From a Journey in Carniola, &c. by W. A. Cadell, &c.
"On the 14th April (1818,) I went to see a large cheese dairy, 3
miles from Milan, one of the dairies at which that kind of cheese,
called in commerce _Parmesan_, is made. It is called in Italy,
_Formaggio di grana_, because it is commonly used in a granular
form, being grated, and brought to table to be eaten with soup. Much
of this cheese is also made near Lodi and Pavia.
The word _Formaggio_ is from _Formaticum_, which signifies, in the
Latin of the middle ages, cheese prepared in a form.
The cheese is made in the morning before sunrise.
The morning's milk, and that of the preceding evening, are put into
a large brass vessel, five feet in height, narrow at bottom, and
widening out like a trumpet to three feet diameter at top. This
vessel is placed over a fire, which is sunk in the ground, and the
vessel can be removed from the fire by a crane.
When the milk is heated, runnet, in form of paste, is put in, and a
little saffron, to give the cheese the yellow colour.
When the coagulation has taken place, the copper is taken off the
fire, the curd is taken out in a cloth, and put within a broad
wooded hoop, the sides of which are as high as the cheese is
intended to be. This hoop can be straitened by means of a rope. A
board is placed on the top of the cheese, and a small weight on the
board. The cheese is not cut into a press.
After this, the cheese is taken to the salting room, and two cheeses
are placed together, one above the other, with broad hoops tightened
round them. Much salt is laid on the top of the uppermost cheese;
the salt dissolves, and the brine filters through the cheeses.
The cheeses are shifted from one place to another all along the
benches of the salting room, and are beaten with a flat piece of
wood, cut with straight-lined furrows intersecting each other.
The cheese is next taken to the magazine, where each cheese is
placed on a shelf.
The sides of the cheese are painted with a mixture of litmus,
otherwise called _tournesol_, and oil, to give them the purple
colour. The tournesol is a plant collected in the south of France.
The cheeses are set on the shelf in the same order in which they
were made; and the cheeses of each month are placed together.
Those of the month of October and of May are the best, and bear
the highest price. The best cheeses can be kept longest, and are
improved by keeping for some years.
There was an October cheese which had been kept five years, and was
to be sent to the emperor.
After the great cheese is made, the liquid in the copper is again
heated over the fire, and curd is collected from it to make small
cheeses, called _Mascarla_.
The number of cows kept for making cheese in this dairy is
eighty.--They are always in the house in winter, and at the present
season of the year. They are fed upon grass all the year, except
perhaps in December. The house in which they are kept is not above
nine feet high to the ceiling. They are not kept very clean. In
summer, they go out to the field to feed during the day.
The cows are of a dark colour, and are brought from Switzerland,
which is found more profitable than rearing them in this country.
The bull is also Swiss, and fourteen months old.
It is estimated that 2000 head of cattle pass the Mount St. Gothard
every year coming from Switzerland into Italy. Considerable fairs
for the sale of Swiss cattle are held at Lugano.
The evening's milk is put in flat copper vessels, three feet in
diameter, in order to collect the cream.
There is an ice-house in the dairy, for the purpose of supplying ice
for cooling the cream which is put into the churn. This, they find,
facilitates the making of butter at certain periods of the year.
In the farm-yard is an inscription, commemorating the visit paid to
this dairy by the Austrian emperor and the archdukes, two years ago."