AHNY Field Ops: I Was a Murray’s Cheese Cave Intern! (Introduction)

Arthur Bovino — April 10, 2009

Ever hear about the cheese caves beneath Murray’s Cheese Shop in the West Village? I learned about them from Zoe Brickley, my classmate at the French Culinary Institute in 2006, who encountered the caves as a part-time Murray’s cheesemonger. Captivated by her enthusiasm and my own curiosity, I recently toured the caves with Zoe who became Murray’s affineur (the French term for the person responsible for the proper maturation of the cheese) later that year. It only raised another question: what goes on there?

The answers lay with those who spend the most time in the caves, the affinage interns; “My only hope for conquering a day’s work in as much time,” explained Zoe.

Each week during three months, interns commit Fridays and one other day to cleaning, patting, and turning cheese. Though unpaid, interns can attend an unlimited number of Murray’s Cheese classes (valued from $40 to $75) free of charge during their internship. Ultimately, with some intiative and an inquisitive mind it’s possible to learn about more than two hundred different cheeses in the caves. As the average turophile (cheese-lover) cannot commit three months, I volunteered as an intern for two days to bring you a glimpse of this subterranean world.

Murray’s Cheese has been around since 1940 when Murray Greenberg opened it nearby on Cornelia Street. It changed hands twice, first to Murray’s clerk, Louis Tudda, then to Rob Kaufelt, who relocated it to its current location on 254 Bleecker Street. With Hervé Mons (the famed affineur based near Roanne, France) consulting, Mr. Kaufelt had the caves built in 2004. Five years ago Murray’s was supplying about 75 of the city’s restaurants with cheese. Today, they supply more than 200, as well as another 100 restaurants across the country.

Zoe requires new interns to do some reading before entering the caves. Chapter One of Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, “Milk and Dairy Products,” explains the origins of dairying, milk biology and chemistry and details everything fromage from evolution, ingredients and cheese-making to sources, storing and cooking. Other reading includes: “Big Cheese,” a New Yorker (8/23/04) article about Murray’s, an excerpt of The Complete Guide to Making and Selling Artisan Cheeses as well as articles about lactose intolerance and raw milk cheese myths, and the biochemistry of cheese ripening. This is no joke.

The Cheese Caves
Getting to the caves means pushing through the gray saloon doors labeled ‘In’ and ‘Out,’ behind the shelves of T-shirts at the back of store. Down the loading dock stairs, through a red locker room and around a corridor is a receiving area with another set of swinging doors and two large basins to the left.

Pre-tour, I imagined the caves as narrow Roman catacombs reminiscent of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The reality is a clean, tiled room with four doors: two desks; two “cave computers” (one for invoicing, the other for inventory management); stools, two rolls of paper (brown craft paper for box filler, and a yellow Murray’s branded parchment for cheese-wrapping) and two large shelves. The first thing you see upon entering is the “cut cheese” shelf, filled with plastic-wrapped cheeses that have been cut for restaurant orders—it’s a sort of unmerchandised ‘cheese case’ for wholesale to work from. The second shelf is stacked with bamboo mats and reusable wooden slat boxes.

Each cave has a temperature/humidity gauge. The refrigerated cold storage area (“Cave One”) to the left is kept at 38°/65%. It contains blue cheese, cheese awaiting affinage and cheese being dried by the breezy, cold air. On the two walls to the right of cold storage are four wooden doors to actual cheese caves. Behind the first door is Cave Two, the Washed Rind Cave (53°F/95%) for washing cheeses that need to be kept moist. Cave Three, is the Goat Cheese Cave (49°F/87%). Cave Four, the Tomme Cave (50°F/92%) is used to keep finicky natural rind cheeses supple. Lastly on the right is Cave Five, the Hard Cheese Cave used for storing the harder, matured cheeses. Temperature and humidity are not static but hover around 53°F/83%.

Stay tuned for day one of AlwaysHungry’s affinage internship at Murray’s: receiving.