The Whey of Zen

A is for Amy.

A is also for Anxiety, Angst, Apprehension, Anguish, Agitation and Always Imagining the Worst.

That's right. I'm a worrier.

Present me with a hypothetical scenario, and I will tell you six things that are bound to go wrong. Come up with a plan and I will predict its future unpleasant complications, yea unto eternity. I anticipate every possible snafu and arrange multiple backup arrangements. I'm famous for it.

This pessimism generally works in my favor. I am always on time for appointments because I allow an extra ten minutes for traffic (half an hour if I'm driving to Philly, an hour if I'm headed to Port Authority). My gas tank rarely drops below half-full and I always check in for a flight twenty-four hours ahead in case of delays on the day of travel. The fridge is full of home-made gluten-free lunches before the work week even begins (what if I have to work late and can't get to the shops?) and I always have butane on hand for our camping stove (what if the electricity goes out when I'm trying to boil the kettle for tea?). 

I am rarely disappointed because I always expect that Bad Things Are Just Around the Corner. They aren't really, of course, and as I result I spend a lot of time twiddling my thumbs when I'm too early for meetings or have four hours to kill before a flight.

I have tried a number of strategies to quiet my over-excitable imagination: I like to take a brisk 40-minute walk every day and am extremely dutiful about not drinking too much caffeine or watching Glenn Beck. I am very conscientious about my afternoon stretches and am seriously considering yoga.

What I had not previously anticipated, however, was that cheese-making could provide all the meditative calmitude I might possibly require: Jim demonstrated this magical benefit when he stirred and ladled his camembert on Saturday afternoon. It was an impressive display of the contemplative arts - like a cross between counting prayer beads and a Japanese tea ceremony - and one I shall attempt to perfect in the weeks to come.

The process started familiarly enough - although the bugs in the milk vat and the temperatures were a little different that those we had used for our cheddar that morning. Since camembert is also a lower-temperature cheese, the same mesophilic culture that we used for acid-production and rennet-efficiency in our cheddar was appropriate. In addition, we added two ripening molds: penicillum candidum (the white mold that gives camembert and brie their lovely cream-colored velvety rinds) and geotrichum candidum (ditto).

Of course, with a runny oozy camembert, the manufacturing principles are quite different from those of cheddar, even though the steps (at least while the milk is in the vat) are strikingly similar. The devil is in the details. The milk ripened for only 30 minutes, rather than the cheddar's 90. Instead of a short sharp shock of acid production (our cheddar's bacteria were shut down after only a few hours, you may recall), camembert's acidification lasts for two days. The coagulation of camembert curds goes for a longer time, too - and the resulting tofu cubes are more firm than silken - as illustrated below:

After something like 90 minutes' worth of coagulation,
the curds shrank from the sides of the pot

After the cut was made,
even more shrinkage was visible

Indeed, the only reason Jim cut the curd at all was so he could fit the cheese into his rather stubby molds - traditionally, camembert curds are ladled straight from the vat and all whey drainage takes place after the curds have been removed from the pot. Remember how we stirred and agitated the cheddar for ages and ages, keeping the curds broken up and mobile? The bad boys pictured above were poked with the Big Spoon for a cursory five minutes only.

Perhaps you are wondering where, in all this rush, the meditative arts come into play. Well, I will tell you. The calming contemplation starts now.

Jim set out four camembert molds: note their clever little drainage holes, so handy for whey removal! Their round shapes and pleasant curves were very soothing.

Slowly, imperturbably, and with great deliberation, Jim started decanting the curds into the molds, placing a skimmer-ful in each before moving on to the next:

Refusing to be rushed, he spooned ...

... and scooped ...

... concentrating on one cheese at a time with no prejudice or preconception. It took a very long time.

My guess is, one could do a lot of good thinking carrying out such a task. It's kind of like ironing or soldering wires together: it's almost perfectly mindless (thus freeing the brain for other activity) whilst at the same time requiring care and precision (producing the requisite hushed tranquility).

I'm no expert, but that sounds like the perfect calming exercise for one such as myself.

When the molds were full and Jim was suitably serene and at peace with the world, he covered each with a mat and gave it a good tip to kick-start the whey drainage. It didn't take long before the curds started to settle and it was time to flip them over:

The mold at 10:00 has been flipped: the
settling of its curds may already be discerned.

This process (flip, drain, flip, drain, flip, drain) took on a mantra-like quality, as Jim was required to attend to the cheeses every hour or so for the first five hours.

Between disturbances, the camembert was left to do some meditating of its own:

The next morning, much of the liquid had drained awhey and the cheese compressed under its own weight, enabling it to be removed from its mold for show-and-tell:

That afternoon the cheese was salted, thus sending the bacteria into a torporous state and putting a halt to acidification.

Everything else happened after we left on Sunday, I must take this schedule on faith - which I do, of course, since I know Jim would never steer his students wrong. After salting came the affinage. The cheese had to air dry for a couple of days then retreat to its 52 deg. F cave, where it should start growing it's white fur coat in a week or so. In two weeks, all being well, it will be positively polar-bear like, at which point it will be wrapped and stored at 42 deg F for another month.

What could possibly go wrong? I feel the urgent need to know. Well, let see. There's the unexpected growth of unsightly blue mold; the unwanted buildup of unsightly black mold; the development of dark dry areas where there is no mold; and/or the  sprouting of poil de chat - the dreaded cat's hair - feared and reviled by fromagers the world over.

I guess I will have something to worry about after all.

Coming soon: I  construct a cave as per Jim's excellent example and embark upon my own camembert creation.