The Cheese That Lives

[scordelia]

This particular cheese is fully illustrated in Culinaria Germany on pp 60-61.

Apparently, this cheese from Wurchwitz (Wurchwitzer Spitinenkase) is made by tiny relatives of the domestic dust mite. One takes a wooden ease of cheese mites and feeds them every day with rye flour, and gives them dried organic quark that is free of preservatives. The mites' excretions permeate the cheese by diffusion. The enzymes containes therein cause the cheese to ripen. After about a month, the skin will be yellow, but aficianados claim that the black-skinned, year old cheese is the best. A similar cheese is made Oviedo, Spain using mites. The mites are consumed with the cheese.

This raises a few questions. First, what is an organic quark? I am only familiar with the quarks from physics class. Second, has anyone had this cheese (either from Oviedo or Wurchwitz), and did you like it? Can you buy it in the US?

[Gifted Gourmet]

Spinnenkäse, which literally means spider cheese, more correctly called Milbenkäse (mite cheese), is a German speciality cheese ...

Quark flavoured with salt and caraway is shaped into small balls or cylinders and dried. Then it is placed in a wooden box inhabited by cheese mites (Tyroglyphus casei L.) for at least three months. The excrement of the mites, which are fed with rye flour, diffuse into the cheese and cause fermentation. After one month, the cheese rind turns yellow, after three months reddish-brown. Some producers, however, allow the cheese to ripen for up to one year, until it has turned black.

Mites clinging to the cheese rind are also consumed.

Wikipedia

anyway you look at it, it is somewhat less than appealing .. and doubtful that it could be bought in the Us since it isn't even legal in Germany ...

Spinnenkäse is not strictly legal, as the sale of foodstuffs containing living animals is forbidden in Germany; however Spinnenkäse is tolerated by the authorities for the sake of its ancient tradition.

[scordelia]

Thanks for the Wikipedia link. So, quark is just an acid set cheese.

Sadly, we will not be able to try this cheese. May I live vicariously and have someone describe the flavor and texture?

[tejon]

I'm reminded of this older eGullet thread.

[jayt90]

Is it a coincidence that this cheese is brought toour attention on Aprol 1st?

[Toliver]

Bleu cheese and all ripening cheeses go through a similar symbiotic process thanks to a living fungus or mold.

[Lilija]

Man. What won't people eat?

[Patrick S]

Man.  What won't people eat?

←

If the show Fear Factor is any indication, the answer appears literally to be 'nothing.'

[eje]

Weird.

I knew mites were responsible for Mimolette's crusty exterior; but, that whole fermented mite excrement thing with this cheese is pretty weird.

How on earth do people come up with these ideas originally?

[Toliver]

Man.  What won't people eat?

←

If the show Fear Factor is any indication, the answer appears literally to be 'nothing.'

←

It may be just a rumor, but I'd heard that the things the contestants eat on that show have to be actual food consumed by people, cultures, tribes, etc. Somewhere someone in the world eats it as part of their diet. So they just don't make it up, supposedly.

To go back on topic, I'd recently posted about a fascinating documentary I'd seen on PBS about "The Cheese Nun". The point being that she published a scientific paper on molds that create a lot of cheeses and how, in France, depending on which cave you stored the cheese in for aging, you would get a completely different mold and hence a different flavored cheese. That's why there can be more than 350 different kinds of ripening cheeses in France thanks to the varied mold spores.

Amazing little buggers, eh?

[Lilija]

Man.  What won't people eat?

←

If the show Fear Factor is any indication, the answer appears literally to be 'nothing.'

←

It's true, it's true. I read an article recently that talked about people in Indonesia eating tarantulas. It broke my heart. Something about them tasting very much like shrimp.