 I want to talk to you guys a little bit about my journey as well, it's not as fascinating and inspiring, but I'm trying to do a little bit, whatever I can for cheese and India. So we started the cheese, I started the cheese collective back in 2013, but my cheese journey kind of began when I used to work and volunteer at a cheese store in New York called Marais. And ultimately I did a cheese boot camp there, which was 65 cheeses, three days, morning to evening, eating cheese, talking about it, and just totally immersive cheese experience. And after those three days everyone around me would cheese out, but I could eat more cheese. And that's what I knew that I needed this is what I love and this is what I need to be doing and move back to India and started the cheese collective we're making fresh cheese and fresh cream cheese fresh goat cheese. So I'm trying to curate cheese from cheese makers across the country, as well as certain imported cheeses but with a focus on indigenous Indian cheese and you know cheeses like this, this special camel cheese, trying to help communities as well as, you know, try and make all the customers as well. And you're right, Indian Indian palates are quite different. They want that spice and kick and garlic is definitely a crowd favorite. But moving on to this. Also I wanted to really thank Elizabeth again, what what that whole cheese timeline and map is is just something super special I really want you guys to check it out. And so yeah, this is this is us today. We are going to talk to you a little bit about the cheese families. Just, you know, when we think of cheese, we know that milk is the most important ingredient. The most important ingredient. Like if there isn't good milk, you cannot make good cheese you may have the best recipe in the world, but you cannot make a good cheese. The milk has to be good clean, ethically sourced. And it's so important what the cattle is eating as well. Cheese is like a time capsule. What you're eating today, especially if it's an age cheese is a captured moment of a time of what the cattle ate what the grass was what the soil is what the flowers that are grown are all of that goes all that goodness goes into the milk, and that is translated into the cheese. That is what natural artisanal cheese is all about. And, you know, one of my favorite quotes that is out here, cheese is mixed leap towards immortality. And it kind of plays on that whole time capsule thing. Okay, we go to the next slide. This is just a little quick overview about, you know, you can just you can just like glance through the ingredients and see how a natural cheese is just basic milk cultures, rennet or enzymes and salt. And look at the beautiful shapes and textures and colors, just these four ingredients can give you. And when we come to process cheese, it's got some percentage of cheese, but it also has a lot of other ingredients that are added to it. And the result is something that is very homogenous. But it's also in the taste family, you will, you will have, it'll be buttery, it'll be creamy, and will be salty. But it won't have any of those undertones of, you know, the very taste that you get, and all those tastes are a lot to do with the milk, and the cultures that we use. So none of that translates through process cheese, which is very standardized. Can we go to the next slide. Thank you so much Elizabeth by the way for doing this thank you for helping me with the slides. Okay, so these are a couple of ways to segregate or categorize cheeses. We have the first one, which is according to the milk. So we have a beautiful example of camel milk. And there's also, you know, donkey, moose and yak, which are some of the other harder milks to access. In fact, the tennis player Joe Kofic, for one of his, one of the years I think it was 2000 and 2014 or 15. So for that year he bought the entire camp donkey milk, donkey milk cheese off of like they were two production units and he bought all that donkey milk cheese because he wanted to have the most expensive cheese at his restaurant. And why is it expensive is because you need a lot of milk to make that cheese. That's one of the reasons and press the process is much harder than cow or goat or or sheep or buffalo. So that's why these are all the varieties of that that's one way to categorize them. The other one is the kind of milk that you use, whether it's pasteurized whether it's ultra pasteurized whether it's homogenized or it's raw raw milk makes the best cheese. And there's, there's rennet. There are different types of rennet and different methods of making setting the cheese. I'm going to go a little quick because I have a lot to share with you guys. Then there's the method of making we're going to get a little bit into that in the next few slides, and where it comes from and what it, you know what it looks like and what the texture is. Those are some of the categories. Let's start with the fresh category. So, when we say fresh, the word fresh in especially in us in in our country in India, there's always this. We always associate the word fresh with stale. So the food is fresh or it's gone stale, but in the cheese community, when we say it's a fresh cheese, what we're trying to say is it's a cheese that is young, a cheese that is made and immediately it's fresh in, it's best eaten when it's immediately, you know, right after it's made, and it doesn't have a rind. A rind is a outer layer or a protective layer. We will get to different kinds of rinds in the other slides. But this you have to just keep in mind a fresh cheese is a cheese that is young, it is unripened doesn't have it's not aged. It's fresh because it's just eaten pretty much like mozzarella you eat it immediately. Then there is a fresh goat cheese cream cheese, even feta it's a young even burrata. So all these cheeses even though they last for anything from a day to