I put myself through culinary school working as a cheese monger for a fancy gourmet deli in Chicago.
I had no experience with raw milk cheese before working there, aside from the mountains of imported Parmigiano my grandfather would cut for me from a glacier sized chunk (despite my mother’s protests of it being too salty). One of the biggest perks of this job, then of course, was being able to sample from literally hundreds of different cheeses from all over the world.
This is where I first learned about the wonders of raw milk cheese, like Roquefort and Stilton. Cheeses so unpasteurized, there are laws governing their distribution in the US and they cannot be consumed by pregnant women.
Sometimes the cheeses we imported from Europe would get stuck at the border and we’d have to send someone to customs to spring them from holding.
I even got to try Reblochon, a soft washed rind cheese from the French Alps that also happens to be made with raw cow’s milk. Shortly after restaurants started selling “freedom fries,” our supply of Reblochon was cut off.
I suspect this was more about politics than food safety.
I ate Reblochon once again while I was working as a private chef close to the New York state/Canadian border. Whenever I would go shopping in a small town just on the other side of the border, I would buy myself a little wedge, as it is freely imported there. Having tasted cheeses made in the same style using both raw and pasteurized milk, I can personally say, there is a marked difference.
Raw milk cheese is cheese made from milk that has not been pasteurized. The milk used in the cheese production has not been heated above the temperature of 104º F before setting the curd. Raw cheese in the US has to be aged for at least 60 days at a temperature of not less than 35ºF in accordance with FDA regulations.
The art of cheese making was brought to America by the English and the Dutch, followed by Germans and Italians, so most early cheeses made in America were modeled after these styles. Production and importation of raw milk cheese aged less than sixty days has been prohibited in the US since the 1940s. Most cheese at this time and for decades after was mass produced in factories using pasteurized milk. Artisanal, or hand made cheese, has become very popular over the past twenty years in the US. This new wave of American artisanal cheese makers has sparked some new controversy about the safety of raw milk cheeses.
Some of the dangers of consuming raw milk cheese are the potential pathogens it may harbor, like e coli and Listeria. There were forty five outbreaks of food borne illness from 1998 to 2005 in which raw milk or raw cheese were implicated. Of these outbreaks about 1000 people fell ill, 104 were hospitalized, and two people died, according to the FDA website.
Some cheeses are more likely to harbor pathogens than others. Semi-firm, firm, and aged cheeses are thought to be less risky than young soft cheeses. Things like, salt content and acidity may influence how well pathogens can thrive in a cheese. Aged cheeses tend to be dry and salty which make for poor pathogen breeding conditions.
Where and how a cheese is produced has more to do with its safety than whether it is made from raw milk or pasteurized milk. Cheeses made from small operations (Those with less than one hundred animals) typically have fewer incidences of salmonella than a large industrial setting.
One theory of the benefits of raw milk cheese is that pasteurization can actually be more problematic. Pasteurization kills many beneficial bacteria found naturally in milk. Many of these beneficial bacteria work as a significant defense against the growth of pathogens during the cheese making process where high water content, low acidity and high sugar levels are normally perfect conditions for growing pathogens.
It is also thought that many cheese producers see pasteurized milk as overly safe leading them to cut corners in cleanliness and procedure. Because most food borne outbreaks related to cheese come from production procedures and not from the cows themselves it would probably be more beneficial to public health to make stronger HACCP regulations regarding dairies and cheese producers than mandatory industry wide pasteurization which in no way guarantees safe cheese.
The FDA holds strong to its stance that raw milk cheese is dangerous and possibly laden with pathogens. Many scientists, chefs, and cheese enthusiast would strongly disagree. Many studies around the world have shown the safety of raw milk cheeses. Most chefs will agree that the superiority of raw milk cheese’s taste counteracts any of its more negative traits.
