Of course, what the interlocutors really want to know is where their free samples have got to, already.
The truth is the camemberts have been on my mind quite a bit lately - but like all small children, they are proving to have a will of their own and an insubordinate streak, besides.
I have been waiting for them to mature.
Loyal readers will recall that after my four offspring had grown their white anoraks, I wrapped them in ripening paper and moved them (together with a small bowl of water for humidification purposes) into the bottom crisper drawer in the fridge, where the chillier-than-cave temperature was intended to slow down mold growth and allow the fromages to age in peace. I had anticipated the cheese would be ready for tasting around the first week of June and blithely went on vacation, leaving Sir in charge.
When I duly reported back for a situational assessment, the camemberts looked exactly the same as when I had left - disturbingly so, in fact. I was assured by many experts, however, that the only way to tell for sure whether a mold-ripened cheese is ready for consumption is to bring it to room temperature over several hours and then give it a good squeeze, like old ladies do to the cheeks of diminutive relatives. If the texture seems soft and squidgy between thumb and index finger then you're good to go.
So that's what I did. Two weeks ago I removed one of my children from the fridge and allowed it to thaw out for a good few hours. But it didn't get soft - not even a little bit. It steadfastly (some might say stubbornly) retained its hockey-puck-like consistency no matter how warm it got. The rind on the outside felt hard and gritty.
I was nonplussed and, desiring a second opinion as well as a pep talk, hurriedly consulted with Sir. We decided the next logical step was to cut the cheese open, as a sort of scientific sacrifice, to see whether we could discern anything untowards within.
It wasn't pretty. In fact, so dismayed was I by my cheese's appearance that I didn't have the heart to take any photographic evidence of what we found. The rind under the white mold was thick and yellowish - it appeared to extend about 3 mm into the interior. The cheese itself was the consistency of factory-made mozzarella - rubbery and stiff rather than yielding and runny. The taste was - well, it didn't really taste much like anything at all.
I concluded that the lack of camembert flavor was a vital clue as to where I'd gone wrong. There was no evidence of spoilage or the dreaded ammonia odor that spells certain ruination, so I wondered if my cheese had somehow ceased to age as it should have - become frozen in time, as it were. It is true that I moved it into the fridge about a week earlier than my recipe had stipulated (it was one of those maddening procedures that said something like 'move your cheese into a 45 deg F environment when it's covered in white mold in about two weeks'). Since mine was covered with mold in less than one week and I had places to go, perhaps I had moved it undesirably early. Also, there is a certain amount of dissension among the experts about the ideal temperature at which mold-ripened cheese should age - a difference of about ten to fifteen degrees F, as it happens, depending upon to whom one listens.
Was it possible that the cold temperature, applied too soon, had arrested my babies' development? Was it too late to salvage the situation?
Only one way to find out! I moved the remaining three cheeses back into the cave, where I hoped the warmer 55 deg F climate might act as a growth stimulant. I figured at this point I had nothing to fear from their potentially contagious presence in my cave: my Wensleydale and cheddar cheeses are both protected from unwanted mold growth by their wax jackets, and my Swiss has a thick rind from all the brining to which I subjected it back in April.
Plus I was desperate.
Yesterday, I decided it was time for reexamination. I took one of the camemberts out of the cave at about two o'clock, when I returned home early to pick up the Kid Squid for his flying lesson. The cheese sat on the kitchen counter for the next four hours at an ambient temperature of about 78 deg F.
After dinner, we addressed the monster.
It was definitely softer than it had been two weeks earlier and the taste and aroma much more pronounced. If I closed my eyes and ignored the texture, I could definitely tell I was eating camembert. It lacked the creaminess of a fine mold-ripened cheese, however, and the yellow rind was still too thick. In fact, I'm not sure it had improved at all from our previous tasting episode.
Quelle catastrophe! Or at least, a very very disappointing state of affairs.
I have a couple of theories. The first is that I cooled the cheese to quickly and too much, thus arresting its development. The fact that its flavor evolved while sitting in the warmer cave would appear to bear this out.
To test this hypothesis, I am going to leave one of the remaining two cheeses in the cave for another two weeks as a control. The second cheese I am moving to the mini-cave in the basement, to see if the even warmer temperature down there has any beneficial effects.
But there is probably more than one thing going on here. I am now also wondering whether my cheeses didn't get too dry during their time in the crisper drawer. An ambient relative humidity of about 85%-95% is recommended - and I don't think my tiny rice-bowl of water was up to the task. In retrospect, I should have organized moisture levels so that my hatchlings got positively rained upon.
In order to avoid sinking into a purple funk it is important that I keep in mind the successful aspects of the project so far. I was able, after all, to get my curds to set and obtained a good yield from my initial two gallons of milk. My camemberts didn't develop dreaded black or blue mold. They didn't collapse into oozy puddles. They didn't turn to ammonia. I did, however, make the common rookie mistake of failing to age my fromages in the precisely correct environment - in fact, many experts advise against newly-minted cheesemakers producing camembert until they have mastered easier-to-keep hard cheese. Did I listen? Of course not. Hubris.
After an initial bout of wanting to give up and never ever ever make camembert again (or even eat camembert again, for that matter), I have regained my equilibrium and come up with a revised ripening strategy for the batch I shall attempt after returning from the family hols in August. I will watch the temperature like a hawk to make sure it doesn't fall too low. I will be sure to increase the humidity levels to prevent the cheeses' rinds from turning into tough, desiccated husks.
And I will be sure not to take the project too seriously.
A good plan? I think so. But I'm afraid everybody is going to have to wait just a little longer for their samples of Fromage de Fractured Amy.
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