By KaraRecently, a friend recounted an experience she had in New York, in which she was presented with cheese labeled "thermalized cow." It took us a few minutes to work through our immediate confusion about this label: what would it take to "thermalize" a cow? (Try as I might, I couldn't find any images of cows in long underwear to post here, but those are the sorts of ideas that were running through our minds during this conversation.) We eventually figured out that "thermalized" probably referred to the milk of cows, rather than to some poor bovine individual. But even with the object of thermalization made clear, we were left with the question of what the process of thermalization is, and what sort of end result my friend consumed.
Thermalization, it turns out, is a process simliar to pasteurization: in short, a way to kill off some of the potentially harmful microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, etc.) found in raw milk straight from the animal.
Pasteurization (invented by Louis Pasteur in the 1860s) involves heating milk to very high temperatures (161 degrees F, or in some cases as high as 250 degrees F) for very short amounts of time (from a split second up to 20 seconds, depending on the temperature). This is a very effective method of slowing the many varieties of microbial growth that are dangerous to humans, such as the infamous Listeria (click here for Listeria's own blog!). However, such high temperatures also kill off microorganisms that are beneficial to human health - not to mention cheese tastiness.
Thermalization, by contrast, is a more moderate procedure, in which milk is heated to about 100-160 degrees F for 15-30 seconds: enough to kill many, but not all, micro-intruders (notably not Listeria). Proponents argue that thermalization yields perfectly safe cheese with a strong flavor and a host of health benefits, thanks to the bacteria and enzymes left behind. Opponents of thermalization counter that the risks are too high - and in the US, thermalized cheese is considered "raw," and must be aged at least 60 days in order to be sold legally, according FDA standards. In Europe, thermalization counts as "pasteurization." Those European radicals! It appears that a taste test (though hopefully not a stomach test) is in order... Please notify C.:A.J. if you hear of any cheap flights to France.
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