Posted on 09/17/2007 12:43:53 PM PDT by fanfan
Thousands of cheese lovers are expected to log on to the internet this week to witness the thrilling highlight of one of the world's most unlikely spectator sports.
Over the last nine months, more than 1.5 million people across the globe have logged on to www.cheddarvision.tv to watch a round of cheddar cheese as it slowly matures.
Viewing is expected to reach a fever pitch on Wednesday when something is actually going to happen in the project for the first time in many months.
The 44-pound handmade cheese, named Wedginald by its creators, will undergo its ninth month grading test.
An expert cheese taster will pierce Wedginald with a special testing device to remove a core of cheddar.
The cheddar core will then be sniffed and tested for "depth and maturity".
More than 100,000 viewers logged on to the website in March this year as Wedginald passed its first quality check with flying colours and organisers expect a similar figure to log-on on Wednesday.
The project is expected to last for a further three months and is based at a farm in Shepton Mallet, Somerset.
At the end of the year, the cheese, valued at around £400, will be auctioned off for charity.
Westcountry Farmhouse Cheesemakers are behind the cheddarvision website. Expert cheese taster Tom Calver, who is involved in the project said: "The continued interest in the cheese is incredible."
"We never thought for a moment that the website would become this popular. The cheese has more than 1250 MySpace friends and a time-lapse video of Wedginald's first three months has been viewed on YouTube 344,000 times."
A 'director's cut' video of the Wedginald's year-long maturation, condensed into two minutes, is expected to be released onto YouTube in the coming months.
The round of cheddar started off whitish grey, but is slowly developing into the colour of an "old gravestone".
LOL
Probably some chemical reaction in the cheese itself. Blue Cheese is actually a fungus growing in the cheese.............
From WIKI:
Like many cheeses, the colour of Cheddar cheese is sometimes modified by the use of food colourings. In parts of the United States and Canada, Annatto, extracted from the tropical achiote tree, is used to give Cheddar cheese a deep orange colour. The origins of this practice have been long since forgotten, but the three leading theories appear to be:
* to allow the cheese to have a consistent colour from batch to batch
* to assist the purchaser in identifying the type of cheese when it is unlabelled
* to identify the cheese’s region of origin.
Cheddar cheese was traditionally packaged sometimes in black wax, but commonly in larded cloth, impermeable to contaminants but still allowing the cheese to breathe, though this practice is now limited to Europe and to artisan cheese makers. In the United States, Cheddar cheese comes in several varieties, including mild, medium, sharp, New York Style, Colby/Longhorn, white, and Vermont. New York style Cheddar cheese is a particularly sharp Cheddar cheese, sometimes with a hint of smoke. It is usually slightly softer than milder Cheddar cheese. Colby/Longhorn Cheddar cheese has a mild to medium flavour. The curds are still distinct, often marbled in colour, varying from cream to yellow. Cheddar that has not been coloured is frequently labelled as “white Cheddar” or “Vermont Cheddar”, regardless of whether it was produced in the state of Vermont.
A bowl of cheese curds
A bowl of cheese curds
Cheddar cheese is one of several products used by the United States Department of Agriculture to track the dairy industry; reports are issued weekly detailing prices and production quantities. The state of Wisconsin produces the most Cheddar cheese in the United States; other centres of production include upstate New York, Vermont, and Tillamook, Oregon.
Cheddar cheese is a good source of vitamin B12. A slice of vegetarian Cheddar cheese (40 g) contains about 0.5 µg of vitamin B12 (required daily intake for an adult is 2.4 µg).
Famous Cheddar cheeses from Somerset include Keen’s, with a strong tang, and Montgomery’s, with an apple after taste and the unpasteurised Cheddar made by the Gorge Cheese Company in Cheddar itself.
Who pays for that server?
Too funny!
It doesn't. Cheddar is naturally white. Orange cheddar comes from adding annatto food coloring to the mixture before it hardens curing fermentation.
Heh, I don’t eat blue cheese.
It’s too sharp.
This story has a lot of holes in it...
Post #20 has the answer.
:-)
It’s good for you. The blue is from the penicillium mold.............
I'm not too fond of blue food. ;-)
Except blueberries.
I like blue tortilla chips.........
I thought they were going to televise it on the Grass Growing Network.
made from Blue Navajo Corn...........
They grow that from blue corn, right?
You beat me.
;-)
I don’t see any whiskers......
I’d go ahead and eat it.
Nope! Everybody knows that HD's are made out of butter! ;-)
This give a whole new meaning to the ‘watching paint dry’ groupies.
Do they do this in Wisconsin?
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