Meet the hard-working microbes that make your favorite cheeses
Data from UMass Boston and Dairy Connection Inc. (Infographic by Sara Chodosh/)Every bite of cheese you’ve ever taken owes its funk and flavor to the community of microbes living inside it. The original cheese just had whatever microbes happened to be living on the farm, but today cheesemakers deliberately inoculate their dairy with specific types of bacteria and mold. Some organisms are common to lots of cheese types, like the acidifying strains Lactococcus lactis and Lactobacillus. Others produce more specific flavor profiles, like the stinky Brevibacterium linens, which create both the smelly reddish-orange rind on cheeses like muenster and limburger, and the old-sock odor we associate with human body odor (yes, they also grow in your armpits). Two varieties of Penicillium create the blue and white molds we associate with blue cheeses and the rinds of brie. Propionibacteria will make holes like in classic Swiss cheeses.All of these microorganisms work...