CHEESE.
Cheese is the curd formed from milk by artificial coagulation, pressed and dried for use. Curd, called also casein and caseous matter, or the basis of cheese, exists in the milk, and not in the cream, and requires only to be separated by coagulation: the coagulation, however, supposes some alteration of the curd. By means of the substance employed to coagulate it, it is rendered insoluble in water. When the curd is freed from the whey, kneaded and pressed to expel it entirely, it becomes cheese; this assumes a degree of transparency, and possesses many of the properties of coagulated albumen. If it be well dried, it does not change by exposure to the air; but if it contain moisture, it soon putrefies; it therefore requires some salt to preserve it, and this acts likewise as a kind of seasoning. All our cheese is coloured more or less, except that made from skim milk. The colouring substances employed are arnatto, turmeric, or marigold, all perfectly harmless unless they are adulterated; and it is said that arnatto sometimes contains red lead.
Cheese varies in quality and richness according to the materials of which it is composed. It is made—1. Of entire milk, as in Cheshire; 2. of milk and cream, as at Stilton; 3. of new milk mixed with skim milk, as in Gloucestershire; 4. of skimmed milk only, as in Suffolk, Holland, and Italy.
The principal varieties of cheese used in England are the following: Cheshire cheese, famed all over Europe for its rich quality and fine piquante flavour. It is made of entire new milk, the cream not being taken off. Gloucester cheese is much milder in its taste than the Cheshire. There are two kinds of Gloucester cheese, single and double:—Single Gloucester is made of skimmed milk, or of the milk deprived of half the cream; Double Gloucester is a cheese that pleases almost every palate: it is made of the whole milk and cream. Stilton cheese is made by adding the cream of one day to the entire milk of the next: it was first made at Stilton, in Leicestershire. Sage cheese is so called from the practice of colouring some curd with bruised sage, marigold-leaves, and parsley, and mixing this with some uncoloured curd. With the Romans, and during the middle ages, this practice was extensively adopted. Cheddar cheese much resembles Parmesan. It has a very agreeable taste and flavour, and has a spongy appearance. Brickbat cheese has nothing remarkable except its form. It is made by turning with rennet a mixture of cream and new milk; the curd is put into a wooden vessel the shape of a brick, and is then pressed and dried in the usual way. Dunlop cheese has a peculiarly mild and rich taste: the best is made entirely from new milk. New cheese (as it is called in London) is made chiefly in Lincolnshire, and is either made of all cream, or, like Stilton, by adding the cream of one day’s milking to the milk that comes immediately from the cow: they are extremely thin, and are compressed gently two or three times, turned for a few days, and then eaten new with radishes, salad, &c. Skimmed Milk cheese is made for sea voyages principally. Parmesan cheese is made in Parma and Piacenza. It is the most celebrated of all cheese: it is made entirely of skimmed cows’ milk; the high flavour which it has is supposed to be owing to the rich herbage of the meadows of the Po, where the cows are pastured. The best Parmesan is kept for three or four years, and none is carried to market till it is at least six months old. Dutch cheese derives its peculiar pungent taste from the practice adopted in Holland of coagulating the milk with muriatic acid instead of rennet. Swiss cheeses, in their several varieties, are all remarkable for their fine flavour; that from Gruyère, a bailiwick in the canton of Fribourg, is best known in England; it is flavoured by the dried herb of Melilotus officinalis in powder. Cheese from milk and potatoes is manufactured in Thuringia and Saxony. Cream cheese, although so called, is not properly cheese, but is nothing more than cream dried sufficiently to be cut with a knife.
In families where much cheese is consumed, and it is bought in large quantities, a piece from the whole cheese should be cut, the larger quantity spread with a thickly-buttered sheet of white paper, and the outside occasionally wiped. To keep cheeses moist that are in daily use, when they come from table a damp cloth should be wrapped round them, and the cheese put into a pan with a cover to it, in a cool but not very dry place. To ripen cheeses, and bring them forward, put them into a damp cellar; and to check too large a production of mites, spirits may be poured into the parts affected. Pieces of cheese which are too near the rind, or too dry to put on table, may be made into Welsh rarebits, or grated down and mixed with macaroni. Cheeses may be preserved in a perfect state for years, by covering them with parchment made pliable by soaking in water, or by rubbing them over with a coating of melted fat. The cheeses selected should be free from cracks or bruises of any kind.
CHEESE-GLASS.