Hatts

Even if you’re a hyper-conscientious dieter who tends to avoid fat like the plague, it’s still possible to enjoy the ancient miracle of curdled, cured milk and stay within healthy parameters. As in the case of any rich food, the key to enjoying cheese is moderation. The best strategy is to buy only the finest cheeses, consume them in small quantities and substitute them for foods with equivalent fat and protein counts. Four ounces of strip steak may conform to your Mediterranean-style pyramid diet but it isn’t a much of a gustatory revelation. The same amount of genuine — emphasis on genuine — artisan cheese is guaranteed to tickle your palate. For your weekly treat, instead of the steak, splurge on a 4-ounce chunk of authentic Roquefort and serve it alongside a big healthy salad.

Become a connoisseur and a choosy taster. Most of the world’s elite cheeses are stronger, richer, more profound — and, of course, more expensive — than your standard fare. We’re not talking about Cabot Cheddar, which you can probably find in your supermarket dairy case. Nothing against Cabot; it’s a perfectly respectable, well-made American version of a great English classic. But try a genuine raw-milk Montgomery’s Cheddar and your inevitable response will be: “Now that’s real cheese!”

As the renowned mâitre fromager (and, not coincidentally, my co-author of two popular cheese books) Max McCalman likes to say, “Cheese is a more perfect food than the incredible, edible egg.” Cheese supplies plenty of the nutrients needed to sustain a human being, except for fiber — and that’s where the salad or perhaps a good piece of whole-grain bread comes in. A 4-ounce piece of good Cheddar offers more than twice the protein of an egg as well as one-half to one-third of the daily nutritional requirements of an average-sized adult. Yet there’s no denying the fact that it contains significant amounts of saturated fat from an animal source, the kind doctors recommend reducing to a minimum in order to control your cholesterol and weight.

Artisan cheesemakers avoid questionable industrial practices such as treating healthy animals with growth hormones or non-therapeutic antibiotics, or giving them animal-based feeds; therefore these substances won’t creep into your diet. Research suggests that milk from naturally grazing pasture-fed cows contains increased levels of Omega-3 fatty acids and Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), both anti-cancer agents. For people who are lactose-intolerant, cheese is really the only dairy product they should consider since virtually all the milk sugar (lactose) is “pre-digested” by the action of beneficial bacteria and enzymes in the cheesemaking and aging processes.

Speaking of bacteria, you may hear a lot of fear-based, alarmist pronouncements from the medical establishment about the dangers of non-passteurized raw-milk cheeses. In fact, the safety net of pasteurization is illusory because its main effect is to eradicate completely the natural barrier of beneficial bacteria that protect an aging cheese. Historically, the infrequent incidents of sickness from cheese have almost all been blamed on raw-milk cheeses but turn out to be traceable to pasteurized ones. Responsible raw-milk producers test for bad bugs on a daily basis and will destroy any contaminated batch of milk or cheese immediately.

There are a wide variety of edible mushrooms that people enjoy, but none have quite the prestige of the highly-valued truffle.  Originally hunted by the renowned truffle hogs that had an innate hunger for these delectable treats, truffle dogs are now more frequently used to locate the fungi, as the dogs are easier to control.  While truffles from France are considered some of the top in the world, truffles are being gathered across the world, from countries including the United States, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, and Spain.

When searching for truffle mushrooms for sale, shoppers usually find one of two options available: fresh and preserved.  The latter is generally accomplished using a mild brine.  While there are many cooks who use truffle oil as a less expensive alternative to actual truffles themselves, many are surprised to learn that the oil often contains no actual truffle.  Instead, it is generally olive oil that has been artificially flavored.