Milk And Its Derivatives

Cream, butter, cheese - are all dairy-products, but with growing specialization cheese has become a specific and elaborated industry.

Cheese is produced from milk by rennet precipitating the curd that carries with it fat, some salts, and even a little sugar. (Note composition, p. 114.) Common salt is added and coloring matter is usual. The curd is drained of the whey and ripened by the action of bacteria. The flavor desired is now produced by scientific selection of these ferments.

Cottage cheese is the simplest. It is the curd, often coagulated simply by heating, mixed with cream and seasoned. Neufchatel is a sweet-milk cheese coagulated by rennet at high temperature; it is made especially soft and smooth by kneading. Such cheese is very digestible.

Some cheese contains mold, as Roquefort. It is goats' and ewes' milk and bread, ripened in caves. The mold distributes itself through the cheese, producing its distinctive taste and odor. Other cheese is flavored through some fungus growth penetrating it; such is Stilton. These are the richer kinds of cheese; they are less generally digestible.

Between these extremes are many very palatable and nutritious forms of cheese, variously prepared but differing mainly in flavor through the effect upon the milk of the bacteria used. Among these are Cheddar, Edam, Parmesan, Swiss, Sage.

Adulteration of cheese is rarer than formerly. It consists in use of skim-milk and substitution of less expensive fats than that of milk. The resulting food called "filled" cheese may be wholesome, but it must now be sold for what it is and is worth. Harmless coloring matter is not forbidden.

Cheese is 1/3 protein, 1/3 fat, 1/3 water; in small quantity with other food is an aid to digestion but itself digests slowly.