Camembert, I’m sorry, but I’m in trouble.
Soft cheese that smells a bit like feet is ‘endangered’ according to French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). The group warns that other cheeses are also under threat, such as brie and various blue cheeses.
This looming cheese crisis, this camembert disaster, stems from a much larger problem: the collapse of microbial diversity.
Each chunk of camembert or smear of brie is an ecosystem, a collection of fungi and bacteria that convert milk fat and protein into hundreds of different compounds. These compounds create the tastes, aromas, and textures that we like.
However, in recent decades, the genetic diversity of some of these microorganisms has collapsed. And today, some of the most famous French cheeses rely on just one fragile strain of bacteria that is on the verge of extinction.
This is bad news for France, bad news for bread, and bad news for fine cheese lovers around the world. And it reminds us that biodiversity matters, even if we can’t see it. The great things in life actually depend on it.
Why might camembert disappear?
To make cheese, producers typically take fresh milk and mix it with bacteria and often fungi, which include both yeast and mold (fuzzy fungi). Different melanges of microorganisms produce different types of cheese.
Historically, camembert and brie likely relied on strains from a type of fungus called Penicillium biforme, said evolutionary biologist Jeanne Lopart, who works in a lab affiliated with the CNRS. Each strain is genetically slightly different, so the resulting cheese will vary slightly in color, taste, and aroma.
But about a century ago, cheesemakers identified a particular strain of P. biforme that was fast-growing and albino. A fluffy white mold formed and it was obviously very tasty. This strain, known as Penicillium camembertii, was then considered the gold standard for brie and camembert (which differ from each other primarily in size). This quickly dominated the cheese industry, and various other mold strains used in the production of Camembert and Brie, and the colors they produced, fell into disuse and disappeared.
All Camembert and Brie cheeses around the world are now inoculated with this genetically identical albino strain not found in the wild, Lopals said. This means that Brie sold in French grocery stores and Brie sold in New York City bodegas contain the same (or nearly the same) Penicillium bacteria.
This is a good thing for those who value uniformity. It’s for people who expect their brie to look a certain way, just like they want their tomatoes to be perfectly round and their apples to be bright red.
But uniformity comes at a price.
![A small pile of white cheese curds is held in a blue plastic gloved hand.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-Hc9uPZsQPgx5ae6R2X6XOcl4Og=/0x0:7824x5216/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:7824x5216):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25275411/GettyImages_1247927412.jpg)
For reasons that are not entirely clear, albino strains, like most molds, cannot reproduce sexually. That is, they cannot “breed” with another individual to create new genetic diversity. Therefore, to create more of this fungus, cheese makers must clone this fungus, similar to how cuttings are used to propagate plants. But cloning the same individual over decades can introduce harmful errors into its genome, Lopals said.
That’s what happened with P.camberti. In recent decades, albino fungi have developed mutations that prevent their ability to produce spores, making them extremely difficult to clone. Simply put, cheesemakers are currently having difficulty growing the key fungi used to make Brie and Camembert cheeses.
“Camembert isn’t going to disappear tomorrow,” Lopal said, but it’s unclear how these challenges will affect cheese supplies. “But production will become increasingly difficult.”
Our food is losing its resilience more broadly
In the world of cheese, this problem is not limited to camembert and brie. The diversity of fungi used to make blue cheeses such as Gorgonzola and Roquefort has also declined dramatically in recent decades, Lopals said. Farmers have similarly narrowed the gene pool by selecting specific strains that produce the right appearance, aroma, and flavor. So far, these strains, considered “domesticated” microorganisms, are still able to reproduce, but some cannot. almost infertile.
As author Dan Saladino writes in his book, this rapid caving in of genetic diversity also threatens other food industries. Eat until extinction: The world’s rarest foods and why we need to save them. For example, most bananas we eat are genetically similar. This means that if a pathogen evolves the right mechanism to kill one of her, it can kill many. real threat.
![Mountains of camembert cheese lined up at the store.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9BJ48DyY2DDNcibyLEK3jbEEV9o=/0x0:5472x3648/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:5472x3648):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25274939/GettyImages_907139116.jpg)
Uniformity will be particularly poor in a warming world. Different genetic varieties of plants, such as wheat, have different advantages and disadvantages. For example, some people may be more tolerant of long periods of drought. Losing diversity means losing the different strengths that might ensure the survival of a particular food.
“When you lose diversity within a species, you lose fitness,” says Ropal’s colleague Tatiana Giraud, who also works at the CNRS.
Giraud said this diversity is important even among wildlife communities, whether they can be observed or not. Fungal communities are an understudied but invisible force in the environment, operating in the background to ensure that ecosystems function properly. They break down dead leaves and branches, help plants absorb nutrients, and remove toxins from the soil. protect fungal species diversity, scientists sayprotect these critical services.
Enjoy funky cheese
After all, this doesn’t mean we have to say goodbye to brie, nor does it mean that camembert on toast is, say, toast. There are ways to preserve these cheeses, but they require some changes to our own tastes and tolerances.
To make camembert or brie, cheese producers only need to inoculate the milk with other Penicillium biforme bacteria that are naturally present in raw milk (if the milk is pasteurized, these microorganisms can be manually removed). must be added). As a group, Penicillium biforme has a lot of genetic diversity, and these molds are capable of sexual reproduction, which is key to maintaining genetic diversity, Lopals said.
P. biforme is closely related to albino strains, but can give cheese a slightly different appearance and aroma. Perhaps your brie wheels will be a little more blue or gray or a little more funky. But Ropers said this is something consumers should embrace: a collection of bugs with diverse tastes, smells and resilience.