Cheese, Now the Main Course

     Adventurous Restaurant Customers aren’t settling for plain grilled cheese or the same old Swiss on a sandwich, Chefs say. Foodies and their ever-more sophisticated palates are in search of new flavors, and eateries are answering the call with innovative dishes that meld flavors from around the world.

     Rob and Karen Lawlor left Restaurant careers when they bought Denver-based The Truffle Cheese Shop eight years ago and, in addition to selling retail and teaching cheesemaking classes, the shop sells its cheese to a long and growing list of local eateries. In recent years, Denver’s restaurants have gotten more innovative with their menus to feed the increasingly sophisticated palates of their guests, Karen Lawlor said.

     “The restaurants in Denver are more sophisticated than they were even five years ago, and they’re looking for European products as well as local,” she said, “Right now it’s a lot of fresh cheeses, mozzarella, ricotta, fresca. Those are seasonal for us, the fresh milk cheese because animals eat grass and when the grass is in season and fresh, that’s when they are most likely to have fresh milk.”

     Cheesemonger Michel Lemmerling, from the Brick Farm Market in Hopewell, NJ has earned the honor of Chevalier du Taste Fromage, routinely scours the neighborhood and US for the best-quality cheese.  Michel can also help you arrange for a beautiful cheese plate to match any entertaining occasion or is happy to use your own serving ware so that you may simply take it from their market to your table!  The Brick Farm Market also has monthly Cheese Classes.

     Andrea Frizzi, chef and owner of Il Posto in Denver is a Truffle Cheese Shop customer. Frizzi grew up in Milan, the son of a sommelier who learned the culinary trade, first in school and then in a series of restaurant gigs that brought him to Washington, D.C. and eventually Denver. He worked as a consultant on the openings of scores of eateries before opening Il Posto in 2007.

     He’s all for local sourcing when it makes sense, but the Italian menu at his upscale restaurant requires imported Italian cheeses. “I’ve got to use Parmigiano Reggiano, I can’t use a cheese from Wisconsin or California.”

     The menu at Il Posto reflects the more sophisticated tastes, with dishes including Bufala mozzarella Affumicata made with imported burrata, and ricotta gnocchi with imported Grana Padano. “In Italy, there are a lot of small producers doing a lot of stuff that’s really cool. My job is to take whatever we have and be an ambassador for these beautiful cheeses,” he said.  Frizzi says he loves dairy cheese too much to ever give it up. Increasingly, though, guests who eschew dairy cheeses for health or ethical reasons have increasingly tasty plant-based options.

     The menu at Veganized Foods in New Brunswick, N.J., includes 14 items that have some type of house-made, cashew-based vegan cheese, said General Manager El Rachmani.

     The menu at Veganized includes a raw beet ravioli with herbed nut cheese and saffron cream, a tempeh reuben with cashew cheese and a vanilla cheesecake, all made with different versions of the cultured cashew cheese he said.

     “We’ve pretty much been using the same recipe since day one,” he said. “My brother, the chef, has been making this kind of food for a very long time. We started in Brooklyn, were the more advanced vegan chefs have been doing it all over the city.”

     So we better keep up with our knowledge of Cheese!

 

Be Careful about Food Safety

     How many times have you said, “It must have been something I ate.”  That’s the typical statement when a person develops some relatively minor symptoms from food.  Maybe not severe enough to go to the doctor so you choose to tough it out without medical care.  Sudden onset of flu-like symptoms such as onset of stomach cramps, diarrhea, vomiting and fever could possibly mean you are the victim of a foodborne illness.   The illness is sometimes referred to as “food poisoning”, but it’s often misdiagnosed.

 

     Who’s the Culprit? Foodborne illness has occurred when you are sick from eating food that has been contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, or fungi.  Causes of the symptoms vary greatly, but it’s help to know that misinformation exists via the customer route, the food service managers and crew, and even the medical professionals (if they haven’t had much specific training about foodborne illness).
     The Best Investigators –In the food service industry, we never want to get a call from a customer with a foodborne illness claim.  Prevention of such an incident is what food safety is all about.   If the restaurant manager does get a call, you need to take it seriously and record the facts from the customer for further investigation.  Many times the consumer does an incorrect self-diagnosis based upon the last meal that they ate at a restaurant – never from food out of their own refrigerator or from a meal eaten days before the illness symptoms show up.  Health department professionals trained in food protection are the best source of helping to correctly diagnose a foodborne illness (contacted as soon as possible), provided the consumer has also contacted their doctor if they have acute symptoms.

The Common Foodborne Illness Myths:

1. Myth: Foodborne illness is caused by the last meal or food item eaten.
FACT:  Foodborne illness can be caused by foods eaten a few hours to several days prior to your illness.   A graphic point is that when symptoms show up, for example vomiting, you would throw up the last meal you ate, even though that is not the food that made you sick.  In the case of the Hepatitis A virus, you may not have symptoms for up to 50 days.  Can you remember what you ate for every meal up to a week ago, much less 50 days?  It’s a tough task.

2. Myth:  Foodborne illness is caused by eating foods from restaurants.
FACT:  Bacteria and other pathogens (germs) can live and multiply in both the home and restaurant kitchens.  Foodborne viruses are the very tiny hitchhikers that travel via fingertips and sometimes are airborne. Foods can be contaminated on counters, sinks, cutting boards, utensils, or via hands, resulting in a cause known as “cross-contamination”.

3. Myth:  Foodborne illness is caused by food that has “gone bad”.
FACT:  This is seldom the cause of foodborne illnesses.  You CANNOT see, taste, or smell the food poisoning organisms in the food.  Foodborne illness is usually caused by food becoming contaminated from the food preparers hands not being properly washed, incorrect time and temperature control, poor food handling practices, and unsafe preparation methods.

4. Myth:  It must have been the mayonnaise that made me sick.  It was not refrigerated.
FACT:  Commercial mayonnaise and most bottled salad dressings are what we call “acidified foods”.  They are safe at room temperature even after opening, although most restaurants and the manufacturer want them refrigerated to preserve the freshest flavor.  Mayo and salad dressings have an acid level low enough that they do not support growth of microorganisms, unless they are heavily contaminated by a dirty utensil or mixed with other foods changing the acidity level of the mixture (such as in potato salad).  Mayo all by itself and unrefrigerated is perfectly safe.

5. Myth:  Foodborne illness is easily diagnosed.
FACT:  In order to make an accurate diagnosis, the ill person must give a history of the symptoms and the foods eaten within the last three days.  A stool specimen is the most telling clinical sample and should be collected from the victim for lab testing to identify the organism.  Other samples to be collected might be emesis (vomit), the suspect foods from the restaurant or home kitchen, any leftover food from the suspect meal, and sterile swabs of equipment or food workers skin or nasal passage.  These samples are now like a fingerprint and organisms can be matched to one another or to other victims in many cases.  On a more positive note for food service, they can also be used to clear a restaurant of being the cause.  Viral foodborne outbreaks, such as the #1 leading foodborne enemy, the “Norovirus”, are also tougher to diagnose than bacterial illnesses and have an incubation time of 24 to 48 hours before the victim has symptoms.  Infection rate for Norovirus is high, but is sometimes not reported so continues to spread.

6. Myth:  All foodborne illnesses are the same
FACT: Foodborne illness is caused by many different organisms. For example, “Salmonella” has approximately 2000 identified types.  The organism determines how long it takes for illness to occur, signs, symptoms and duration of the illness. The illness can vary from mild flu-like symptoms to very serious illness or even death if the victim is a high risk individual (children, elderly, pregnant women, people who are immune compromised or on certain medications).