While there is but one way to make perfect butter there are many ways
to make perfect cheese. Butter is always butter, varying only in
the degree of palatability, whereas from a pail of milk can be made
hundreds of varieties of cheese, each perfect in its way. Every country
has its own, differing from those of other countries and provinces,
as the costumes and customs differ. The chief difference lies in the
Flavor, and this is due to a variety of causes, one of them being the
source of the milk. The Laplander makes several kinds of cheese from
reindeer milk, while in some parts of Italy buffalo cheese is eaten.
Goat cheese is diversely made in Germany, France, Italy and other
countries, while for some of the finest cheeses, including genuine
Roquefort, sheep supply the milk. By far the most important animal,
however, is the cow.
What would Europeans and Americans do without the cow? It is _possible_
to get along without her. When I visited Japan, less than a quarter
of a century ago, the first experiments in the production of milk,
butter, and cheese were being made in the Hokkaido, with a herd of
fifty imported cows.[14] The courtesy of the Governor-General enabled
me to test the products, and I found them very good. But owing to scant
and expensive pasturage, Japanese epicures will never be able to depend
much on cows; and think what they miss! No veal, no beef, no suet,
no cream, no butter, no cheese! Think of the endless uses we make of
these, alone, or in thousands of culinary combinations!
Nevertheless, we still have much to learn concerning the diverse
uses to which at least one of the products of the protean milk pail
can be put. We make above 300,000,000 pounds of cheese a year, worth
over $30,000,000; but there is less to boast about its quality than
its quantity. We are strangely monotonous and unoriginal. About
three-fourths of our cheese is an imitation of the English Cheddar,
while the rest consists mostly of imitations--generally very poor
ones--of Swiss, Dutch, Italian, or German cheeses, or the French
Camembert, Roquefort, and so on. Have we no gastronomic imagination?
Shall we permit not only the epicures but the peasants of Europe
to look down on us for our lack of it? We have, to be sure, a few
specialties, such as the Pineapple, the Brick, Isigny, and some
special varieties of cream cheese; but for a nation of nearly a
hundred millions, we make a very poor showing indeed in this branch of
gastronomy, as in so many others.
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.
The romantic part of the story now begins. In the neighborhood of the
town of Roquefort there are many grottoes, or natural caverns, steadily
ventilated by a cool, moist current of air. Into these the cheese is
taken for the ripening process. There is a great deal of salting and
scraping to prevent the mold from growing on the rind. To favor its
development in the inside, fresh air is provided by piercing the cheese
with machinery having up to a hundred fine needles. Thus it gradually
acquires its green marbling and the piquancy which makes the epicure's
mouth water.
Roquefort cheese has been famous for over two thousand years. The
ancient Romans were very fond of it, as Pliny relates, and imported
it in large quantities. The demand increased from century to century,
until half a million sheep were required to supply the demand and
four hundred factories were kept busy. To-day, enormous quantities of
imitation Roquefort are made in various countries. Some of it is quite
tasty, but epicures will continue to ask for the original, and it is
right that the law should protect them and the makers by compelling
imitators to put "Roquefort Type" on their labels.
To a good many persons the piquancy of Roquefort does not appeal. Few,
however, fail to succumb to the wiles of Camembert. Its popularity is
attested by the fact that New York hotels alone use 30,000 of these
cheeses a week during the season. There is a demand at present for
about 4,000,000 Camemberts from the United States alone, and sometimes
Caen and Havre are unable to supply the demand. Many attempts to
manufacture Camembert have been made in America. The president of one
of the largest pure food companies told me he had spent $30,000 in the
attempt to produce a satisfactory Camembert; then he gave it up and
began to import it. You can import cheeses but you cannot import or
reproduce local flavors.
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