often mixed with chopped peppers, olives or nuts and make excellent sandwiches.
Cured Soft Cheese.—For Cream or Neufchatel cheese,
made for curing, the curd is salted more than for fresh
cheese, or the molded cheese is rolled in salt. For a
week or two it is placed in a curing room on straw
mats or the like where it ferments slightly before being
wrapped and packed for shipment.
French Soft Cheese.—The many forms of French soft
cheese as represented by the Brie, the Camembert, etc.,
are subjected to special fermentations which give to
each its peculiar flavor. Attempts have been made to
use pure cultures of the bacteria active in such fermentations
and so reduce the art of cheesemaking to
a more scientific process. But it has been found that
any desired kind of cheese cannot be made simply by
adding a culture of this or that bacterium to pasteurized
milk. Of vastly greater importance for the development
of the proper bacteria and flavor is the handling of the
milk and the curd by the experienced cheesemaker.
Inoculation with a pure culture alone does not make
the special cheese wanted.