GERMAN, SWISS, AND DUTCH CHEESES.
German steamers and German restaurants nearly always offer a variety of French, Dutch, Italian, English, and Swiss cheeses in addition to those of their own country, among the best known of which are the Handkäse, the Liptauer, the Harz, the Kräuter and the Limburger, which, though it originated in Belgium, has come to be looked upon as a specifically German variety.
Germany is not, like Switzerland, Holland, and parts of France, a land of pastures green and studded with grazing cows. Pasturage throughout the Empire is usually so scarce—the land being needed for grain and other crops—that the cows, poor things, are kept in stables all the year round. It is therefore, not surprising that Germany is not among the great exporters of cheeses, most of the many domestic varieties, some of which are excellent, being consumed at home.
Very different is the situation in Switzerland, where cheese-making is one of the principal industries, the value of the exports exceeding $12,000,000 a year, nearly one quarter of which, in 1911, was sent to the United States. So good is the Flavor of Schweizerkäse that even France, in that year, took $2,688,539 worth of it, while Germany took $1,888,257 worth.
Nearly all the cheese which Switzerland exports is of the hard Emmenthaler type, put up in the huge cakes familiar to us all. It is practically the same as the French Gruyère. Not all Emmenthaler comes from the Emmenthal, the valley where the pasturage is particularly abundant and juicy.
The best flavored Swiss cheese is that which is made in summer, when the cows roam the mountain sides, going up higher and higher as the season advances and the snow melts, till they reach the slopes where even at the end of August the soil is still moist and the herbage two or three feet tall. This succulent food, consisting largely of lovely Alpine flowers, they industriously condense into fragrant cream, butter, and cheese.
When we speak of the Alps we mean snow mountains, particularly those of Switzerland. The Swiss themselves, however, when they refer to the Alps, mean the green pastures on the mountain sides on which the cows gather sustenance and wealth for them.
On one of these Alps, above Mürren, I once accosted a peasant who gave me information which confirmed my belief that the much-liked Flavor of Swiss cheese is due not alone to the succulent Alpine forage, but also, in great part, to the way the best of it is made—with all the cream left in the milk.
This peasant was himself a cheesemaker, and our conversation took place within sight of his cowsheds. He was surprised when I asked him if he ever used sour cream to make butter. He had never dreamt of such a thing. Usually he churned it in the evening, using the cream that had risen on the morning of the same day. At the latest the churning was done the next morning before the cream could possibly sour in that climate. A sour "starter," such as is nearly always added to cream in America before it is churned, he had never heard of; the very idea amazed him. And Swiss butter is nearly always good, while American butter is usually bad.
Questioned in regard to cheese, he said they made two grades of it, the Fettkäse, which contains all the cream, and the Magerkäse, made of skim milk. For the latter kind, he said, he had no use, because it was comparatively tasteless. It is made in considerable quantities, however, for the poor, of milk from which the cream has been taken for butter-making or for the hotel tables.
Cheese-making is much more of a fine art than most of us imagine. The utmost skill and care must be used to exclude undesirable flavors in the air due to uncleanly surroundings, since cheese absorbs these as readily as butter does. The season of the year and the feed must always be considered. Thus, in regard to the highly prized English Stilton we read that the finest variety "is principally made between March and September and solely from the milk of cows fed on natural pasture"; and that "the use of artificial food for the cows is at once detected in a change for the worse in the character of the cheese"—that is, its flavor.
Upon good feeding depends the production of fat in milk, and milk fat, alias cream, is a great source of Flavor. The best kinds of most of the leading cheeses are made of whole milk—milk with none of the cream taken out. Some kinds, like cottage cheese, are made of skim milk yet how the addition of cream improves their Flavor! Camembert, of course, is made of whole milk, and in the manufacture of some kinds, including Stilton, extra cream is sometimes added.
Much spurious stuff is palmed off on unwary buyers as whole milk or cream cheese. The dealers who do this, think themselves "smart," but in the end they harm their business. The excellent little book on "Cheese and Cheese Making," by Long and Benson (London: Chapman and Hall, 1896) begins with these instructive words:
"Professor Henry, of the Wisconsin Agricultural College, recently stated that the loss of the American cheese trade with great Britain was owing to the fact that his countrymen did not make the best article, and that in many cases imitation cheese was produced for the sake of a possible temporary profit but to the ultimate loss of all concerned. Whatever may be the immediate gain effected by the addition of foreign fat to milk, or by the removal of a portion of the cream it contains, the permanent value of the cheese industry to the producer is maintained only by the manufacture of the best and of its production in the largest possible quantity."
