There's White Stuff Growing on Your Cheese That Isn't Mold (2018)

Two weeks ago, one of my best friends and ex-cheese comrades, Chelsea, brought our old mentor/boss-lady, the illustrious Kim Martin, into the shop. Neither of them had visited us before, and it was pretty exciting to show them around our little corner of the co-op. As they were getting ready to leave, Chelsea pulled me aside and silently pointed at a quarter-wheel of aged Gouda on display in the back of the case, tapping the side of it to show me that it was all white. “It’s not mold,” I announced without skipping a beat. “It’s calcium lactate.” This is something I actually have to write on the scale label when we wrap wedges of the cheese for sale, because people are inherently put off by a sheet of white on an otherwise butterscotch-orange cheese. After all, most people are familiar with white, wispy molds growing on the outside of cheese—either as the well-manicured coif of a bloomy-rind cheese or as errant growths on the cut face of half-eaten cheese hunks living in the refrige ... Read full article.