It’s not mold, it’s calcium lactate (2018)

How long until cheese makers start adding the crunchy crystals to give the appearance of quality without the actual quality?

Aside from cheddar (or similar), the crystals are always inside the cheese, so the appearance is nearly the same as those without the crystals.

Sure, replace "appearance" with "impression" for a more accurate representation of my intent.

This happens already, at least it does in the UK. Most cheaper brands of “extra mature” supermarket cheddar have added crystals. I don’t actually mind that much - I do think it is a genuinely slightly more enjoyable product with the crystals.

Is this something they disclose on the packaging? I'm curious how to identify this in the cheese I buy.

Fair enough! I just meant they’d have to stick it on the label or something, since you wouldn’t be to able to obviously tell the difference just by looking at it, that’s all.

There are also fake ways of accelerating aging to create this effect, like the Old Amsterdam cheeses you’ll find in the Netherlands. That particular brand has a lot of fake qualities to it that creates these effects.

Is "fake" really the right word here if people get the flavor, nutrition, and texture they want? I don't really give a damn if they figured out a way to bypass aging to achieve this.

Fake as in, they're not allowed to call it "old cheese" because it's a protected term for cheese of a minimum age. But it might even be preferred by some because the texture is still a bit softer. I like it, but as with a good single malt, I wouldn't pay the same price if it's artificially aged.

The article says that the crystals don't affect the taste or scent. The crystals are a signal that you have a good cheese, but not the cause of a good cheese. Adding them to a bad cheese won't make it a good cheese, so in that sense I'd call it a fake.

There is some gray area in that they affect the texture, which is a part of the whole experience. But that's again mostly signaling--we like the crunch because we associate it with good cheeses, not because there's anything inherently better about it.

There are some interesting philosophical questions here. If you put a fake label on some wine, and people perceive it as higher quality than it is, is it really fake? On one hand, obviously yes. And yet there was a real effect on the perceived quality.

> The article says that the crystals don't affect the taste or scent.

That seems hard to believe, frankly.

You can taste the difference between "naturally" aged cheese and "synthetically" aged cheese. In general the natural stuff has a more complex flavor the older it gets, where the synthetic stuff mostly just tastes more salty the "older" it gets.

The synthetically aged stuff is still plenty delicious but when naturally aged cheese isn't really more expensive (just harder to find) I fail to see the point.