The phosphate of lime which is supplied by Cheese made with rennet, is probably in a condition of such fine division, that it can be readily dissolved by the gastric juice in the stomach. For a dish in which there is a true cooking of Cheese by solution, and with an admirable result, grate six ounces of rich Cheese (Parmesan is the best), put it into an enamelled saucepan, with a teaspoonful of flour of mustard, a saltspoonful of white pepper, a grating of Cayenne, the sixth part of a nutmeg (grated), two ounces of butter, two tablespoonfuls of baked flour, and a gill of new milk; stir it over a slow fire till it becomes like thick, smooth cream (but it must not boil); add the well-beaten yolks of six eggs; beat for ten minutes, then add the whites of the eggs also beaten to a stiff froth; put the mixture into a tin, or into a cardboard mould, and bake in a quick oven for twenty minutes; serve immediately.

Stilton Cheese

Stilton Cheese has been made until lately almost always in Leicestershire, being a solid, rich, white English production, the cream of one day being added to the entire milk of the next; then the curd is put into moulds, and allowed to sink of itself, no pressure whatever being applied. Other kinds, such as Cheddar, are subjected to a pressure of as much as one ton, or twenty-five hundredweight. Stilton Cheese requires, first, lactic bacteria to convert the' milk sugar into lactic acid; then other special bacteria act on the casein, and peptonize it, changing the curd from a hard, insoluble substance into what is soluble and digestible, whilst the oidium, or lactic mould, gives the coating; the blue inner mould goes by the name of Penicillium glaucum. This fine Cheese can now be imitated anywhere by using rich milk, and the famous Bacterium B. 41, of which pure cultures are made, and employed all over the world.

Gorgonzola

Gorgonzola is an Italian Cheese (North Italy), made from the native pasture milk, and strongly resembling Stilton. After the curd has been thoroughly squeezed, a tumblerful of milk putrescent to mouldiness is added. This Cheese is coloured by Sage leaves, and its green mould is said to be an imitation effected by transfixing the Cheese here and there with copper skewers which are left in for a while. Originally this Cheese was made of so rich a quality as to fetch half-a-crown a pound (the mode of its manufacture being kept then a strict local secret), but now most of the Gorgonzola Cheese which comes into the market is fabricated, and sells for about tenpence a pound. Again, the green colour of certain other Italian Cheeses is attributed to the milk having stood for a time in copper vessels, during which time of repose the milk would absorb an appreciable quantity of copper. In twenty-five samples of Parmesan Cheese, there was found to be present to every two pounds of the Cheese, from 0-8 to 3-3 per cent of copper. Parmesan is a hard, dry, highly-flavoured Italian Cheese coloured with saffron. It is made among the rich pasturage of the Po meadows, from cows' milk partly skimmed.

Professor Macfadyean told his hearers at the Royal Institute, February, 1903, that there is no finer food in the world for nutritive purposes than Cheese grated, and put into proper soups, such as of lentil, and the like, just as the Italians invariably sprinkle Parmesan over their "Minestra".

Camembert Cheese

Camembert Cheese is made from new milk coagulated by the action of rennet, being then ladled into moulds, and allowed to drain; these are then salted, and turned daily, whilst kept in caves, or cold cellars, for six weeks until ripe. The different flavours of the various sorts of Cheese are due, not to something in the local soil where each is produced, but simply to methods in making, which give more or less play to the several kinds of microbes. Taking Camembert as an example, on the outside of this is to be seen a greenish colour, consisting of a dead fungus, which while it lives gets into the curd, and feeds on the acid of the fresh Cheese for its maintenance. Meantime this acid is fatal to the particular microbes which give the Camembert its distinctive flavour; but directly the acid has been all used up by the fungus from within the Cheese these microbes begin to multiply, and spread. The special fungus, or mould is allowed to exist on the walls of the Camembert Cheese factories, and its little poppyheads burst, keeping the air full of dusty spores which penetrate the curd.

Then the microbes which are already there (since the exhaustion of the curd acid by the fungus) start work, and convert the curd into soft digestible Cheese.

So is it similarly, with all the foreign Cheeses. A French doctor has identified the several microbes which produce the approved flavours, and which can be supplied in separate bottles. With such microbes, and a few plain directions about temperature, any Cheese may be made at option. The monks of Briquebec, Port du Salut, have been noted for supplying a famous Cheese, the secret of which they would not reveal. But some scientists secured specimens of its particular microbe, then cultivated the same in test-tubes, and were thus enabled to tell all the world how the said famous Cheese can be produced. A Camembert Cream Cheese is made to-day at Reading, its imported bacteria being the Micrococcus maldensis, and Bacillus fermitatis, and its mould Penicillium candidum. Nowadays, at the different dairy factories up and down the country, whither the farmers send their milk, the butter-fat is extracted, whilst the residual milk, sugar, casein, and other solids remain in their hands wherewith to feed the calves; and as these creatures require some sort of fat in place of the Cheese-cream, cod-liver oil is added, at sixpence a gallon, very successfully.

Roquefort Cheese

Roquefort Cheese is made from the milk of ewes, and goats. When dry enough the Cheeses are placed in a deep cavern of the limestone rock, at a temperature of 40° Fahrenheit. They are salted, and the mould fungus is scraped off from time to time, until they turn from a white to a blue, and on through that to a reddish brown; this is a rich Cheese, and has to be kept a considerable time before it is ripe enough for eating.

Gruyere Cheese

Gruyere Cheese (from Gruyere, a Canton of Switzerland) is made by the curd being pressed in large, and comparatively shallow moulds, then heavily salted for a month, or more, while still in the moulds. It is traversed by abundant air-bubbles, and open passages, whilst flavoured by the dried herb Melilot, or sweet yellow Clover (admirable against nose-bleeding).

Sage Cheese

Sage Cheese is coloured with bruised Sage leaves, or in Scotland with lovage leaves, also with marigold leaves, and parsley.

"Marbled with sage the hardening cheese she pressed".

Gay.