Cheese and fermentation

Secreted within the cellular organelles of each and every one of us eukaryotes is the capacity to switch from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism. It's a failsafe from when unicellular organisms were floating in a primordial soup with much lower oxygen tensions, before Kingdom Plantae produced a planet-wide atmospheric pollution with oxygen.



A major branch of Whittaker's biotic tree, Fungi, adopted fermentation (anaerobic metabolism) as their only metabolic pathway. This evolutionary sprout helped to produce for humans bread, beer, wine, spirits and best of all, cheese, for which I shall be eternally grateful.



Although not vegetarian, I could happily to adapt to this as long as my beloved cheese was allowed. Last night we had a cheese feast with a chunky vegetable broth served with salad, fruit and cheeseplates.

Salad: Oakleaf, cucumber chunks, celery moons and a few sad sprigs of coriander
Fruit: Green grapes, fresh apple slices, dried pears and slices of concentrated preserved passionfruit (akin to quince cheese) from Brazilian Sensation
Cheese: A grainy nutty mature cheddar, a garlic roule, a goat (and I love goats), a feta (sheep) and slices of my personal favourite, mozzarella. Not the Danish slabs (perish the thought), but the individual 150g tenderloins in their amniotic bags of water.

Mozzarella is fermented from buffalo milk, whose long and complex milk molecules render its stringiness in cooked form. Personally, I like mozzarella boluses sliced, garnished with arugula, maybe some leaf basil and cherry tomatoes, and dressed with virgin olive oil and sweet balsalmico.