It's the cheese

[Drunk Monk]

NOOOOOOO!

ware: A cheese crisis looms
Gird your curds! Say a prayer for Camembert! A collapse in microbe diversity puts these French cheeses at risk.
By Benji Jones@BenjiSJones  Feb 10, 2024, 7:00am EST


A chunk of camembert melts off a spatula.
 Jonathan Knowles/Getty Images
Benji Jones is a senior environmental reporter at Vox, covering biodiversity loss and climate change. Before joining Vox, he was a senior energy reporter at Insider. Benji previously worked as a wildlife researcher.
This story is part of a group of stories called 

The biodiversity crisis, explained
Camembert, I’m sorry to report, is in trouble.
The soft cheese, which smells a bit like feet, is on the “verge of extinction,” according to the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). Other cheeses, including brie and various blues, are under threat, too, the group has warned.
This looming cheese crisis, this Camembert calamity, stems from a much bigger problem: a collapse in microbial diversity. 
Each hunk of Camembert or smear of brie is an ecosystem, an assortment of fungi and bacteria that turn milk fats and proteins into hundreds of different compounds. Those compounds produce the flavors, smells, and textures we love. 
In recent decades, however, the genetic diversity of some of those microbes has caved. And today, some of the most famous French cheeses rely on just a single fragile strain of fungi that is at risk of dying out.
This is bad news for France, bad news for bread, and bad news for lovers of fine cheese the world over. And it’s a reminder that biodiversity matters, even when you can’t see it. Life’s finer things, indeed, depend on it. 

A wheel of Camembert that this author was forced to buy and taste for this story.
 Benji Jones on assignment for Vox
Why Camembert as we know it could disappear
To make cheese, producers typically take fresh milk and mix in bacteria and often fungi, including both yeasts and molds (fungi that tend to be fuzzy). Different microbe melanges produce different varieties of cheese.
Historically, Camemberts and bries likely relied on mold strains from a species of fungi called Penicillium biforme, according to Jeanne Ropars, an evolutionary biologist who works at a lab affiliated with CNRS. Each strain was slightly different genetically, and so the resulting cheeses had slightly different colors, flavors, and smells. 
Roughly a century ago, however, cheesemakers identified a particular strain of P. biforme that was fast-growing and albino; it produced a fluffy white mold that was, apparently, quite appetizing. This strain, known as Penicillium camemberti, was henceforth considered the gold standard for brie and Camembert (which differ from one another mainly in size). It quickly dominated the cheese industry, and the diverse group of other mold strains used to make Camembert and brie, and the colors they produced, vanished from disuse. 
Today, all Camembert and brie cheeses worldwide are inoculated with this one genetically identical albino strain of fungi, which is not found in the wild, Ropars said. That means that a brie from a grocery store in France and one from a bodega in New York City have identical (or nearly identical) Penicillium microbes. 
This is a good thing for those who value uniformity; for people who expect their brie to look a certain way, just as they might want their tomatoes to be perfectly round and their apples bright red. 
But uniformity comes at a cost. 

A worker of the Farm Cite des Vents shows cheese curds, in Saint-Flour, central France, on February 28, 2023.
 Zoccolan/AFP via Getty Images
For reasons that are not totally clear, the albino strain can’t reproduce sexually, like most molds can — meaning, it can’t “breed” with another individual to create new genetic diversity. So to create more of this fungi, cheesemakers have to clone it, not unlike how you propagate a plant using a cutting. Yet decades of replicating the same individual can introduce harmful errors into its genome, Ropars said. 
That’s what’s happened with P. camemberti. In recent decades, the albino fungus picked up mutations that interfere with its ability to produce spores, and that makes it much harder to clone. Put simply: It’s now difficult for cheesemakers to grow the key fungus used to make brie and Camembert. 
“Camembert is not going to disappear tomorrow,” Ropars said, and it’s not clear how these challenges will impact cheese supply. “But it’s going to be more and more difficult to produce.” 
Our foods, more broadly, are losing resilience
In the world of cheese, this problem is not unique to Camembert and brie. The diversity of fungi used to make blue cheeses, like Gorgonzola and Roquefort, has also shrunk dramatically in recent decades, Ropars said. Farmers have similarly selected certain strains that produce the right look, aroma, and flavor, narrowing the genetic pool. So far, these strains — which are considered “domesticated” microbes — can still reproduce, but some are nearly infertile. 
This rapid caving of genetic diversity threatens other food industries, too, as the author Dan Saladino writes in his book Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them. Most bananas we eat, for example, are genetically similar. That means that if a pathogen evolves the right machinery to kill one, it can kill many — which is a very real threat. 

A cheese stand in Berlin, Germany.
 Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Uniformity is especially bad in a warming world. Different genetic varieties of plants, such as wheat, have different strengths and weaknesses; some might be more tolerant to, say, long periods of drought. Losing diversity means losing different strengths that may ensure the survival of a particular food. 
“When you lose diversity within a species, you lose adaptability,” said Tatiana Giraud, a colleague of Ropars who also works at CNRS.
This diversity matters among communities of wild organisms, as well, Giraud said, whether or not you can see them. Fungal communities, though poorly studied, are invisible forces in the environment, operating in the background to ensure that ecosystems function properly. They can break down dead leaves and branches, help plants absorb nutrients, and clear toxins from the soil. Protecting the diversity of fungal species, scientists say, safeguards these critical services. 
Get comfortable with funkier cheeses
Ultimately, this doesn’t mean that we must bid farewell to brie, or that Camembert on toast is, let’s say, toast. There is a way to save these cheeses, though it requires some changes in our own taste and tolerance. 
To make Camembert or brie, cheese producers could simply inoculate cow’s milk with other Penicillium biforme molds, which are naturally present in raw milk (these microbes would need to be manually added if the milk is pasteurized). As a group, Penicillium biforme has a lot of genetic diversity and these molds are able to produce sexually, Ropars said, which is key to maintaining genetic diversity. 
P. biforme is closely related to the albino strain, though it might give the cheeses a slightly different look and aroma. Perhaps your wheel of brie would be a bit more blue or gray, or slightly funkier. But this is something that consumers should embrace, Ropars said: a diverse mix of flavors, of smells, a resilient collection of bugs.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Goddam merc-in-ret & Mondays!

