Book VII. PREPARATIONS OF MILK. 99I 



(so called from tlie bailiwick of that name in the canton of Fribourg), are flavored by 

 the dried herb of Melilotus officinalis {Jig. 46. ) in powder. Gruy^re cheeses weigh from 

 forty to sixty pounds each, and are packed in casks containing ten cheeses each, and 

 exported to the most distant countries. This cheese requires to be kept in a damp place, 

 and should frequently be washed with white wine, to preserve it from the depredations 

 of insects. Neufchatel is celebrated for a very fine sort of cheese made there, which in 

 shape resembles a wash-hand ball, 



6367. Westphalia cheese is of the skim-milk kind, and of a different character from any of those hitherto 

 described. The cream is allowed to remain on the milk till the latter is in a sub-acid state ; it is then 

 removed, and the milk placed near a tire sponteneously to coagulate. The curd is then put into a coarse 

 bag, and loaded with ponderous stones to express the whey ; in this dry state it is rubbed between the 

 hands, and crumbled into an empty clean milk vat, where it remains from three to eight days according 

 as the cheese is intended to be strong or mild. During this part of the process, which is called mellowing, 

 the curd undergoes the putrid fermentation, and acquires a coat or skin on the top, before it is taken out 

 of the vessel, and kneaded into balls or cylinders with the addition of a considerable portion of carraways, 

 salt, and butter ; or occasionally a small quantity of pounded pepper and cloves. When over .mellowed a 

 third part of fresh curds, likewise crumbled into small pieces, is superadded, to prevent or correct its 

 putrid tendency. As the balls or cheeses do not exceed three or four ounces each in weight, they soon 

 dry in the open air, and are then fit for use. When nearly dry they are sometimes, for the palate of 

 epicures, suspended in a wood fire chimney, in a net, for several weeks or months ; and both their taste 

 and flavor are said to be remarkably improved, whether kept in a dry air, or subjected to the action of 

 smoke. This sort of cheese, M. Hochheimer, who describes it, affirms to be preferable to the Dutch, 

 Swiss, and even Parmesan cheese. It is sometimes to be had in London, but is not very common. 



6368. Potatoe cheese \s a. German manufacture, of which there are three sorts. One of the best is 

 thus prepared. Select mealy potatoes, and only half dress them in steam, for by bursting their flavor and 

 efficacy are diminished. Peel them, and then grate or beat them into a fine pulp. To three parts of this 

 mass add two parts of sweet curd, knead and mix them, and allow them to stand three days in warm, and 

 four or five days in cold weather ; form into small pieces like the Westphalia cheeses, and dry in the same 

 manner. A still better sort of potatoe cheese is formed of one part of potatoes, and three of the curd of 

 sheep's milk. This sort is said to exceed in taste the best cheese made in Holland, and to possess the ad- 

 ditional advantage that it improves with age, and generates no vermin. 



6369. The preparations of milk, which can neither be included under butter nor 

 cheese, are various, and constitute a class of wholesome luxuries or rural drinks. 

 We shall do little more than enumerate them, and refer for further details to the 

 cookery books. 



6370. Curds and whey is merely coagulated new milk stirred up, and the curd and whey eaten together 

 with or without sugar and salt. 



6371. Curds and cream ; here the whey is removed and cream substituted with or without sugar. The 

 milk coagulated is often previously skimmed. 



6372. Sour cream ; cream allowed to stand in a vat till it becomes sour j when it is eaten with fresh 

 cream and sugar, or new milk and sugar, and is found delicious. 



6373. Corstorphin cream, so named from a village of that name two miles from Edinburgh, from which 

 the latter city is supplied with it. The milk of three or four days is put together with the cream, till it 

 begins to get sour and coagulated, when the whey is drawn off and fresh cream added. It is therefore 

 simply sour curd and fresh cream ; it is eaten with sugar as a supper dish, and in great repute in the north. 



6374. Devonshire cream, is a term applied in the county of that name, sometimes to sour curd, and 

 sometimes to .sour cream ; in either case mixed with new milk or fresh cream, and eaten with sugar like 

 the Corstorphin cream. 



637.'}. Clotted cream. The milk when drawn from the cow is suffered to remain in the coolers till it 

 begins to get sour and the whole is coagulated. It is then stirred, and the whey drawn off, or the cream 

 (now in clots among the curd) and the curd removed. 



6376. Hatted kitt, a gallon of sour butter-milk is put in the bottom of the milk pail, and a quart or more 

 of milk drawn from the cow into it by the milk-maid. The new warm milk as it mixes with the acid of 

 the sour milk, coagulates, and being lighter rises to the top and forms a creamy scum or hat over the 

 other, whence the name. This surface stratum is afterwards taken off, and eaten with sugar. 



6377. Milk syllabub is formed in a similar manner over a glass or two of wine ; and the whole is then 

 eaten with sugar. Both sorts may be formed by those who have no cow, by warming the sweet or new 

 milk, and squirting it into the wine or the sour milk. 



6378. Skim-milk, is milk from which the cream has been removed ; when this has been 

 done within twelve or fifteen hours from the time of milking, it is sweet and wholesome, 

 and fit either for being heated or coagulated, in order to make cheese, &c., or used as it 

 is with other food ; but if allowed to remain twenty or thirty hours it becomes sour, coa- 

 gulates spontaneously, the whey separates from the curd, and if it remain a certain period, 

 generally three weeks longer in a warm temperature, the vinous fermentation takes place, 

 and a wine or a liquor from which ardent spirit may be distilled is produced. 



6379. Butter-milk, is that which remains in the churn after the butter has been taken 

 off. When butter has been made from cream alone, it is seldom of much value ; but 

 where the whole milk has been churned, and no water poured in during the process, it is 

 a very wholesome cooling beverage. Some prefer it when it has stood a few days and 

 become sour. In England it is chiefly given to pigs, but in Ireland it forms a very com- 

 mon diluter to porridge, potatoes, oat cakes, pease cakes, and other food of the labor- 

 ing classes, and especially of the farm servants. In Scotland the same thing used 

 formerly to be the case, but the practice there has within the last twenty years become 

 nearly the same as in England ; in the Orkney islands, and other northern parts of 

 Britain, as well as in Ireland. Butter-milk is sometimes kept till it undergoes the vinous 

 fermentation, when it is used to procure intoxication. 



6380. Whey, when new and of a pale green color, forms an agreeable beverage, and 

 with oatmeal makes an excellent gruel or porridge. Left till it gets sour, it undergoes 

 the vinous fermentation as readily as butter-milk ; and man, who in every state of civili- 