two days to two weeks, they all fall under the fresh cheese category. And it's best to store them in the dairy compartment where it's cold in the fridge. That's one of the tips to storing them. Okay, next. This, this is a blue me cheese blue me rind cheese. This is one of my favorite categories as well. So if you if you have ever tried or eaten a brie or a Camembert or a rubiola these are all blue me rind cheeses. When I say blue me, it's because when the cheese is made and it is young, and then it goes into the aging room. And the aging room is where it is an environment which is temperature and humidity controlled. So the cheese sits there, and it ages for a couple of weeks, depending on how long you want to age each cheese has a different condition and protocol. So this one say it's for a couple of weeks, when it's made it's it's quite bare. And then over the few weeks there's a nice white rind that, you know, sort of blooms all over and around the cheese. And essentially you're supposed to pat it down, flip it, rotate it and all of that those are the care that you give to the blue me rind cheeses. So the rind is essentially blooming when you feel it it feels very soft and velvety. And that's a that's like an example of a rind that has bloomed and you've patted down brie, Camembert, rubiola, humble fog is this American cheese that also falls in the same category. So that's why these are blue me rind cheeses the rind is edible in this category. Now we go into the washed rind here the rind you can you can see the earlier one was white pretty much snowy snowy velvety white. This one is a little bit crustier. It is got this orange and reddish kind of a hue kind of a color. And this is this is because of certain bacteria. Also, all of this is a lot to do with the bacteria sorry I forgot to tell you guys I'm so excited to share with you. So the blue me rind cheese is a penicillium called penicillium candied in penicillium Camembert and that's where Camembert gets its name from. And here is the be linens brie bacterium linen and that gives it this this kind of crust and protective layer. The step was which is this which is a French cheese is also sometimes washed with Apple Brandy. So you're washing the rind with a brine with a solution it can be water based it can be a little bit of alcohol or another special mix. So the rind is washed regularly whether it is battered for these kind of softer cheeses or if it's a bit of a harder washed rind or smear ripened whether whether rind is you know smeared essentially. So these are just some key words technical words that are used to categorize these cheese families. So yeah this these these are the stinky cheeses as well they're known as the stinky cheeses in fact, if one of these one of these cheeses, if you plot the smell graph, and you compare that smell graph to cats urine or smelly feet, it's going to be pretty similar. So that's that's kind of how stinky they are, but they but they don't taste that stinky. So they're super delicious. Next, can we go to the next one. Oh, perfect. Yeah. So this one is the semi hard cheese category. These also have a rind. But in this case if you notice with the almond and the Buddha or the Gouda, it's quite waxy. So what happens is they make the entire wheel. And then that wheel is dipped into hot wax, whether it's red or black sometimes green, depending. So you dip it into into that wax and you remove it and then it's a protective layer. So that's not it's not a natural layer of course because you're adding that layer with wax, but it helps protect what's inside. And this one isn't edible. I want to talk to you a little bit about these holes that are there in the Amantal. The Amantal is is is the most iconic cheese that ever is it's also known as the Tom and Jerry cheese. And it's also when we when whenever we see a, you know, like, whether it's even like a cartoon image of cheese or a jiff or any any image that is illustrated. Usually you'll always have this cheese, a one with with holes. Now these holes in cheese is caused by the gas formation. So when cheese is aging, there's gases that are released, and it needs to escape. So that's where these holes are formed and they're actually known as eyes. So they're the eyes of cheese. So the technical term for it is eyes. So that's something for you to remember. And this is the same. So now and now we go on to the heart cheese category. Now, all those other cheeses that we saw the fresh one was a few weeks to two, two couple of days old. Then we had the blue me rind which was a couple of weeks old. The semi the semi hard or, you know, sorry. Okay, so and that and then that then we had the semi hard cheeses that were, you know, that can be a couple of months to even a year or two years old. But the hard cheeses are aged for much longer from a year to two to even four years, like for example this Gouda so we had a young Gouda which was the previous one, and we have this aged Gouda. So we can just flip back to the previous slide. We can see the color of these cheeses versus the next one, you can see it's developed much more it's much deeper that was more of a straw yellow this one's more of a deeper yellow. And with with aging of a cow milk cheese. This is what the color difference has each milk has a different kind of kind of color usually like goat and buffalo is pretty much stuck white when it is young and when it ages it has this grayish kind of tinge to it as well. It'll be very interesting to know I would love to know what would happen with, you know, with the camel milk I am not sure about that I will ask that to you later. But coming back to the hard cheese, these cheeses have the least amount of way or water content, because they're aged for so long, and the way they made as well. So it's just, it's just common sense, because it will last longer because it has less water content in it and the