GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON MILK, BUTTER, CHEESE, AND EGGS.
MILK.
1608. Milk is obtained only from the class of animals called Mammalia,
and is intended by Nature for the nourishment of their young. The milk
of each animal is distinguished by some peculiarities; but as that of
the cow is by far the most useful to us in this part of the world, our
observations will be confined to that variety.
1609. Milk, when drawn from the cow, is of a yellowish-white colour, and
is the most yellow at the beginning of the period of lactation. Its
taste is agreeable, and rather saccharine. The viscidity and specific
gravity of milk are somewhat greater than that of water; but these
properties vary somewhat in the milk procured from different
individuals. On an average, the specific gravity of milk is 1.035, water
being 1. The small cows of the Alderney breed afford the richest milk.
1610. Milk which is carried to a considerable distance, so as to be much
agitated, and cooled before it is put into pans to settle for cream,
never throws up so much, nor such rich cream, as if the same milk had
been put into pans directly after it was milked.
1611. Milk, considered as an aliment, is of such importance in domestic
economy as to render all the improvements in its production extremely
valuable. To enlarge upon the antiquity of its use is unnecessary; it
has always been a favourite food in Britain. "Lacte et carno vivunt,"
says Caesar, in his Commentaries; the English of which is, "the
inhabitants subsist upon flesh and milk." The breed of the cow has
received great improvement in modern times, as regards the quantity and
quality of the milk which she affords; the form of milch-cows, their
mode of nourishment, and progress, are also manifest in the management
of the dairy.
1612. Although milk in its natural state be a fluid, yet, considered as
an aliment, it is both solid and fluid: for no sooner does it enter the
stomach, than it is coagulated by the gastric juice, and separated into
curd and whey, the first of these being extremely nutritive.
1613. Milk of the _human subject_ is much thinner than cow's milk;
_Ass's milk_ comes the nearest to human milk of any other; _Goat's milk_
is something thicker and richer than cow's milk; _Ewe's milk_ has the
appearance of cow's milk, and affords a larger quantity of cream;
_Mare's milk_ contains more sugar than that of the ewe; _Camel's milk_
is used only in Africa; _Buffalo's milk_ is employed in India.
1614. From no other substance, solid or fluid, can so great a number of
distinct kinds of aliment be prepared as from milk; some forming food,
others drink; some of them delicious, and deserving the name of
luxuries; all of them wholesome, and some medicinal: indeed, the variety
of aliments that seems capable of being produced from milk, appears to
be quite endless. In every age this must have been a subject for
experiment, and every nation has added to the number by the invention of
some peculiarity of its own.
BUTTER.
1615. BECKMAN, in his "History of Inventions," states that butter was
not used either by the Greeks or Romans in cooking, nor was it brought
upon their tables at certain meals, as is the custom at present. In
England it has been made from time immemorial, though the art of making
cheese is said not to have been known to the ancient Britons, and to
have been learned from their conquerors.
1616. The taste of butter is peculiar, and very unlike any other fatty
substance. It is extremely agreeable when of the best quality; but its
flavour depends much upon the food given to the cows: to be good, it
should not adhere to the knife.
1617. Butter, with regard to its dietetic properties, may be regarded
nearly in the light of vegetable oils and animal fats; but it becomes
sooner rancid than most other fat oils. When fresh, it cannot but be
considered as very wholesome; but it should be quite free from
rancidity. If slightly salted when it is fresh, its wholesomeness is
probably not at all impaired; but should it begin to turn rancid,
salting will not correct its unwholesomeness. When salt butter is put
into casks, the upper part next the air is very apt to become rancid,
and this rancidity is also liable to affect the whole cask.
1618. _Epping butter_ is the kind most esteemed in London. _Fresh
butter_ comes to London from Buckinghamshire, Suffolk, Oxfordshire,
Yorkshire, Devonshire, &c. _Cambridge butter_ is esteemed next to fresh;
_Devonshire butter_ is nearly similar in quality to the latter; _Irish
butter_ sold in London is all salted, but is generally good. The number
of firkins exported annually from Ireland amounts to 420,000, equal to a
million of money. _Dutch butter_ is in good repute all over Europe,
America, and even India; and no country in the world is so successful in
the manufacture of this article, Holland supplying more butter to the
rest of the world than any country whatever.
1619. There are two methods pursued in the manufacture of butter. In
one, the cream is separated from the milk, and in that state it is
converted into butter by churning, as is the practice about Epping; in
the other, milk is subjected to the same process, which is the method
usually followed in Cheshire. The first method is generally said to give
the richest butter, and the latter the largest quantity, though some are
of opinion that there is little difference either in quality or
quantity.
CHEESE.
1620. CHEESE is the curd formed from milk by artificial coagulation,
pressed and dried for use. Curd, called also casein and caseous matter,
or the basis of cheese, exists in the milk, and not in the cream, and
requires only to be separated by coagulation. The coagulation, however,
supposes some alteration of the curd. By means of the substance employed
to coagulate it, it is rendered insoluble in water. When the curd is
freed from the whey, kneaded and pressed to expel it entirely, it
becomes cheese. This assumes a degree of transparency, and possesses
many of the properties of coagulated albumen. If it be well dried, it
does not change by exposure to the air; but if it contain moisture, it
soon putrefies. It therefore requires some salt to preserve it, and this
acts likewise as a kind of seasoning. All our cheese is coloured more or
less, except that made from skim milk. The colouring substances employed
are arnatto, turmeric, or marigold, all perfectly harmless unless they
are adulterated; and it is said that arnatto sometimes contains red
lead.
