CHEESE
“The chief constituent of cheese is casein coagulated by the action of
rennet. But, prepared from casein alone, cheese would be coarse and
almost tasteless, and when dry would become as hard as stone. To give
tenderness and flavor to the paste-like mass, the cream is commonly
retained in milk used for making cheese. The casein furnishes the main
substance of the product, while the cream contributes what might be
called the seasoning.
“Hence we have two principal varieties of cheese: one, prepared with
milk from which the cream has been taken, contains only casein; the
second, made from unskimmed milk, contains both casein and cream. The
first kind, known as cottage cheese, white cheese, or, more
expressively, skim-milk cheese, has little food value and is not made
for its own sake, but in order to put to some use the milk that has
already served to make butter. The second kind, called cream cheese, is
what commonly appears on our tables in different varieties and varying
appearance, according to the quality of the milk and the mode of
preparation.
“To make cheese still more unctuous and to give it a finer flavor, we
do not always content ourselves with using milk in its natural state;
to the cream that it naturally contains we often add some more from
milk skimmed expressly for the purpose. The cheeses thus enriched with
fatty matter are the most delicate of all. Again, we occasionally adopt
a middle course, using neither natural milk nor entirely creamless
milk, but of two equal parts of milk we keep one just as it is and skim
the other, mixing them together afterward.
“By adding or withdrawing, in varying quantities, this fatty
constituent of the milk, we obtain as many different varieties of
cheese. If also we bear in mind that sheep’s milk has not exactly the
same properties as goats’ milk, nor goats’ milk the same properties as
cows’ milk; if we remember, further, that the same animal’s milk varies
according to the nature of its feed and the care given to the herd; and
if, finally, we take into account the different methods of manufacture,
of one sort in one place, of another sort somewhere else, we shall
understand how numerous may be and in fact are the various kinds of
cheese.”
“For my part,” Jules interposed, “I know at least half a dozen kinds.
There is Roquefort, a pasty cheese streaked with blue and of a sharp
flavor; Gruyère, riddled with large round holes and yellowish in color,
and clear like quartz; Auvergne, as large as a big millstone and not
very delicate in flavor; Brie, in thin, wide cakes that sweat a kind of
ill-smelling cream; Mont d’Or, packed with a little straw in a round
deal box; and a lot of others that I can’t remember now.”
“Jules has just told us the best known kinds of cheese; I will add a
few words on the way they are made.
“Fresh cheeses are those that are eaten soon after being made. They are
white and soft. They are made of either skimmed or unskimmed milk, and
in the latter case they are incomparably better. When the rennet has
brought about coagulation, the curdled milk is poured into round molds
of tin or glazed earthenware, with holes in the bottom for the escape
of the whey contained in the curdled mass. As soon as this has drained
enough and is sufficiently firm, the cheese is done, and it is taken
from the mold ready for the table without any other preparation.”
“That’s the cheese I like best,” Emile declared. “It’s the kind we
spread on slices of bread to make those delicious sandwiches.”
“That is very true, but it has the fault of not keeping long. In a few
days it turns sour and uneatable. All the other cheeses would do the
same, all would spoil and become sour if certain measures were not
taken to prevent this. These measures consist in the use of salt, which
is rubbed and sprinkled on the outside of the cheese, and sometimes
even mixed with the curd itself. All cheeses, then, that are to be kept
a long time receive more or less salt, while fresh cheese is not salted
at all.
“Of these salted cheeses some are soft, some hard. That of Brie, named
from the district where the best is made, in the department of
Seine-et-Marne, is a large and thin soft cake, made of sheep’s milk. It
is salted on both sides with finely powdered salt, and is left to soak
for two or three days in the salted liquid that drips from it. The
salting finished, the cheeses are packed in a cask with alternate
layers of straw, and are left alone for several months. Then there
starts a kind of fermentation, which is the beginning of putrefaction,
and which develops new qualities. The curd loses its odor and insipid
taste of milk-food, to acquire the heightened flavor and strong smell
of cheese; its mass becomes more oily, even partially fluid, and
changes under the rind to a liquid pap of creamy appearance. This work
of modification is called refining. It has gone just far enough when
the liquid part under the rind is of a pleasant taste. The cheeses are
then taken out of the cask and are ready for eating.
“This first example shows us that cheese acquires its peculiar
qualities through an incipient deterioration. Before this putrefaction
sets in the cheese is simply curd, sweetish, insipid, without
pronounced odor; after this process it has the odor, the taste, in fact
all that is required to make it really cheese. But the putrefaction,
once started artificially, does not stop where we should like it to
stop. It goes on all the time, slowly indeed if we take some
precautions, and the cheese, smelling more and more, and tasting
stronger and stronger, ends by becoming a mass of rottenness. All
cheese, therefore, when it gets too old, is sure at last to go bad; it
spoils by continuing to excess the kind of deterioration that in the
beginning gave it precisely the qualities desired.
