The Chemistry of Cookery

by W. Mattieu Williams

On walking on to Italy I learned that there such use of cheese is universal. Minestra without Parmesan would in Italy be regarded as we in England should regard muffins and crumpets without butter. During the forty years that have elapsed since my first sojourn in Italy, my sympathies are continually lacerated when I contemplate the melancholy spectacle of human beings eating thin soup without any grated cheese.

Not only in soups, but in many other dishes, it is similarly used. As an example, I may name ‘Risotto à la Milanese,’ a delicious, wholesome, and economical dish—a sort of stew composed of rice and the giblets of fowls, usually charged about twopence to threepence per portion at Italian restaurants. This, I suppose, is the reason why I find no recipe for it in the ‘high-class’ cookery-books. It is always served with grated Parmesan. The same with the many varieties of paste, of which macaroni and vermicelli are the best known in this country.

In all these the cheese is sprinkled over, and then stirred into the soup, &c., while it is hot. The cheese being finely divided is fused at once, and thus delicately cooked. This is quite different from the ‘macaroni cheese’ commonly prepared in England by depositing macaroni in a pie-dish, then covering it with a stratum of grated cheese, and placing this in an oven or before a fire until the cheese is desiccated, browned, and converted into a horny, caseous form of carbon that would induce chronic dyspepsia in the stomach of a wild boar if he fed upon it for a week.

In all preparations of Italian pastes, risottos, purées, &c., the cheese is intimately mixed throughout, and softened and diffused thereby in the manner above described.

The Italians themselves imagine that only their own Parmesan cheese is fit for this purpose, and have infected many Englishmen with the same idea. Thus it happens that fancy prices are paid in this country for that particular cheese, which nearly resembles the cheese known in our midland counties as ‘skim dick’—sold there at about fourpence per pound, or given by the farmers to their labourers. It is cheese ‘that has sent its butter to market,’ being made from the skim-milk which remains in the dairy after the pigs have been fully supplied.

I have used this kind of cheese as a substitute for Parmesan, and I find it answers the purpose, though it has not the fine flavour of the best qualities of Parmesan. The only fault of our ordinary whole-milk English and American cheeses is that they are too rich, and cannot be so finely grated on account of their more unctuous structure, due to the cream they contain.

I note that in the recipes of high-class cookery-books, where Parmesan is prescribed, cream is commonly added. Sensible English cooks, who use Cheshire, Cheddar, or good American cheese, are practically including the Parmesan and the cream in natural combination. By allowing these cheeses to dry, or by setting aside the outer part of the cheese for the purpose, the difficulty of grating is overcome.

I have now to communicate another result of my cheese-cooking researches, viz. a new dish—cheese-porridge—or, I may say, a new class of dishes—cheese-porridges. They are not intended for epicures, who only live to eat, but for men and women who eat in order to live and work. These combinations of cheese are more especially fitted for those whose work is muscular, and who work in the open air. Sedentary brain-workers should use them carefully, lest they suffer from over-nutrition, which is but a few degrees worse than partial starvation.

My typical cheese-porridge is ordinary oatmeal-porridge made in the usual manner, but to which grated cheese, or some of the cheese solution above described, is added, either while in the cookery-pot or after it is taken out, and yet as hot as possible. It should be sprinkled gradually and well stirred in.

Another kind of cheese-porridge or cheese-pudding is made by adding cheese to baked potatoes—the potatoes to be taken out of their skins and well mashed while the grated cheese is sprinkled and intermingled. A little milk may or may not be added, according to taste and convenience. This is better suited for those whose occupations are sedentary, potatoes being less nutritious and more easily digested than oatmeal. They are chiefly composed of starch, which is a heat-giver or fattener, while the cheese is highly nitrogenous, and supplies the elements in which the potato is deficient, the two together forming a fair approach to the theoretically demanded balance of constituents.