The Chemistry of CookeryWilliams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Science
The Chemistry of Cookery
Williams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Cooking
More recently this enterprise has been further developed. Genuine
butter is made from cream skimmed from the milk. The skimmed milk is
then curdled, and to the whey thus precipitated a sufficient quantity
of bosch is added to replace the butter that has been sent to market.
A still more objectionable compound is made by using hogs’ lard as
a substitute for the natural cream. These extraneous fats render
the cheese more indigestible. The curd precipitated from skim-milk
is harder and tougher than that thrown down from whole milk, and
these added fats merely envelop the broken fragments of this. Hence
my suspicion that the cheese leaving the above-described insoluble
residuum was a sample of ‘bosch’ cheese.
* * * * *
Since the above was written I have met with the following in the
_Times_, bringing the subject up to latest date, and I take the liberty
of reprinting the larger part of this interesting and clearly-written
communication:
‘IMITATED DAIRY PRODUCTS.
‘The profitable utilisation of refuse products has
always been one of the most difficult problems which
have confronted manufacturers. Until recently the
disposal of skim-milk was one of the difficulties of
the managers of butter factories, or “creameries” as
they are termed in the United States. Similarly, the
sale of the internal fat of animals slaughtered for
food, with the exception of lard, was practically
restricted to the manufacturers of soap and candles.
It was reserved to a Frenchman, M. Mège-Mauries, to
discover the first step towards a more profitable use
of these substances. He showed that by a judicious
combination of milk and the clarified fat of animals
a substance could be produced which closely resembled
butter. So close, indeed, is the resemblance of
imitation butter to the real article that the skill
of the chemist must be invoked to render detection
positive, if the artificial butter is good of its kind.
So recondite, indeed, is the test of the chemist that
it depends upon the percentage of volatile oils in
butter-fat and in caul-fat respectively.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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