CHEESE AND SALADS.
There is a great deal of difference in cheese. Much depends on the
preparation and seasoning, much on its being new or old, much on its
taste and smell. That is the best cheese which is neither too old nor
too new, which is called fat, and is salted enough, and which is of
middling consistence, has been made of good milk, and is of good taste
and smell. Cheese is nourishing enough, and helps digestion if you take
but a little of it, according to the Latin line--
“Caseus ille bonus quem dat avara manus.”
The flavour and goodness of cheese depends in a considerable degree on
the nature of the pasture on which the cows are fed; yet the mode in
which the different stages of the lubrication of the curd is managed,
is also to be taken into consideration. Hence the superiority of the
cheeses of particular districts over others, without any apparent
difference in the pasture. Soft and rich cheeses are the best for the
epicure’s dinner, and are not intended to be kept long. Hard and dry
cheeses will not be relished by men of taste, or offered by hosts who
care for the comfort and health of their guests. Of the rich cheeses
almost all are cream cheeses; and those soft cheeses called Bath and
Yorkshire cheeses, sold as soon as made: but these if kept too long
become soft and putrid.
Stilton and Gruyère cheeses are intermediate between the soft and hard.
The Gruyère and Parmesan cheeses differ only in the nature of the milk,
and in the degree of heat given to the curd in different parts of the
process. Gruyère cheese is entirely made from new milk, and Parmesan
from skimmed milk. In the first nothing is added to give flavour; in
the latter, saffron gives both colour and flavour.
The best English cheeses are the Stilton, Cheshire, double Gloucester,
and Cheddar; and Stilton and Cheshire are greatly prized in Paris. For
the last thirty years or more it has appeared to me that finer Stilton
and Cheshire cheeses are to be had in the _restaurants_ of Paris than
in London. The Stilton and Cheshire cheeses at Chevets, Corcellets,
and other _magazins de comestibles_ in Paris, are larger than those
generally seen in London, and I dare say a better price is paid for
them by the French than by the English dealers, for _gourmands_ in
Paris will give larger prices for table luxuries than people _ejusdem
farinæ_ in London. It may be also that our English cheeses, like our
English and Irish porter, is improved by the voyage, though if this
were so, there is no reason why one should not eat better cheese in
Dublin than in London, which one never does. My idea is that the
super-excellence of the Stilton in Paris arises from the fact that
it is improved or doctored (to use a trade phrase) by a perfect
_connoisseur_ in the art of improving _comestibles_. Cellarmen in
France, when a cheese has become very dry, wash it several times in
soft water, and then lay it in a cloth moistened with wine or vinegar
till it becomes soft and mellow, which it will inevitably become if it
be a rich cheese.
Stilton cheese is made by adding the cream of the preceding evening’s
milk to the morning’s milking. To eat a Stilton cheese in perfection,
you must not only have one made of rich milk, but manage it well after
it is so made. Epicures prefer a Stilton cheese with a green mould.
To accelerate the growth of this mould, pieces of mouldy or over-ripe
cheese are inserted into holes made for the purpose by a scoop or
instrument called a taster. Wine or ale is then poured in. But the
best Stiltons do not require this, for they are in perfection when
the inside is soft and rich, like butter, without any appearance of
mouldiness. Cheeses are frequently coloured to make them look rich; the
substance most commonly used for this purpose is arnotto, or the juice
of the orange, carrot, and marygold flowers.
The best cheeses in France are those of Neufchâtel in Normandy, of
Brie, which is much eaten in Paris, and above all, the _fromage de
Roquefort en Rouergue_, now called Aveyron. To my taste this is the
best of all dry cheeses; it has some analogy with Stilton, but is
much finer. Roquefort cheese is manufactured in the village whose
name it bears. Some portion of the excellence of this cheese is due
to the cellars in which the straining or refining of the cheese takes
place, and some portion to the peculiar manner in which the animals
are milked; a process which is explained by M. Giron de Bazareinques.
