Interested in the exceptional diversity of cheeses in France, 20 minutes launches its “Plein les fingers” series on cheese. Every Friday until May, find an article and a video on one of the cheeses from our regions. The first topic on Vieux-Lille, cousin of maroilles, a soft washed cheese made from cow’s milk, was broadcast this week.
Round, square, triangular or pyramidal, smelling of the stable or cut grass, white, yellow or blue, cheeses, for those who appreciate them, are a bit of life. But why do we love stinky cheeses so much? What happens to our taste buds, in our brain and in our microbiota when we eat a good claquos qui pheasant? Why can a person who never ate cheese as a child suffer when faced with a rotten Bressan? Elements of response with Sophie Nicklaus, research director at the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE).
Salty, sour and bitter
The scientist, who works at the taste and food center in Dijon, and heads the team “Determinants of eating behavior over the lifespan, relationships with health”, returns in the episode to listen to below on the differences between taste, aroma, smell, flavor and flavor. Sophie Nicklaus then evokes the five flavors recognized by science, and those that we find especially in cheeses, namely salty, acid and bitterness. She recalls the importance of fat in cheese, “strong in taste, and which conveys aromas”.
How do our food preferences arise and evolve? Do we learn to love Epoisses or Munster? Concerning cheese, it is above all about family and social culture, learning and sensory experience, recalls the scientist who also returns to the study, carried out by the University Hospital of Besançon and Inrae in 2018. We discovered the benefits of a diet rich in cheese from a very young age. At the end of this episode, which you can find on streaming platforms, we are almost sure that you will want a little piece of Chabichou.