Nom, nom, nom...
Somewhere between 8 and 10 types of cheese exist which can then be sub-categorised into many thousands of varieties. Anecdotally, France has approximately 400 cheeses to its name while a country like Japan may only have a handful of domestic cheeses with the rest being imports.
- Fresh cheese: These cheeses have not been aged. Due to laws in this country, since these cheeses aren't aged longer than 60 days, they are all pasteurized. Fresh goat cheese, ricotta, and mascarpone all fit into this category.
- Semi-soft cheese: These cheeses are high in moisture and are fairly young. Colby, Fontina and Raclette.
- Soft Ripened cheese: These are the "bloomy rind" cheeses. The rind is white and usually soft to the touch, almost fluffy in texture. These cheeses ripen from the outside in. Humbolt Fog, Brie and Camembert are good examples.
- Pasta Filata cheese: the name translates to spun pasta in Italian. These cheeses are cooked, and then kneaded, spun or pulled. Think Mozzerella and Provolone.
- Washed rind cheese: One my favorite categories. These cheeses are washed with either a brine, cider, wine, or beer in addition to a controlled bacteria while ripening. These cheeses also ripen from the outside in, but are not mild. They are also known as the "stinky" cheeses. Epoisses, Winnimere and Red Hawk are all good examples.
- Semi-hard cheese: due to how these cheeses are made (cooking, washing, draining, pressing) theses cheeses are firmer. Due to pressing and ageing these cheeses have less moisture. Think of Vermont Shepherd, Montgomery's Cheddar or Pleasant Ridge Reserve.
- Hard cheese: These cheeses have less moisture than any other category. Usually the curds are cut into smaller pieces which helps to expel more whey. That coupled with the ageing process gives these cheeses complexity and depth of flavor in addition to a drier crumbly texture. Parmigiano-Reggiano, various Pecorino cheeses and five year old Gouda all fit into this category.
- Blue cheese: This is a pretty big category. While all of these cheeses have been injected with mold, they can range from the creamy spreadable St. Agur to the crumbly dry Big Woods Blue.
How many types of cheese are there?
If you the consider flavoured or smoked cheeses, the number increases again. Chilli, paprika, pickled onion and chives are common additions. Then there are highly exotic cheeses such as casu marza aka maggot cheese
, and on a more agreeable scale, fresh Alpine cheeses that are more akin to yoghurt or crème fraîche than other semi-soft cheeses. Let’s not forget processed cheese which is arguably “fake cheese”. Be that as it may, it melts well and provides a umami and secret MSG (by way of natural glutamates) hit. Cheese in a can though is an abomination that nevertheless also comes in myriad varieties.
At a guesstimate, I’d say there are at least 5000 cheese varieties but given variation by way of tweaking flavours…closer to 20,000. realistically though 3,500 sounds like a good estimate of “classics” to work from with everything else being a derivative of some sort.
Source: cheese | sensuousamberville
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