Renowned cheese expert Max McCalman will be in town this week to lead cheese tastings and sign books, but don't be surprised if he slips in some evangelism for raw-milk cheeses.
"I feel very passionate about them, and I've studied them extensively," McCalman says. "Raw-milk cheese has a great food-safety record. We can eat raw oysters and eat raw meat in this country if we want to, but not raw-milk cheese. There's something wrong with that, especially since cheese hasn't been implicated in as many food-poisoning issues as raw seafood, raw meat or even raw vegetables."
Federal regulations require raw-milk cheeses sold in the United States to be aged at least 60 days. As a result, what many cheese experts consider to be authentic versions of brie, Camembert and more great cheeses of the world cannot be purchased in America.
McCalman, 58, is the co-author (with David Gibbons) of three books on cheese, including his latest, "Mastering Cheese" (Clarkson Potter, 2009). He'll be at five Schnucks stores Friday and Saturday.
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