October 14, 2005 Deep waters are often rumored to contain unbelievable things. But cheese?
Last year a Quebec cheese company sank 1,764 pounds of cheese hoping to create un fromage with a unique flavor. Now La Fromagerie Boivin has a unique problem: more than $40,000 worth of missing cheese.
The cause of the late-August disappearance of this near-ton of cheddar, which was intentionally dropped 164 feet into the depths of the Saguenay Fjord north of Quebec City, remains a mystery.
Divers with high-tech tracking equipment, once in pursuit of the savory sunken treasure, are no longer on the job due to the exorbitant cost of the search. For many reasons, recovery seems unlikely.
“We searched for 15 days,” Luc Boivin, La Fromagerie’s vice president told Outside Online. “But we could only check one square kilometer, out of 23, in that time. The fjord is very dark and deep. It cost too much to continue.”
Boivin contends that pressure and temperature, such as that provided by submergence underwater, can modify the ripening of cheese, altering the reactions of milk enzymes and proteins.
“It’s a process based on science and research,” he said of his company’s attempt to produce its uniquely flavored cheddar.
According to Boivin, the missing cheese was submerged in barrels attached to cement anchors with nylon cord.
“We used a cement crate, weighing four or five hundred pounds, to anchor each barrel. Not good anchorage for this kind of project,” said Boivin. “The current in the Saguenay is high, the density of the cheese in water is low, and anyway, a boat could easily have caught the cable.”
The Saguenay Fjord is the downstream section of the Saguenay River, which flows from Lac St-Jean to the St. Lawrence River. It ‘s only about half a mile to two miles wide in parts, and 918 feet deep with cold and salty waters, except for a thin layer of reddish, tannic freshwater on the surface. Anything below about 32 feet, like Mr. Boivin’s cheese, is in cold, perpetual darkness. Strong currents and 16-foot tides compound the difficulty of finding anything lost deep in the fjord.
The fjord is also difficult to access. The area is protected within a national marine park and a provincial park, vertical cliff lines most of the shore, and roads are few and far between.
However, the Saguenay is a rich feeding ground for marine wildlife and is home to many species of whale, such as finbacks, humpbacks, minkes, pilot whales, and belugas. It is not known whether any of these species eats cheese.
“A lot of fishing happens on the Saguenay,” says Denis Gilbert of the Quebec’s Institut Maurice-Lamontagne and the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. “Some fisherman may have stumbled on the cheese and been pretty happy with his catch of the day. To me, the fact that the barrels were missing entirely suggests that they were taken away.”
Undeterred by initial failure, Boivin is giving his experiment a second shot, which is already underway. This time, three steel anchors will be attached to each barrel using steel cable. La Fromagerie Boivin has also secured research and development money from the Canadian government, and a $30,000 budget. A pre-commercialization permit for the experimental cheese is currently being processed.
“We will put the same ballast used for whales on our barrels,” said Boivin. “I think we won’t lose it this time.”
