To a patriotic epicure it is humiliating to peruse Bulletin 105 of the Bureau of Animal Industry, entitled Varieties of Cheese. It contains, on 72 pages, descriptions and analyses of all the domestic and foreign cheeses about which information could be found in the literature bearing upon the subject. The authors are C. F. Doane, of the Dairy Division, and H. W. Lawson, of the Experiment Stations. The number of cheeses described by them is 242. Of these 63, or more than a fourth of the whole number, are French. Germany follows with 40, and England comes third with 24. Switzerland is credited with 20. Italy contributes 19, Austria (with Bohemia, Hungary and the Tyrol) 17, and Holland 8. These are the leading cheese producers.
France, as was to be expected of the chief gastronomic nation, heads the list in the matter of quality as well as quantity. Few epicures would deny that the best three cheeses made anywhere are Camembert, Roquefort, and Brie. Other world-famed kinds are Pont-l'Evêque, Neufchâtel, Mont D'Or, Gruyère, Port du Salut. Among the less-known kinds are some which are almost if not quite as good as the more familiar varieties.
A pound of cheese made of unskimmed milk has twice the nutritive value of a pound of beef. It is characteristic of the gastronomic French people that, notwithstanding this fact, the best cheeses made by them, for themselves and the rest of the world, are valued and intended much less as food than as relishes, to be consumed in very small quantities.
The French custom of using cheese as an appetizer, to be eaten at the end of a meal, has been adopted the world over. Usually one thinks of appetizers (hors d'œuvres) as being served at or near the beginning of a meal; but think the matter over and you will see that an appetizer is even more useful at the end, as a harmless stimulant to keep up a steady flow of saliva.
It is not a mere accident that the three favorite French cheeses are those that have the most piquant and stimulating Flavor. This Flavor is due chiefly to molds, which are specially cultivated with great skill and patience. In Camembert and Brie the mold is on the rind and gradually works its way in, till the whole is permeated by it. In Roquefort the rind is clean of mold, which is started and developed in the inside.
Besides these molds, which, of course, differ in the several varieties, there are other sources of Flavor, such as the salt added to the curd, certain fatty acids, and ammonia-like bodies, these being particularly noticeable in well-ripened Camembert; but what chiefly determines the characteristic Flavor of these cheeses is their private and particular kinds of mold.
Perhaps some day the French will erect a statue to Flavor in Food. To the many illustrations given in these pages of the intelligence they exercise and the trouble they take to secure it, let me add one more—the making of Roquefort cheese.
We need not dwell on the first stages of the process, the heating and cooling of the milk, the adding of the rennet at a certain temperature to curdle it, and so on, as these do not differ materially from the ways of making other cheeses. Sheep's milk is used for the genuine article, but Roquefort made elsewhere of cow's milk is so similar in taste to the original article that no doubt remains as to the all-importance of the mold.
This mold is secured by making bread of wheat and barley flour to which have been added whey and a little vinegar. This bread is kept in a moist place for a month or longer till it has become moldy through and through. Then the crust is removed and the moldy crumbs are placed between layers of the cheese curd.