Just Cheesy: The podcast, presented by Just Cheesy Productions. Hi there. I'm your host, Fondue. And I'm Cheesy. In this week's episode, we're going to learn about different ways to store cheese. We're talking clay pots, caves, wax, brine, paper, and clay. We've even curated our very own list on Amazon and the link is in our show notes. And of course, no episode would be complete without our very cheesy joke. So cheesy. Stay tuned for episode 181. Wrapped, on just cheesy the podcast.
I don't know about you, Cheesy, but for the most part, I don't give a second thought to the way my cheese is packaged. No, most everything I buy comes in plastic. Yeah, but did you know that the invention of plastic wrap was pretty new? Really? It is, and it was in 1949. According to Rocketindustrial.com some of the earlier methods include clay pots, cloth, wax, and cheese paper. And it seems to me that people were storing cheese in whatever they could find.
According to cheese-store.com they stored it in things like leaves and animal hides, and they even covered it with things like bark and straw. In the Middle Ages, they used wooden barrels. And in the 19th century, we see the advent of tin foil. And the biggest reason that we're interested in this is because it actually needs to be stored in some way.
Now, obviously, they were making cheese because milk spoiled too quickly, and a lot of the materials allowed the cheese a level of protection against external contaminants, which made it possible to transport it and store it for longer periods. Right. Clay pots can be found all the way back to the Neolithic period. Holy cow. Cheese could be stored and preserved in pots by either wrapping individual wheels in salt or immersing them in a salty brine.
And the pots could even be buried underground to protect the contents from going bad in hot climates. Really? And there's even some cheese that is stored this way today on a website called picatesalumeria.it sure, there's a cheese that is still made and kept in a clay jar. Wow. I'm not sure how to pronounce this one, but it looks like Coquito is the name of the cheese. Oh, my goodness. And it's a stretched curd cheese, and it actually is seasoned, and then it's protected by a shell of raw earth.
And they said in this case, a layer of clay is not spread directly on the rind, but it's matured for a few weeks and it's enclosed in a pot that's been worked on a lathe. The reason the clay pot works so well is that it has the absence of oxygen and it keeps the temperature and humidity constant. Cheesecloth is another method of wrapping cheese. It is. And we covered a lot about cheesecloth back in episode 149. Oh, yeah. According to academyofcheese.org there is a cloth bound cheddar.
This cheese dates back as far as the 16th century. Holy cow. The cheese is made in round truckles using cow's milk and it's bandaged in muslin to protect it as it matures. Wow. So we've talked about clay and we've talked about cloth, but something that goes back even further are leaves. And just like all the other methods, one of the fundamental reasons was the protection against external contaminants. And today there are still some cheeses that are wrapped in leaves. Really?
Bannon cheese is a French goat's milk cheese. It's dipped in. Here comes some French eau de vie, which is French for spirit or water of life. Sure. It's a clear, colorless fruit Brandy. Yum. After the soaking in brandy, it's placed in some chestnut leaves and it's tied with raffia. There's a Spanish cheese called queso de val dian. This is a blue cheese and it comes from Leon. And this one can actually be wrapped in either chestnut leaves or sycamore maple.
Robiola dicapra is a goat moon milk cheese. Okay. And it is wrapped in fig leaves. There's one. And again, I'm sorry about the pronunciation. This is Italian soft cheese called focaccio and it's also wrapped in fig leaves. Yum. The leaves not only protect the cheeses from the elements, but they also give them a little bit of a taste and a lot of aroma on the finish. Wow. Leaf wrapped cheeses are not sponsors, but if they were, they're at would go right here.
Now we know a little bit more about some of the other wrappings. One, of course, is wax. And Baby Bell is a wax rind cheese. Oh, yeah. And Edam is also one that is stored in wax. Foil has produced a wrapper for quite a few different cheeses. And currently one is called the Laughing Cow. Each little wedge is individually wrapped in foil. Yum. According to paroleedeformage.com and I could be messing that up. There's a link in the show notes. Oh, you got it.
