Cheshire Cheese. 
103 
cheese and to curd in the Old Testament,* it is evident that an 
article of this nature must have been known and used at a very 
early period. 
It is scarcely necessary to premise that milk, from which cheese 
is made, consists of three distinct parts — cream, curd, and whey — 
into which, by repose, it spontaneously separates ; but the pro- 
cess of separating the whey from the other bodies may, as in 
cheese-making, be accelerated by infusing a small quantity of a 
simple acid extracted from cured and dried maw-skins, f which 
have been previously dissolved in warm water. This infusion is 
commonly called " steep," but more properly rennet. 
The art of cheese-making consists in the complete extraction of 
the whey and in the proper compacting and curing of the curd. 
The richness of the cheese depends upon the quality of the milk, 
or, in other words, on the proportion of cream which the milk con- 
tains. The cheese of Cheshire is professedly made from new 
milk, or milk from which no cream has been taken. It is, how- 
ever, well known, that in many dairies, in the morning before 
cheese-making, a small quantity of cream is skimmed off the pre- 
vious evening's milk ; this cream is either churned by itself, or mixed 
with whey-cream, by which there is obtained a better quality and 
greater quantity of (so called) whey-butter. It may appear sin- 
gular to some, that any portion of cream should be found in whey, 
but such is the fact, and the means used in Cheshire for extract- 
ing it are very simple (see Appendix). 
Before entering into a detailed description of the mode em- 
ployed in Cheshire in the making of cheese, I would remark that 
this Essay is founded upon my own observations, made during a 
fifteen years' residence in, and intimate connexion with, that 
county ; which latter is still existing. I have long felt an interest 
in the subject of cheese-making, with a desire to see it conducted 
upon more scientific principles, from a conviction that, were such 
the case, both the pocket of the producer and the stomach of the 
consumer would often be more agreeably filled : but I do not 
wish it to be supposed from this remark that I profess myself con- 
versant with these principles : my information being more of a 
practical nature, and as such I offer it to the Society. 
in other places, though hence they fetched both their kine and daiiy-maids. 
It seems they should have fetched their ground too (wherein surely some 
occult excellency in this kind), or else so good cheese will not be made. 
I hear not the like commendation of the butter in this county ; and per- 
chance these two commodities are like stars of a different horizon, so that 
the elevation of the one to eminency is the depression of the other." 
{Ftiller's Wort/lies.) 
* 1 Sam. xvii. 18 ; 2 Sam. xvii. 29 ; Job x. 10. 
t The stomachs of suckimj calves. See the method of curing these in the 
Appendix. 
