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Archiver > SOCAL > 1999-04 > 0924960056
From: <>
Subject: Aunt Charlotte's book ( Cheese making)
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 09:20:56 EDT
One time Mother made a cheese. It was a small one and she put it on a
high shelf to cure. Once, when we were alone in the kitchen, Adam took it
down and bit a piece out of it. He said: "Now Lottie, I'll get you spanked
for this. Mother will see it and say: 'Everyone here knows better than that
except charlotte.'" Adam just meant to tease me, and I'm sure that he must
have intended to explain, but I suppose he forgot it. So I looked at that
cheese and worried so that I could not eat. Sure enough, Mother discovered it
and sure enough, just as Adam said, she reasoned that it could have been no
one except Charlotte, and she spanked me. I must have been a very dull child,
for I took the hard spanking and said nothing. Adam probably never thought of
it again.
Once Mother let me make a cheese all by myself. The first step in
making a cheese was to save the rennet or fourth stomach of a calf, when it
was killed. The small, pouch-like fibrous membrane had to be gently washed in
warm water and carefully dried. When the milk was ready, the rennet was
soaked for fifteen or twenty minutes in lukewarm water, then the water was
added to the milk. It was then warmed to little more than blood temperature
and allowed to "set" for twenty minutes or a half hour. By that time it would
be quite solid like clabbered milk. Then the curd was cut with a long wooden
knife, back and forth and across, many times. This allowed the curd to
separate from the liquid whey. In a little while the whey could be drained
till the curd formed a solid mass, a light pressure was put on it till it was
quite dry. Then the solid mass was turned out on a table and cut again into
tiny cubes, then the mould was made ready and the curd with a light sprinkle
of salt was patted carefully into it layer upon layer till the mould was
full. a pressure was put on it, light at first, then heavier and heavier till
at night the last heavy weight was put on it and it was allowed to stand till
morning. The mould was then removed and the round, solid cheese was trimmed
around the edges where the curd had squeezed though between the top and the
sides of the mould. We children were always there to get the trimmings. It
was like scrapping the bowl when a cake was made. The cheese was then
thoroughly greased with butter and a band of cloth sewed firmly around it.
every day for a long while it had to be turned, wiped dry, and greased again.
In a month it was ready to eat. Some people did not wait so long, but we
liked our cheese to be a bit nippy.
Walt Davies
Monmouth, OR
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