by CAMEMBERT, France — On a tiny farm tucked into the lovely green hills of Normandy, Aude Sementzeff takes raw milk from a cow up the hill until it curdles, then churns it in molds to make round, pearly white Camembert cheese. do.
For eight years, Sementzeff has been making soft, bronze cheese in small batches for sale in Parisian shops, continuing a tradition that dates back to the 18th century. Camembert is so ubiquitous in France that soldiers in the trenches of World War I ate it as part of their daily ration.
“Camembert has been there at every stage of our history,” said Sementzeff, 41, as she delicately salted each cheese and turned it perfectly with its rind. “So there’s a strong connection, I think, with French culture.”
But now this whale is in trouble, as is brie, another world-famous French cheese.
The National Center for Scientific Research, France’s state science agency, has warned that Camembert, brie and even blue cheeses could “disappear,” due to a decline in the type of fungus that gives the cheeses their unique flavor, smell, and color loving and texture.
“Blue cheeses may be under threat, but the situation is much worse for Camembert, which is already on the verge of extinction,” the research center wrote in a memo in January.
Although many cheesemakers argue that the problem is not that bad, they admit that cheeses like Camembert are becoming increasingly difficult to produce, a consequence of past efforts to engineer the perfect block.
Scientists refer to the role of fungi in cheesemaking as “delicious rot,” and it is a critical part of the painstaking process of making Camembert, which includes several weeks of aging. It can be added early on with other enzymes when milk is heated to make curds, or sprayed on the cheese later to aid the ripening process and the soft white rind that Camembert fans appreciate. promotion.
In Camembert’s early days, the fungi existed naturally in the air in the damp caves where it was aged, said Emily Monaco, an American writer and cheese expert who lives in Paris. She said that’s what gave each batch its own distinctive character.
“Some will be more red or a little more blue or gray,” Monaco said. “And what people realized is that people like the white, noble look of Camembert.”
As a result, during the 20th century, cheese makers stopped leaving the fungus to chance and started making it in the laboratory. They isolated a specific albino strain called Penicillium camemberti that produced the perfect white rind, and soon cheesemakers around the world began using it.
Benjamin Wolfe, who teaches microbiology at Tufts University and studies fermented food in his lab, said there were advantages, such as consistency, but also disadvantages.
“A lot of times when we domesticate plants – or even our pets, like dogs and sometimes cats – we’re choosing certain types that we find very attractive,” he said. “And when we do that, we’re taking away from the overall pool of genetic diversity.”
Over time, Penicillium camemberti is losing some of its ability to reproduce naturally. Instead, scientists are growing the fungus using asexual reproduction – the same as planting a cutting from a flower to clone it, rather than a seed. Wolfe said it is possible to grow the fungus that way, but it is more difficult.
There are also longer-term concerns that only one or two strains of an organism are still around: If a disease or pathogen emerges that threatens the remaining strain, it could wipe out the entire population.
It is a threat similar to that facing other common foods due to global biodiversity that is deteriorating due to climate change, scientists say.
Warmer temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and more frequent extreme weather events are changing sensitive ecosystems around the globe that plant and animal species depend on for survival, the United Nations says. It is also increasing the prevalence of diseases.
In the case of cheese, scientists have begun working to restore some of the genetic diversity to the fungi. Lactalis, the world’s largest dairy company and maker of the popular French President Camembert cheese, said it was “not worried about the future of our products.”
“We are committed to preserving biodiversity and the safety of fermentation,” Lactalis said in a statement. “Our mission is to preserve the heritage of know-how and cheese, of which coupons are an integral part.”
Ironically, large industrial producers who rely entirely on laboratory-grown fungi may face a more severe challenge in the future than small artisanal farms, where the presence of animals and the absence of chemicals means that a wide variety of wild fungi remain in the environment . .
Monaco, the writer, said that cheese lovers of the future may have to accept that Camembert may not look and taste the same. She said part of the beauty of cheese is how it is shaped by its environment, or terroir, and factors as capricious as whether the grass fed to the dairy cows received more or less sun in any given year.
“If we want things to stay the same, we’re going to have problems going forward,” she said. “If we’re excited as we go forward, that every Camembert you try will have its own personality and flavor, that’s what we can look forward to.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
