Page:Hand-book on cheese making.djvu/54

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

—48—

greatly enhanced profit, that the obvious convenience and economy of the new order of things, more than any inimical characteristic it possessed, pulled down the one and set up the other. It matters not, though, to consumers in America or England, whether the cheese they eat is made under the roof of a farm house on a small scale, or in a mammoth factory on a large one, provided the quality is good. But there are serious drawbacks about making up milk in diminutive quantity that are hard to overcome. Let us discuss them and analyze their leading features:

I think it is safe to assume that not one person out of fifty who attempts to make home dairy cheese to-day but will manufacture it just as his fathers did fifty years ago. In their minds the whole process is covered by coagulation of the milk, quick cooking of the curd, salting it, and pressing it. There is no thought of having the milk moderately mature, the curd thoroughly cooked and then properly soured, and the salt judiciously applied. The amateur knows nothing about the fine yet necessary points of manufacture, and so his cheese lacks the fine but requisite points of quality to insure it trade recognition. We all like good cheese to eat, but in this country, thanks to the skimmer, it is getting so that the good article is very scarce and promises to be scarcer if the skimmer's relations with the factory are not soon done away with.

A great many readers who live in non-cheese manufacturing districts appreciate mellow, rich cheese when they sometimes at long intervals find it on their groceryman's counter, and vow that they would eat the article more if the price was cheapened and the general quality raised. You should, if you live a hundred miles or so from any factory, and if you have a few cows and your neighbor has a few more, club together and make up some cheese for your own use. You have a vivid remembrance of how your mother used to manage it years ago. Discard the wooden tub that she used, for now