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Journal of Dairy Science Vol. 53 No. 12 1795-1801
© 1970 by American Dairy Science Association ®
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Microbiology and Chemistry of 105-Year-Old Cheese1

T. E. Minor, E. H. Marth, N. F. Olson, T. Richardson, W. E. Hantke, R. L. Bradley, Jr. and H. E. Calbert

Department of Food Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison 53706

ABSTRACT

An earthen crock containing approximately 14.9kg (40 lb) of cheese was recovered from a sailing ship which had rested on the bottom of Green Bay in Lake Michigan under approximately 33.6m (110 feet) of water for 105 years. Samples from the interior of the cheese contained approximately 30,000 bacteria per gram, all of which appeared to be a single species of Lactobacillus resembling Lactobacillus casei. Cheese at the surface contained no lactobacilli but approximately 50,000 Bacillus sp. and 40 each of Escherichia coli and Aerobacter aerogenes per gram were detected. Silt which covered the cheese contained large numbers of sporeformers, coliforms, yeasts, and some molds. Enrichment procedures yielded no organisms different from those recovered by primary plating. Salmonellae and staphylococci were not detected in samples of the cheese.

The cheese contained 56.6% moisture, 32.32% fat, 0.19% sodium chloride, 0.34% protein, and 11.08% solids-not-fat (including sodium chloride and protein). Free fatty acids were in amounts greater than those in Piccante-type Provolone or Blue cheese. Organochlorine compounds were not recovered from the cheese. This suggests that the cheese, in recent years, was not in direct contact with circulating Lake Michigan water.

FOOTNOTES

1 Published with the approval of the Director of the Research Division of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin.






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Copyright © 1970 by the American Dairy Science Association ®.