They talk a little bit about storing cheese properly. Really? They talk about the obvious. The refrigerator. Yeah. Cheese likes to be Cold. But drying properties of refrigerators are not good, so it cannot be in contact with the ambient air in the appliance. It said. Okay, so you don't want to leave it unwrapped. Oh, sure. Plus, leaving it unwrapped can also leave some weird smells in your fridge. Oh, yeah. They suggest storing it in cheese paper in the vegetable crisper. Oh, yeah.
They also say you can put it in Tupperware, but you should wrap each one individually in its own box. Oh, good idea. They recommend glass as a preference to plastic. Plastic because it allows you to keep the humidity better and avoid aromas and bad smells. And if you have a cheese platter, they say keep the original packaging if you have the ability, because then you could put it back in there and keep it individually. Oh, yeah. So let's talk a little bit about plastic.
Okay. I know currently how I keep my cheeses, especially when I do American style block of cheese, I wrap it very tightly in Saran Wrap. Oh, yeah. And I do that because I took a trip once to Cabot Creamery and that's what they actually recommended to keep it from getting too many smells in the fridge and keeping it from going moldy. Oh, yeah. But plastic was a relatively new invention. Like we said earlier, 1949 was when it kind of broke into the industry.
And as far as packaged shredded cheese, the first one to do that was Sargento in 1958, according to BizTimes.com Wow. And it wasn't until 1986 that Sargento introduced what they called a zip pack, the first resealable packaging for its products. And that wasn't very long ago. No. One of the most famous plastic wrapped cheeses didn't actually come in individual slices. Originally. It didn't. In 1948, Kraft American pasteurized processed cheese came in a two pound block.
And what I thought was really interesting is that the slices are not actually slices off of a block. They're not. In 1950, Kraft introduced these slices, but they're actually formed separately in manufacturing. Wow. Originally, they did come in slices, but they were not wrapped individually, which didn't happen until they developed a machine in 1956. At one point in its history, block cheese used to come in boxes. They were first used in 1890 to ship cheese from Europe.
They're usually made of maple, ash or hickory, and they were nailed to pine wood pieces on the top and the bottom. According to the antiquejourney.com these boxes would actually be printed with the name of the farm or the factory and the type of cheese. The boxes help the cheese from flipping over during transport. Nice. Cheeses like Provel and Velveeta are what they call processed cheese. Say what you will about these cheeses, but they have a very long shelf life.
And the mass produced nature dramatically lowers their costs. Most often they're served in a block, but they can also be sliced and separated by wax paper. A couple of newer ways to wrap or package your cheese is vacuum packaging. The vacuum creates an airtight seal around the cheese. Wow. There's also one that we learned about called modified atmosphere packaging. Whoa. And they say this is a game changer for the industry. Really?
This replaces the air inside the packaging with a specific gas mixture, typically nitrogen and carbon dioxide. According to plyveneer.com this controls the atmosphere and it extends the shelf life and maintains their quality. Nice. We've been seeing a few really cool things showing up. We have. According to Real Simple.com, there's a storage box that keeps cheese perfectly. Yeah. To me it resembles a recipe box. Yeah. But there's also a few other types that you can buy on Amazon.
The plastic keeper is called a cheese vault. There's also a wooden one called a cheese grotto. And then there's even a pot or a stoneware pot that keeps shredded parmesan cheese. Wow. Amazon also has some butcher paper and some cheese storage bags. Or you can even use parchment paper from the grocery store. Oh, yeah. We've got a link in our show notes to our curated list on Amazon called Cheese Storage. You know, we've had a couple of others. The Gift of Cheese.
We've had one called Golden Cheese and some of our very favorites. So please check it out. Out. I'm ready for a joke Fondue. Okay. Why is American cheese so good at R and B? I don't know. Because it is smooth and individually wrapped. Get it wrapped. Yeah, it was kind of dumb. Oh, I know it was kind of dumb. I probably should have went with this. Yeah. What's cheese's favorite music type? Who knows? R and Brie. That one's cliche. Maybe, but it is a little bit cheesy.
Thanks for listening to Just Cheesy the podcast cast episode 181. Wrap. Thank you. Don't forget to check out our show notes where we have a link to our very favorite items on Amazon and cheesy. Everybody.