NATTO AND MISO 247 



success. On the contrary, practice has also in this respect taken the lead by 

 employing in special cases such additios as, without being pure cultures (in a 

 bacteriological sense), nevertheless contain a predominating proportion of the 

 organism most suitable for the object in view. One of the two classes of cheese 

 to which this applies is the Roquefort, the other being Edam cheese. 



Any one examining for the first time the said French cheese (originally 

 prepared in the village of Roquefort (Dep. Aveyron), from unskimmed sheep's 

 milk) will notice the green growth of mould occupying all the cracks abundantly 

 intersecting this brittle, sharp-flavoured mass. This filamentous fungus, whose 

 presence is by no means a sign of unsound composition, has been shown to be 

 the organism known as Penicillium glaucum (described in vol. ii.), which settles 

 in the fissured cheese mass and there consumes the acid which has been groduced 

 by the lactic acid bacteria and is retarding the development of the albumin- 

 degrading organisms. The favourable influence of this thread fungus is so 

 indubitably established by experience, that the practice is now common to sow it 

 purposely in the fresh cheese mass. To this end bread is allowed to become 

 covered with a luxuriant growth of mould, and is then dried and ground, the 

 resulting powder (rich in mould spores) being then strewn between the separate 

 layers of the sliced curd. In order to favour the development of this aerobic 

 assistant, some 60 to 100 fine holes are pierced by a needle in each cylinder of 

 ripening cheese. 



The coatings of mould appearing and tolerated in Gorgonzola, Brie, and 

 Stilton cheese seem to have a similar action. In other cheeses, again, such as 

 Emmenthal and Gouda cheese, the formation of a mould coating in the ripening 

 cheese is prevented as far as possible, since it would unfavourably influence their 

 specific flavour. For this purpose the surface of the cheese is repeatedly wiped 

 over with salt water or strewn with dry salt. A comparison of the surface of 

 Gouda cheese with that of Brie cheese will show the remarkable difference 

 between them. 



In the above-mentioned instance a thread fungus is employed, whereas in the 

 case of Edam cheese a bacterium is mixed with the milk to be made into cheese. 

 This is the Streptococcus hollandicus, whose acquaintance we have already made 

 in 163, as a microbe capable of making milk or whey ropy. It is employed by 

 adding 2 per cent, by volume of ropy whey to the milk to be set for cheese. 



179. Natto and Miso. 



The process of fermentation known as the ripening of cheese both improves 

 the flavour and increases the digestibility of the albuminoids by degrading them 

 into more readily assimilable products. On this account the ripening of cheese 

 might be termed a preliminary digestion of the casein. 



Similar to fresh whole-milk curd in the nature and proportional ratio of its 

 chief constituents is the Soja bean, i.e. the seed which replaces a meat diet 

 among the natives of Eastern Asia. This bean was first introduced into Europe 

 at the Vienna Universal Exhibition in 1873, and was shortly afterwards more 

 minutely described by FR. HABERLANDT (I.). It contains 35-40 per cent, of 

 albuminoids and about 15 per cent, of fat; and, consequently, a dish of soja 

 beans prepared in the ordinary manner forms a heavy, tough food-stuff. How- 

 ever, it can bo made more attractive to the palate, and better suitable to the 

 stomach, by boiling the beans for five hours in salt water, then forming the mass 

 into balls from 4 to 18 ounces in weight, packing these in straw, and leaving 

 them in a warmed cellar for a few days. Under these conditions they undergo 

 a fermentation which loosens the cellular tissue, and effects a partial conversion 

 of the protein into amides, peptones, guanine, xanthine, and tyrosine. The 