[Drunk Monk]

True about Mondays.

As for Merc, it's another example of premature eyetilation 

• December 13, 2023, to January 1, 2024
  
• April 1 to April 24
  

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Nope, Merc-in-Ret is about how you *feel*, man, not some date on some old dude's calendar.

[Drunk Monk]

This from someone who doesn't know a full moon even when it's gathering right up in his face...

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

At least moons are real.

[Drunk Monk]

Not being real is what makes retrograde motion so amusing, just like piltdown man.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Piltdown Man was a right bastard.

[Drunk Monk]

But so very amusing.

[King Bob]

Like the Magdeburg Unicorn

[thatguy]

https://boingboing.net/2024/03/10/indulg...pound.html

Indulge in the world's only moose cheese — for $500 a pound
Popkin

---

In Bjurholm, Sweden, you can experience the unique joy of moose cheese.

The Elk House is a farm located in Bjurholm, Sweden, and according to Atlas Obscura, it is the only producer of moose bheese. This delicacy is one of the priciest cheeses on earth, costing up to $500 per pound.

At the Elk House, there are three moose involved in the cheese-making process. Their names are Gullan, Haelga, and Juno.

Atlas Obscura reports that moose "lactate only from May through the end of September. Coaxing the five liters of milk from each moose per day takes a delicate hand and calm demeanor, which leads to the product's prestige and price. The Johanssons, who own the Elk House farm, make four kinds of cheese from the high-protein milk: a soft, white-mold variety similar to Camembert; a creamy blue cheese; a dried blue cheese; and feta."

You can tour The Elk House and eat at their restaurant, where they serve a raspberry and cream parfait created with moose feta cheese.

--tg

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

A møøse bit my sister.

[Drunk Monk]

No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"...

[Drunk Monk]

Y'all prolly wonder where DM draws the line. 

Right here.

Brits warned against eating 'world's most dangerous cheese' at popular holiday destination
This cheese is so dangerous it's illegal to sell it in shops

Tom Earnshaw




Published 17:27 25 Apr 2024 GMT+1
The summer holidays are nearly here and with that, chance to experience foreign culture in all its glory.
There truly is nothing better than heading overseas and having a crisp pint of local lager while sampling the best local cuisine has to offer (well, for this writer anyway).
But not everything everywhere should be quaffed quite so quickly.
In fact, some should be outright avoided.
That includes one delicacy on one of the most stunning islands in Europe has to offer, with flights to the location as little as £14.99 thanks to our friends at Ryanair.
Despite the likes of Gordon Ramsay once upon a time seeking it out, the food can cause real illness if you eat it, with it actually illegal to sell it.
Back in 2009 it was also named in the Guinness World Records as the world's most dangerous cheese. Hardly a USP.
But that doesn't stop people from making it and offering it out for free as a local delicacy.
We're talking about a delicacy called casu martzu. Sometimes called casu marzu, it's a local delicacy in the Mediterranean.

Casa martzu in all its glory (LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images)
Found primarily on the Italian island of Sardinia, it's a traditional produce that's made in a pretty unique way.
We're off to a pretty normal start with standard ingredients forming most of the production phase.
But it gets interesting with the addition of live maggots. No, we're not joking.
It's actually what makes it such a local delicacy, with maggots hatching in the cheese itself and making their way through the dairy product.
They digest proteins in the cheese, which in turn makes a more creamier, soft product.
Locals even spin the cheese through a centrifuge device to mix the maggots with the cheese. Just how Mother Nature intended.

It's a local delicacy (Enrico Spanu/REDA&CO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Paolo Solinas, a Sardinian food expert, explained the local love for case martzu.
"The maggot infestation is the spell and delight of this cheese," he told CNN Travel.
"Some shepherds see the cheese as a unique personal pleasure, something that just a few elects can try."
Giovanni Fancello, a Sardinian journalist in his early 80s, said: "We have always eaten worms. Pliny the Elder and Aristotle talked about it.
"They ask us - ‘How do you make casu marzu?’. It’s part of our history.
"We are the sons of this food. It’s the result of chance, of magic and supernatural events."

Case martzu mashed up (Enrico Spanu/REDA&CO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Despite being loved locally, it's banned across the European Union when it comes to commercial sale of the product.
Some health concerns exist regarding the larvae surviving in your stomach and making it to your intestine.
There it can lead to a condition called pseudomyiasis, where flies can grow out of your skin. So gross.
Despite this the annual illegal production of casu martzu has been estimated at 100 tonnes per year, worth between €2 and €3 million.
Featured Image Credit: LOIC VENANCE/AFP via Getty Images/Enrico Spanu/REDA&CO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

[Greg]

DM would cross that line on a one dollar dare.