The italics are mine. They emphasize what is one of the most regrettable aspects of the situation in America—the deplorable and at the same time foolish disposition to make an immediate extra profit by unloading on purchasers inferior cheeses and other foods in the belief that the consumers are too ignorant or indifferent to know or care what they get.
From personal experience I can relate a detail of New York market history which vividly illustrates the folly of this attitude.
For several years I was able to buy the best Edam cheeses made in Holland—full-cream and therefore full-flavored. One autumn, on returning to the city, I tried in vain to get this same brand at the places where it had been on sale. I sampled the substitutes but was not satisfied with their Flavor. Having found out through a grocer the name of the importer of that brand, I called on him and asked why he no longer had it on his list. He had the effrontery to inform me that it was because he had had so many complaints that that brand did not keep well—that it "dried out." I told him that my own experience had been just the reverse, and that, as a matter of course, the more cream-fat there was in a cheese the more slowly it would dry out. But he stuck to his story.
In a confidential talk with a grocer I then ascertained what I had suspected. Dealers in cheap Edams, made of skimmed milk, had crowded out the maker of the creamy Edam who, of course, could not make so low a price to the wholesale dealers as they did. "Why not import several brands and charge according to their value and Flavor?" I asked, adding that many persons surely would gladly pay extra for the better grades. But that argument, too, was unavailing. The "smart" dealers did not wish to offer several grades; they wanted to charge the highest price for the lowest grade. And now note the consequences.
In one large market which I often passed there was at that time a large show case containing dozens of the familiar red "cannon balls"; but they were no longer of the full-cream brand the lively demand for which had won them the most prominent place in that glass case. The new brand bore a label on which was printed "Made of Skimmed Milk"; and this same brand seemed to be almost exclusively on sale all over town.
There was nothing dishonest about this procedure. Dealers have the right to sell any variety they choose, and this brand, being clearly marked, did not pretend to be what it was not. It evidently came from Holland, and it was as good a cheese as can be made of skimmed milk.
The importers and dealers evidently believed that the consumers were too ignorant or indifferent to care whether or not the cheese they bought had the rich creamy Flavor. At first I feared they might be right in this surmise, but ere long I found that I was by no means the only person who had stopped buying Edam because the best brand was no longer kept on sale in the American metropolis. The number of red balls in that show case gradually diminished and finally disappeared altogether.
The Dutch Government has given much attention to the question of cream in cheese, and no wonder, for the annual production of cheese in Holland amounts to at least 175,000,000 pounds, of which two-thirds are exported. The Minister of Agriculture has authorized the use of labels guaranteeing purity and quality. The Government control stamp "can be used only on cheese made of unskimmed milk and containing 45 per cent. of fats," writes Consul Frank W. Mahin from Amsterdam. "It is the special intention to make the full-fat product more profitable by marking it, which at the same time will promote the manufacture of the cheese of superior qualities."
In another contribution on this subject to the "Consular and Trade Reports" (April, 1911) Mr. Mahin provides information which buyers of Edam or Gouda will do well to bear in mind:
"A meeting of the North Holland Cheese Control Station, attended by a representative of the Government, was recently held at Hoorn, at which it was decided to divide marked cheese into two classes: (1) Cheese of Edam shape, with fatty component in the dry material of at least 40 per cent., to be marked 40+, in a hexagon; (2) full fat cheese, of different shapes, with a fatty substance in the dry material of at least 45 per cent., to be marked Rijkscontrole (Government control).
"It was stated at the meeting that the average proportion of fat in the cheese made in 1910 by factories was 44.8 per cent. and by farmers 47.5 per cent., being one per cent. higher than in 1909. The quantity of marked cheese sold in 1910 was 45 per cent. greater than in 1909, and the demand from dealers therefore has so much increased that there is now a shortage."
Evidently, dealers are not everywhere as short-sighted as were those of New York. However, in the autumn of 1912 I noticed, among these, signs of almost human intelligence. Before the end of 1912 I saw in some stores Dutch cheeses labeled "Above 40% butter-fat in total solids." By and by we may perhaps be permitted to spend our money even for the kind made by the farmers and containing 47.5 per cent. of cream fat.
