The milk is not necessary, though preferable. I find that a solution of cheese may be made in water by simply grating or thinly slicing the cheese, and adding it to about its own bulk of water in which the bicarbonate of potash is dissolved.
The proportion of bicarbonate, which I theoretically estimate as demanded for supplying the deficiency of potash, is at the rate of about a quarter of an ounce to the pound of cheese; and I find that it will bear this quantity without the flavour of the potash being detected. The proportion of potash in cows’ milk is more than double the quantity thus supplied, but I assume that the cheese loses about half of its original supply, and base this assumption on the fact that ordinary cheese contains an average of about 4 per cent. of saline matter, while the proportion of saline matter to the casein and fat of the milk amounts to 5 per cent. This is a rough practical estimate, kept rather below the actual quantity demanded; therefore more than the quarter ounce may be used with impunity. I have doubled it in some of my experiments, and thus have just detected the bitter flavour of the salt.
As regards the solubility of the cheese, I should add that there are great differences in different samples. Generally speaking, the newer and milder the cheese the more soluble. Some that I have tried leave a stubbornly insoluble residuum, which is detestably tough. I found the same cheese to be unusually indigestible when eaten with bread in the ordinary raw state, and have reason to believe that it is what I have called ‘bosch cheese,’ to be described presently.
The successful solution, in either alkalised milk or alkalised water, cools into a custard-like mass, the thickness or viscosity varying, of course, with the quantity of solvent. It may be kept for use a short time (from two or three days to two or three weeks, according to the weather), after which it becomes putrescent.
As now well known to all concerned, a great deal of ‘butterine,’ or ‘oleomargarine,’ or ‘margarine,’ or ‘bosch,’ is made by extracting from the waste fat of oxen and sheep some of its harder constituents, the palmitic and stearic acids, then working up the softer remainder with a little milk, or even without the milk, into a resemblance to butter. When properly prepared and honestly sold for what it is, no fair grounds for objection exist; but it is too commonly sold for what it is not—i.e. as butter. For cookery purposes a fair sample of ‘bosch’ is quite as good as ‘inferior dosset.’ I have tasted some that is scarcely distinguishable from best Devonshire fresh.
More recently this enterprise has been further developed. Genuine butter is made from cream skimmed from the milk. The skimmed milk is then curdled, and to the whey thus precipitated a sufficient quantity of bosch is added to replace the butter that has been sent to market. A still more objectionable compound is made by using hogs’ lard as a substitute for the natural cream. These extraneous fats render the cheese more indigestible. The curd precipitated from skim-milk is harder and tougher than that thrown down from whole milk, and these added fats merely envelop the broken fragments of this. Hence my suspicion that the cheese leaving the above-described insoluble residuum was a sample of ‘bosch’ cheese.
Since the above was written I have met with the following in the Times, bringing the subject up to latest date, and I take the liberty of reprinting the larger part of this interesting and clearly-written communication:
‘IMITATED DAIRY PRODUCTS.
‘The profitable utilisation of refuse products has always been one of the most difficult problems which have confronted manufacturers. Until recently the disposal of skim-milk was one of the difficulties of the managers of butter factories, or “creameries” as they are termed in the United States. Similarly, the sale of the internal fat of animals slaughtered for food, with the exception of lard, was practically restricted to the manufacturers of soap and candles. It was reserved to a Frenchman, M. Mège-Mauries, to discover the first step towards a more profitable use of these substances. He showed that by a judicious combination of milk and the clarified fat of animals a substance could be produced which closely resembled butter. So close, indeed, is the resemblance of imitation butter to the real article that the skill of the chemist must be invoked to render detection positive, if the artificial butter is good of its kind. So recondite, indeed, is the test of the chemist that it depends upon the percentage of volatile oils in butter-fat and in caul-fat respectively.