Swiss cheese or Emmental

Emmenthal is the real name — if it was really made in Switzerland — of the holey cheese Americans call “Swiss”. Genuine Emmental is made in wheels as large as 110 kilograms, though they can be as small as 85 kilograms. A typical wheel is 80 to 90 centimeters in diameter and 17 to 24 centimeters thick. Mild Emmental is made in a “flat type” 17 to 19 centimeters thick and a “high type” 20 to 24 centimeters thick.

The large size of the Emmental wheel affects the production process. To make a single wheel requires about 1,000 liters of milk no more than a half day old (milk from the evening’s milking is held overnight and combined with the morning’s). To produce 1,000 liters of milk a day requires about 80 Swiss cows, averaging output over the year. Since the Swiss hill farmer typically owns 10 to 15 cows, it takes the output of at least six to eight farms to make Emmental cheese. Cooperation is essential. Farmers deliver their milk to a local village cheese dairy, of which there were about 600 in the 1980s. If any farmer delivers off-taste or otherwise poor quality milk, the value of everyone’s milk is destroyed. Some of the alpine cooperatives go back to the early Middle Ages.

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