“From its appetizing flavor and fine texture Roquefort is the king of
cheeses, the prominent feature in any well-appointed dessert. Its
renown extends all over the world.”
“That’s the cheese that is so strong and takes so much bread to go with
it?” asked Emile.
“Yes, that is it. Its pronounced flavor and its blue streaks make it
easy to recognize. It is made in a village of Aveyron called Roquefort,
and is obtained from sheep’s milk only, the best of all milk on account
of its richness in casein and butter.”
“Brie cheese also,” observed Louis, “is made of sheep’s milk; yet it
doesn’t compare in quality with Roquefort.”
“That marked difference shows us how much the method of making it
determines the quality of cheese. You have just seen what pains are
taken with Brie cheese; now see how much care is given to Roquefort.
“The cakes of curd are not thin in this case, but as thick as they are
wide. They are stored for months in grottoes hollowed in the heart of a
rock, either by nature or by man, in the environs of the village of
Roquefort. These grottoes are remarkable for the strong currents of air
that circulate through them, and for the coolness of their temperature.
During the summer, while the thermometer outside marks thirty degrees,
[6] it shows but five inside the cheese caves. The difference is that
between the heat of an oppressive summer and the cold of a severe
winter. It is in the depths of these cold caves that the cheeses
acquire their peculiar qualities. The only care given them is an
occasional rubbing with salt and a scraping of their surface to remove
whatever moldiness may have developed. This moldiness even gets into
the inside by degrees, where it forms blue veins. But that is in no way
detrimental; on the contrary, the flavor of the cheese gains by the
formation of this mold, which is merely another kind of rotting that
adds its energies to those of the usual change undergone by cheese.
Hence the makers are not content with letting nature produce these
signs of moldiness: they hasten the process by mixing with the fresh
curd a little powdered moldy bread. The cheese would be better if left
to its own working, but this addition accelerates the result, and
to-day, alas, in the making of Roquefort, as in so many other branches
of industry, there is greater eagerness for quick results than for
excellence.
“The cheese called Auvergne is made in the mountains of Cantal. Cows’
milk is used. When the curd has formed, the dairyman, legs and arms
bare, mounts a table and tramples and compresses with feet and hands
the mass of fresh cheese to squeeze out the whey. The curd is then
separated, mixed with pounded salt, and pressed in large round molds
containing up to fifty kilograms. These enormous cheeses are finally
left in cellars to the action of fermentation, which perfects them.
“Gruyère cheese owes its name to a little village in the canton of
Fribourg in Switzerland. In the Vosges, Jura, and Ain a great quantity
of this cheese is made. This too is made of cows’ milk. The milk, after
a third of its cream has been skimmed off, is slightly warmed in large
kettles over a brisk fire. Then the rennet is poured in. When the curd
has formed, it is separated as much as possible by being stirred in the
kettle with a wide paddle, after which it is warmed still further.
Finally the curd is collected, placed in a mold, and subjected to
strong pressure. The cheese thus produced is next rubbed several times
with salt, and then stored in a cellar and left undisturbed for two or
three months. It is during its stay in the cellar that the holes or
eyes characteristic of Gruyère cheese make their appearance; they are
due to bubbles of gas released from the fermenting substance of the
cheese. You will notice in the making of this kind of cheese the
application of heat. The milk is warmed over the fire just before the
rennet is added, which is not done in the other kinds. Hence Gruyère
cheese is called cooked cheese.
“If kept too long, all cheeses are sooner or later invaded, first on
the outside and then within, by mold, yellowish white at first, then
blue or greenish, and finally brick red. At the same time the cheese
decays and acquires a repulsive odor and a taste so acrid as to make
the lips sore. The cheese is then a mere mass of putrefaction to be
thrown on the dung-hill. The rate of decay is proportioned to the
softness of the cheese and its permeability by the air. Therefore, in
order that it may keep well, it must be carefully dried and also
reduced to a compact mass by strong pressure. That is why so much force
is exerted in pressing the large cheeses of Gruyère and Auvergne in
their molds. But it is nothing in comparison with certain cheeses,
called Dutch cheeses, which are noted for their extraordinary lasting
qualities. They become so hard and dry that before they can be eaten
they sometimes have to be broken up with a hammer and put to soften
again in a cloth wet with white wine.”
“Those very hard cheeses, as solid as a rock, can’t be of much use,”
commented Emile.
“That is where you are mistaken. Cooks use this hard cheese to season
certain dishes, after grating it to a powder. It is also in favor on
shipboard as a valuable article of food on long voyages. The Dutch
cheese is round like a ball, and has a reddish rind. It takes its name
from the country where it is made.”