So much has been written and said, and so little understood, about
cheese making, that it seems almost a hopeless task, as well as a
thankless one, to attempt to say anything more on the subject. Sour
ignoramuses and floating charlatans have spoiled more curds than have
been spoiled by any defect in the milk. Sour, whey-soaked cheese has
been the rage, and it is generally supposed that acid alone makes a
firm cheese, when the experience of every cheese maker is that it is
very difficult, by the ordinary processes, to make a firm curd out of
sour milk--which, of course, no one ought to be asked to make into
cheese--unless it be pot-cheese. Acid may make a curd solid, but not
until it has cut out a large share of the goodness of the curd, and the
cheese resulting will be about as digestible as so much putty.
DUTY OF PATRONS.
It is the duty of every patron of a cheese factory to send good milk to
it, and to send the milk in good condition. It is not only his duty,
but his interest to do this. A bad mess of milk may spoil a whole
vat-full. This not only entails loss on his neighbor, where the factory
is run on the _pro rata_ plan, but the patron must stand his share of
the loss. Aside from the loss entailed on others and himself, he ought
to be ashamed to deliver milk in a bad condition. There is no valid
excuse for it. It ought to be his pride to deliver milk in as good
condition as anybody does. If he cannot, he should leave the business,
and go into something in which he has the ability to excel. Care and
cleanliness, if the cows are healthy and have proper food, will insure
good milk always.
UNREASONABLE EXPECTATION.
It is unreasonable to expect a cheese maker to turn a prime article of
cheese out of poor milk. If one carries shoddy cloth to the tailor,
he expects a shoddy suit in return, not a broadcloth one. So, if he
carries bad milk to the factory, he must expect bad cheese. If he takes
sour apples to the cider mill, he does not expect sweet-flavored cider,
but sour. So, if he carries sour milk to the cheese factory, he must
expect sour cheese. These defects, when they exist in a small degree,
may be overcome, or nearly so, and a passable cheese made. But, is
the cheese made from imperfect milk really a fit article of food? Who
would work rotten eggs into custard, or sour meal into bread? Yet this
is just as consistent as working sour or tainted milk into cheese, and
the product is just as wholesome. That which makes stinking eggs makes
stinking milk--decayed albumen--which is just as wholesome in the one
as in the other.
GUARANTEES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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