.

One of the most common Italian cheeses, Asiago is a grana-type cheese, made from cow’s milk. It is a sweet curd, semi-cooked cheese in the grana group, a group that also includes Grana Padano and Parmigiano Romano. (Grana is the Italian word for grain; it refers to a coarse-grained cheese.) Typically pale yellow in color, Asiago has a mild, cheddary, nutty flavor; it gets more flavorful and more crumbly as it ages.
See a comparison of Asiago, Grana Padano and Parmigiano-Romano.

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Thanks to Artisanal Cheese, iGourmet, Murray’s Cheese Shop, Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board and other experts who contributed their expertise to this glossary.