Roquefort cheese is made of a mixture of sheep and goat’s milk; the
first communicates consistence and quality, the latter whiteness and
a peculiar flavour. Roquefort cheese may be had in perfection at
Corcellets’ Palais Royal, and at Morel’s in Piccadilly.
Gruyère cheese is made in the canton of Friburg, in Switzerland, and in
the provinces of Franche-Comté, Bresse, and Bugey. There is a cheese
made in the Mont d’Or, in Auvergne, which has a high flavour.
At large dinners in London, cheese is oftenest eaten in the form of
_ramequins_, or grated Parmesan, and other preparations; but at
small dinners the Stilton, the Roquefort, the Chester, the double
Gloucester, or the Somersetshire cheese is invariably produced.
For nearly a thousand years the art of mixing herbs and cheese together
has been known in England and France. In France this operation is
called _persiller_, because a good deal of parsley is mixed with
the cheese, as here we mix a good deal of sage.
Cheese is always produced at the end of a repast. In any other fashion
the Italian proverb makes light of it:--
“Fromagio, peri, e pan
Pasto de vilan.”
According to La Bruyère Champier, who, when attached to the household
of Francis I. in a medical capacity in 1560, wrote his treatise “De
Re Cibariâ,” cheese was the principal production, and the principal
aliment of the Auvergnats.
In the earliest times in France, several of the provinces made good
cheeses. Pliny states that those of Nimes were much sought for in his
time at Rome, as well as those of Mont Losere and the neighbourhood:
but these cheeses would not keep, and were eaten fresh. Martial makes
mention of the cheese of Toulouse.
Italian cheeses were not introduced into France till the time of
Charles VIII. When this monarch on his expedition to Naples passed
through Placentia, or Placenza, as it is more commonly called, the
citizens presented him with several cheeses. But he was so astonished
at the size of them (“aussi grand,” says Monstrelet, “quasi comme la
largeur de meules à moulin”) that out of curiosity he sent one to
the queen and to the Duke of Bourbon, who were then sojourning in
Bourbonnais. It was found excellent, and henceforth came into general
use. De Serres, who wrote in 1600, gave the first rank among foreign
cheeses to Parmesan, and the second to Turkey cheeses, which arrived
in France in bladders. Gontier, in his treatise “De Sanitate tuendâ,”
written in 1688, mentions among excellent cheeses that of Gruyère.
Ninety or a hundred years ago, the taste as to cheese changed in Paris,
and not long antecedent to the French Revolution of 1789, cheese was
thought fit food only for Germans, English, or Italians.
The popular proverb then was--
“Jamais homme sage,
Ne mangea fromage.”
But, nevertheless, any one who examines cookery books of the time of
Louis XV. and Louis XVI., will find that cheese was used in an infinity
of _ragouts_, and that toasted cheese was placed in a liquid state on
toast, with cinnamon, sugar, and aromatic spices. This was evidently an
improvement on the old Welsh-rabbit, or rare-bit, which was so seldom
well done, even at the Wrekin in Russell Court, Covent Garden, a house
frequented by Edmund Kean in my younger days. Dr. King, in his “Art of
Cookery,” thus speaks of toasted cheese:--
“Happy the man that has each fortune tried,
To whom she much has given and much denied;
With abstinence all delicate he sees,
And can regale himself on toasted cheese.”
Of caseous substances, Nonius says:--“Magna est differentia inter
recentem et vetustum caseum. Recens enim et mollis, duratis et
veteribus salubritatis caussa preferendus. Teste enim Dioscoride, magis
alit, stomacho utilis, corpus auget, et facillime digeritur. Minus vero
nutrit si sale aspersus fuerit et stomacho inutilis. Vetustos caseos
Galenus damnat.”[21]
I have not said anything of the Schabzeiger cheese of Switzerland, or
the Strachino of Milan, as there are few English people who relish
anything so rank. Roquefort is a much finer cheese than either of them,
but the consumption of Roquefort in England is singularly small.
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