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I’m a stickler about grammar and words. This doesn’t mean that I am exact all the time––far from it!––but I endeavor to be exacting with myself. This rigid mindset is especially helpful when I copyedit an academic Latin and Greek journal four times a year.
Precision about the structure of phrases and meaning of words doesn’t abandon me when I step behind the cheese counter at Sickles. In fact, I get a bit caught up about the defining names of cheeses.
Take, for example, Brie. Folks tend to call any cheese covered in a white, bloomy rind Brie. But there are only two real Brie cheeses out there, ones that can legally and appropriately go by this name. The French government, which is even more of a stickler about language than I, officially certifies only Brie de Meaux and Brie de Melun, neither one of which is available in the United States. The reason for our national dairy deprivation is that true Brie must be made from unpasteurized milk. Raw milk cheeses are indeed permitted in the United States, but they must be aged for at least sixty days. Brie’s ideal maturing time is thirty to forty days. Sickles comes as close as it can to selling a true Brie with Fromage de Meaux, which follows the recipe for the name-protected cheese, but uses pasteurized milk.
Most of what folks generically refer to as Brie falls into a popular category of cheeses called bloomy rinds or soft-ripened cheeses. Bloomy refers to the white mold on the surface of the cheese, Penicillium candidum or camemberti or Geotrichum candidum. These types of mold break down proteins in the cheese from the outside in, making them nice and soft, hence “soft-ripened.”
Not totally prescriptive, I understand that it’s much easier to refer to this entire class of cheese as Brie, just as it’s more lively to call all sparkling wines Champagne. If you were to ask a cheesemonger for a soft-ripened cheese or a wine clerk for a sparkling wine, you would sound a bit dull and scientific, in essence, a stickler. I may be one, but who really wants to be around a stickler?
Even at the risk of being rain at a parade, the stickler in me has to come out on this topic. It’s not fair--or correct--to call all white-rind cheeses Brie. A bulging, 14-inch wheel of true Brie reflects a specific sense of place and centuries of tradition, of French women on farms in Île-de-France, collecting milk from their few cows and transforming it into the solid wonder that is cheese. Calling anything else by that name denies Brie its unique flavors, texture, and history.
Instead, tell your cheesemonger than you are looking for a soft cheese, or get more specific and specify a double crème (e.g., Fromager d'Affinois) or a triple (e.g., Délice de Bourgogne). Or say, as some hip cheese shops do, that you are looking for a “bloomy,” as in a bloomy-rind cheese. That’s just as easy as asking (incorrectly) for a Brie, no? This way, when you ask for a Brie, your cheesemonger won't have to waste your time trying to figure out if you want a true, assertive Brie or a more luscious double- or triple-creme cheese.
Let Brie be Brie; let it be its unsurpassed, mushroom-y self, a cheese developed for centuries in Île-de-France. And let the other bloomy-rind cheeses stand proud in their own names.
Don’t let this stickler rain on your parade. Enjoy!
Diana Pittet, the overly precise cheesemonger
Precision about the structure of phrases and meaning of words doesn’t abandon me when I step behind the cheese counter at Sickles. In fact, I get a bit caught up about the defining names of cheeses.
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| Bloomy-rinds getting more bloomy |
Most of what folks generically refer to as Brie falls into a popular category of cheeses called bloomy rinds or soft-ripened cheeses. Bloomy refers to the white mold on the surface of the cheese, Penicillium candidum or camemberti or Geotrichum candidum. These types of mold break down proteins in the cheese from the outside in, making them nice and soft, hence “soft-ripened.”
Not totally prescriptive, I understand that it’s much easier to refer to this entire class of cheese as Brie, just as it’s more lively to call all sparkling wines Champagne. If you were to ask a cheesemonger for a soft-ripened cheese or a wine clerk for a sparkling wine, you would sound a bit dull and scientific, in essence, a stickler. I may be one, but who really wants to be around a stickler?
Even at the risk of being rain at a parade, the stickler in me has to come out on this topic. It’s not fair--or correct--to call all white-rind cheeses Brie. A bulging, 14-inch wheel of true Brie reflects a specific sense of place and centuries of tradition, of French women on farms in Île-de-France, collecting milk from their few cows and transforming it into the solid wonder that is cheese. Calling anything else by that name denies Brie its unique flavors, texture, and history.
Instead, tell your cheesemonger than you are looking for a soft cheese, or get more specific and specify a double crème (e.g., Fromager d'Affinois) or a triple (e.g., Délice de Bourgogne). Or say, as some hip cheese shops do, that you are looking for a “bloomy,” as in a bloomy-rind cheese. That’s just as easy as asking (incorrectly) for a Brie, no? This way, when you ask for a Brie, your cheesemonger won't have to waste your time trying to figure out if you want a true, assertive Brie or a more luscious double- or triple-creme cheese.
Let Brie be Brie; let it be its unsurpassed, mushroom-y self, a cheese developed for centuries in Île-de-France. And let the other bloomy-rind cheeses stand proud in their own names.
Don’t let this stickler rain on your parade. Enjoy!
Diana Pittet, the overly precise cheesemonger
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