Poil du Chat - Mucor - Not a bad beastie?

[ArnaudForestier]

There was another thread but it was really old, so I thought I'd start a new one.  I'd like to keep on a Savoie-style tomme track.  Mould-centric, grey-centric, very rustic so lots of wildness.

In the book French Cheeses (DK Publishing), pp. 236-237, they do a nice photo essay of the affinage of Tomme de Lullin, and show a very fuzzy poil du chat at 1 week.  I see it mentioned in a ton of places as a positive, what you want in these styles.

Named as Mucor, we're really stepping into villain territory.  However, Peter Dixon mentions somewhere (sorry, I can't remember well - just in my notes) the following, re: tommes:

After 2 weeks, 1st growth of mold: Geo. Gracile, Geo. Candidum, Mucor Fuscus, Mucor Racemosus.  Colored from light to dark grey, sometimes mixed with white.

Between weeks 4-6, can see a yellow mold, Sporotrichum aureum.  Rind pH increases to between 8-8.9; however,
It isn't until between weeks 6-8 that the first red mold shows up, Oidium aurautiacum when rind is pH 9-9.5.

So there's at least two specific Mucor species listed.  I've actually started to research lately a fascinating relationship - bacteria swimming on Mucor, in order to migrate on the rind.  Specifically, I have a clip of "Serratia proteamaculans swimming on the fungus Mucor lanceolatus."

So, places indicating cat's fur, poil du chat, Mucor, all as essential to the Savoie-style ecology and typical population.  Yet Mucor is also seen to be nasty stuff, highly proteolytic and producing intense, undesirable bitterness.  It's also extremely aggressive, at least in my experience.  Years ago (I talked about it here), I experimented with a "gris" cave that very likely was actually mucor, and it took over completely.

So, in essence - poil du chat, mucor:  bad, or good, for a Savoie tomme?  If bad, and I know at least some variant is, then why do I find it listed as a good component in so many listings of Savoid tomme microflora?

Love to find this one out.

[cheesehead94]

Not really answering your question directly, but Caldwell's book takes a much more laissez fair approach to wild rinds, whatever you get you get, including mucor if your environment provides it. I recently started a thread called "Tomme two ways" where I did an oiled rind and a wild rind where I left the cheese to it's own devices, only brushing the rind once a week. It seemed to have lots of mucor, and it tasted great.

[ArnaudForestier]

That's great, thanks Cheesehead. I've got her book bedside and will read through it tonight.  I have a big problem wanting to replicate a place's cheeses....not in that place.  I don't even remember if I was talking about it here those years ago, but I went so crazy as to research alpine grass, forbs, legumes, flowers, etc., because I was so nuts for Beaufort and Abondance, and knew how important those high pastures are to the cheese's qualities, that I decided to grow them here...in lowland Wisconsin. (I'm still not done btw, lol).

Anyway, I was actually thinking about it tonight....imagine, the concept of terroir, actually applied.  So I appreciate your thoughts on this and really look forward to reading through your thread.

[cheesehead94]

The lengths you are going to in order to replicate terroir are impressive! Even if it doesn't totally replicate them it is a fun experiment!

[ArnaudForestier]

Late to the game, thought folks might find this interesting.  I've thought more on the difficulties of getting "good" wild in a small cave, comment Pav made somewhere (vaguely remembered....starting over in so many ways).

Anyway, with so many texts out there decrying mucor as a spoiler, I had mentioned some of the stuff I'd been reading on how mucor, among other fungi, aids bacterial motility along, a kind of river system that aids the spread of bacteria across the surface.  I couldn't find the article I'd read to start me going, till now. 



https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/01/29/579747917/the-cheese-does-not-stand-alone-how-fungi-and-bacteria-team-up-for-a-tastier-rin is M. lanceolatus, considered one of the "good" mucors (along with M. fusculus; racemosus, not so much).

[whatisboom]

Just posting a fix for Arnaud's link

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/01/29/579747917/the-cheese-does-not-stand-alone-how-fungi-and-bacteria-team-up-for-a-tastier-rin