dirtiness in the dishes, or from the want of due 
care and speed in squeezing out the whey. 
The diversity of taste and flavour which occurs 
in whole-milk cheese of the same district and 
even of the same dairy, is, in some respects, dif- 
| ficult to be accounted for, and, in many respects, 
not easy to be controlled. One known cause is 
| peculiarity in the food of cows. Milk during the 
period of feeding on turnips is well known to ac- 
quire a peculiar flavour from these roots, and to 
communicate that flavour both to butter and 
cheese; and it may just as certainly, though un- 
observedly, acquire a peculiar flavour of a differ- 
ent kind from any one of several weedy herbs 
which abound in certain pastures. A small quan- 
tity of nitre, dissolved in the milk, corrects the 
turnip flavour; and a small quantity of some 
| other and equally potent substance might be re- 
| quisite to correct the flavour communicated by 
particular herbage. Cows, when pastured on dry 
| and steeply hilly ground, abounding in wild herbs, 
| usually yield milk which produces richer and 
| better-coloured butter, than when they are fed 
on a pasture of artificial grasses.—Another known 
cause of diversity in the taste and flavour of 
cheese, is the condition and vicissitudes of the 
weather. Not only do all the elements of weather 
_ control the quality of herbage, and, through its 
medium affect the health and produce of cows; 
| but heat, cold, sunshine, and especially electricity, 
_ powerfully modify the proporties of both milk and 
_curd.—A third known cause, and one of great 
| width of range, and diversity of operation, is the 
| exposure of the milk to impure air. One grand 
_ reason why much of the cheese of England excels 
| the cheese of Scotland, is simply the compara- 
| tively limited operation of this cause in the for- 
| mer country, or the possession on the part of 
English farmers of far superior appliances of the 
dairy to those which are generally possessed by 
the Scotch. While an English dairy has appro- 
priate rooms, and persons wholly devoted to its 
duties, the Scotch dairy, in multitudes of in- 
stances, is merely a nook of the domestic build- 
ings, and shares the attention of only one person 
in common with the miscellaneous duties of the 
kitchen. Now, when milk is exposed to many 
variations of heat and cold, and to many changes 
and impurities of air,—when it is coagulated in 
a farmer’s kitchen, contemporaneously with pro- 
cesses of cooking, or of cleaning, or of miscella- 
| neous work,—when it is attended to by a servant- 
of-all-work conjointly or alternately with duties 
which disturb the temperature or contaminate 
the air,—and when it is held in dishes, and worked 
with implements which, at other times, are used 
| for exceedingly different purposes; it cannot 
possibly maintain either purity or uniformity of 
flavour, and must unavoidably produce the great 
diversity of texture, taste, and piquancy which 
so commonly characterizes the cheese-produce of 
Scotland. 
But even the desirable and sound diversity of 
CHEESE. 
flavour and gout, in whole-milk cheeses, is very 
great, and, when considered jointly with the ca- 
prices of cheese-consumers, occasions insuperable 
difficulty in finding a precise or even proximate 
standard of excellence. Good or even prime 
cheeses differ in taste and flavour according to 
the dairies, the methods of manufacture, the sea- 
sons of the year, the stages of the cows’ milk, 
the state of the weather, the character of the 
pasture, and some other controlling circumstan- 
ces. Some fastidious consumers of cheese prefer 
it new, others prefer it middle-aged, and others 
prefer it old; some relish the unctuous, some the 
cohesive, and some the crumbling; some prefer 
the mild, and others the pungent; some prefer it 
perfectly sound, others prefer it slightly putrid, 
and others prefer it in a state of almost thorough 
decomposition, acrid with empyreumatic oil, sten- 
chy with rottenness, and all alive with a tumbling 
mass of minute insects. When not only the fla- 
vour of good cheese itself is so diversified, but 
when the taste of its consumers is so exceedingly 
various, and, in the last instance at least, so 
monstrously perverse, any final appeal as to pre- 
eminent quality is manifestly impossible. Yet, 
in a general way, Scotch cheese may be charac- 
terized as less pungent, less acrid, less highly 
flavoured, milder in the taste, and richer in buty- 
raceous matter, than English cheese. When a 
considerable quantity ismto be eaten, the Scotch | 
cheese feels less hot and heavy on the stomach ; 
and when only a morsel is eaten, for the sake of 
its flavour after a ‘good dinner, the English 
cheese feels more potent and effective in the 
mouth. 
The cheese of Cheshire, and the cheeses of some _ 
other districts, are usually stained with annatto, 
the flowers of marigold, the juice of orange-car- — 
See the ar- | 
The practice of cheese-colouring | 
was probably commenced under the notion of its | 
giving a highly agreeable tint to cheese ; and, in | 
rot, or other similar-coloured dyes. 
ticle ANNATTO. 
a mercantile sense, it is still in some degree ne- 
cessary as a popular element or established pro- 
perty of cheeses of certain districts and classes ; 
but, as regards both the profits of the manufac- | 
turer and the health of the consumer, it is | 
An Essay written by Mr. | 
decidedly pernicious. 
Whitley of London, and published in 1841, ably 
examines the practice, thoroughly denounces it, 
and shows it to be encumbered with the follow- 
ing among other evils,—that the substances em- 
ployed in it diminish the comparative quality 
of curd obtainable from any kind of milk,—that 
they more or less retard the process of maturation 
in the cheese,—and that, under the mere name 
of annatto, they are usually adulterated com- 
pounds, decidedly injurious to health.—In some 
dairies, the leaves of sage, parsley, and other 
herbs, are infused into cheese, to give it a green 
colour. In other dairies, part of the curd, when 
ready for the press, is exposed in a sieve to the 
air, in order that it may become oxygenated, and 
( anit 
ae 