fresh cheese category has the most water in it. So it needs to be consumed as a view. The fun fact about Parmigiano Reggiano, which is, you know, also known as the king of all cheeses is there is there are certain that there used to be a time where people could take a loan against it, because it was considered, you know, so valuable. So that's, that's a fun little fact about it. And you can see the texture you can see the crystals that have formed, that is also, you know, so all part of the aging process, both these cheeses have these white spots on it. And all of that is some sort of acid formation so you know that this is an aged cheese, that's a sign of an aged cheese get that slight crunch as well. Moving on to the last family, another favorite, you can just see how beautiful the color is it's it's again like a pale yellow with a strong river of blue and green and gray. Of course, when when you see it much closer, like when you see a close up, it's even more beautiful. So I want to tell you a little bit about the blue cheese of cheese blue family of cheeses. This one is called bloody buffalo, and the other one is the Gorgonzola. And the blue, the blue cheese made of buffalo milk so it's really filled with a lot of fat, and quite delicious. Now want you guys to look at the holes that are there on the side of the cheese. So again when the cheese is made this one, and any of the any of the blue cheese is basically when the blue cheese is made. There is, you know, for example if it's a cylindrical shape or, you know, a rectangle, it's kept in its, it's young, it's got no rind yet developed any blind yet, and it's kept in the aging room to age gracefully. And after, after a certain time, there are needles, or steel needles that are inserted into the cheese, and then removed. And what you left with are these holes, and what happens is with with the holes, there's oxygen that enters these cheese. And what you're what you're left with is the bacteria which is the penicillin rope 40. That's one of the one of the bacterias. They have, you know, they have the perfect atmosphere the temperature is perfect the humidity is great. And they have oxygen now. So they're having a party they're multiplying like crazy. And that's where all these beautiful veins are developing. And the, you know, that's the blue cheese category, it's, it's sharp, it's pick one pick one means it's a little got a little spice to it. Not shitty spice but just a general pick one spiciness to it, but it's also buttery and salty. So it's it's it's a beautiful taste profile that is very underrated in India at the moment. All these cheeses are one of the ways to categorize them and you can call them cheese families. I just wanted to show you a little, a little bit about. Sorry, give me good. Yeah, I just wanted to show you a little bit about some of the platters that we make. Especially this one is all all the products and the cheeses on this platter the big the bigger one, the one with the apples is all Indian cheese. In fact, all these cheeses we were actually doing a special class with a local Bombay cheese maker called Alasdair cheese. So we were doing, we were doing a cheese tasting of that so it's just awesome to it's as a cheese monger and as a cheese maker. I feel happy and proud that there are so many cheese makers now in the country, doing such amazing work. And to showcase that and to present that in in a good way in a beautiful way and to, you know, give it to the customers and you know showcase it in this manner is what makes me happiest. So just wanted to share that with you guys as well. Yeah, yes. This one is a beautiful display of all the beautiful cheeses off of India. In fact, I want your eyes to go to the left and bottom most cheese. It is there are four to five cheeses there. Cheese balls. Yeah, perfect. So those are Bundel and it's an indigenous Indian cheese, and it is smoky and salty it's from the Bengal region of India. And we have had this cheese from back when the Portuguese kind of introduced that method of cheese making to us and used to be made in the Bundel region of India but now it's closer to being closer to Kolkata. But it's it's a it's a gorgeous cheese. It's technically a dairy product because of the method of making but you know it's it's we can include it in the cheese category as well. And then I want your eyes to go to another beautiful cheese. It's right to the left of the of the mini flower. It's a white cheese and it's round. It's called kalari. It's in its own brown. Yeah, perfect. Yes. So that one is kalari against super special kalari is very popular in Jammu Kashmir. It's a it's a you know it's a northern cheese. It's been made since centuries and we it's it's literally called doodh roti and it is made, you know, you know, when we flip a roti or a paratha or even in Gujarati we have a bhajra bhajranu rotla. All of that is flipped with with that hand action. And that is also how this kalari is made and the way we eat it is you eat it in its own fat. So you just fry it in its own shallow fried in its own fat and best enjoy it with with a local drink. So that's those are two very special cheeses and every other cheese on this on this in front of you is made in India and some are made as recent as a few years some are made since many years. We have stuff from Kashmir we have from Bengal we have from Uttarakhand we have we don't have something from the farm in Chennai but they make fantastic cheeses as well. And we have stuff from Bombay. So there's a there's a plethora of cheeses and there's there's still many more yet to be discovered. There's many more that yet need to be documented. And slowly but surely Elizabeth and I are going to do it with your help if you ever come across anything please get a reach out to us as well. So yeah, this is this is a little bit what I wanted to share with you. I hope you guys liked it.