1621. Cheese varies in quality and richness according to the materials
of which it is composed. It is made--1. Of entire milk, as in Cheshire;
2. of milk and cream, as at Stilton; 3. of new milk mixed with skimmed
milk, as in Gloucestershire; 4. of skimmed milk only, as in Suffolk,
Holland, and Italy.
1622. The principal varieties of cheese used in England are the
following:--_Cheshire cheese_, famed all over Europe for its rich
quality and fine piquant flavour. It is made of entire new milk, the
cream not being taken off. _Gloucester cheese_ is much milder in its
taste than the Cheshire. There are two kinds of Gloucester
cheese,--single and double. _Single Gloucester_ is made of skimmed milk,
or of the milk deprived of half the cream; _Double Gloucester_ is a
cheese that pleases almost every palate: it is made of the whole milk
and cream. _Stilton cheese_ is made by adding the cream of one day to
the entire milk of the next: it was first made at Stilton, in
Leicestershire. _Sage cheese_ is so called from the practice of
colouring some curd with bruised sage, marigold-leaves, and parsley, and
mixing this with some uncoloured curd. With the Romans, and during the
middle ages, this practice was extensively adopted. _Cheddar cheese_
much resembles Parmesan. It has a very agreeable taste and flavour, and
has a spongy appearance. _Brickbat cheese_ has nothing remarkable except
its form. It is made by turning with rennet a mixture of cream and new
milk. The curd is put into a wooden vessel the shape of a brick, and is
then pressed and dried in the usual way. _Dunlop cheese_ has a
peculiarly mild and rich taste: the best is made entirely from new milk.
_New cheese_ (as it is called in London) is made chiefly in
Lincolnshire, and is either made of all cream, or, like Stilton. by
adding the cream of one day's milking to the milk that comes immediately
from the cow: they are extremely thin, and are compressed gently two or
three times, turned for a few days, and then eaten new with radishes,
salad, &c. _Skimmed Milk cheese_ is made for sea voyages principally.
_Parmesan cheese_ is made in Parma and Piacenza. It is the most
celebrated of all cheese: it is made entirely of skimmed cow's milk. The
high flavour which it has, is supposed to be owing to the rich herbage
of the meadows of the Po, where the cows are pastured. The best Parmesan
is kept for three or four years, and none is carried to market till it
is at least six months old. _Dutch cheese_ derives its peculiar pungent
taste from the practice adopted in Holland of coagulating the milk with
muriatic acid instead of rennet. _Swiss cheeses_ in their several
varieties are all remarkable for their fine flavour. That from
_Gruyère_, a bailiwick in the canton of Fribourg, is best known in
England. It is flavoured by the dried herb of _Melilotos officinalis_ in
powder. Cheese from milk and potatoes is manufactured in Thuringia and
Saxony. _Cream cheese_, although so called, is not properly cheese, but
is nothing more than cream dried sufficiently to be cut with a knife.
EGGS.
1623. There is only one opinion as to the nutritive properties of eggs,
although the qualities of those belonging to different birds vary
somewhat. Those of the common hen are most esteemed as delicate food,
particularly when "new-laid." The quality of eggs depends much upon the
food given to the hen. Eggs in general are considered most easily
digestible when little subjected to the art of cookery. The lightest way
of dressing them is by poaching, which is effected by putting them for a
minute or two into brisk boiling water: this coagulates the external
white, without doing the inner part too much. Eggs are much better when
new-laid than a day or two afterwards. The usual time allotted for
boiling eggs in the shell is 3 to 3-3/4 minutes: less time than that in
boiling water will not be sufficient to solidify the white, and more
will make the yolk hard and less digestible: it is very difficult to
_guess_ accurately as to the time. Great care should be employed in
putting them into the water, to prevent cracking the shell, which
inevitably causes a portion of the white to exude, and lets water into
the egg. Eggs are often beaten up raw in nutritive beverages.
1624. Eggs are employed in a very great many articles of cookery,
entrées, and entremets, and they form an essential ingredient in pastry,
creams, flip, &c. It is particularly necessary that they should be quite
fresh, as nothing is worse than stale eggs. Cobbett justly says, stale,
or even preserved eggs, are things to be run from, not after.
1625. The Metropolis is supplied with eggs from all parts of the
kingdom, and they are likewise largely imported from various places on
the continent; as France, Holland, Belgium, Guernsey, and Jersey. It
appears from official statements mentioned in McCulloch's "Commercial
Dictionary," that the number imported from France alone amounts to about
60,000,000 a year; and supposing them on an average to cost fourpence a
dozen, it follows that we pay our continental neighbours above £83,000 a
year for eggs.
1626. The eggs of different birds vary much in size and colour. Those of
the ostrich are the largest: one laid in the menagerie in Paris weighed
2 lbs. 14 oz., held a pint, and was six inches deep: this is about the
usual size of those brought from Africa. Travellers describe _ostrich
eggs_ as of an agreeable taste: they keep longer than hen's eggs.
Drinking-cups are often made of the shell, which is very strong. The
eggs of the _turkey_ are almost as mild as those of the hen; the egg of
the _goose_ is large, but well-tasted. _Duck's eggs_ have a rich
flavour; the albumen is slightly transparent, or bluish, when set or
coagulated by boiling, which requires less time than hen's eggs.
_Guinea-fowl eggs_ are smaller and more delicate than those of the hen.
Eggs of _wild fowl_ are generally coloured, often spotted; and the taste
generally partakes somewhat of the flavour of the bird they belong to.
Those of land birds that are eaten, as the _plover, lapwing, ruff_, &c.,
are in general much esteemed; but those of _sea-fowl_ have, more or
less, a strong fishy taste. The eggs of the _turtle_ are very numerous:
they consist of yolk only, without shell, and are delicious.
RECIPES.