Cheese making
Cows are very useful farm animals, we use them in lots of ways, but the best use is to milk them and make many milk product, one of these is cheese, so we would like to tell you how this was done the old ways.
When we started to make cheese?
Farming and cheese making
Dear readers, in our last hub we were talking about what I was doing in
our small family farm when I was young, we were talking about spring when all
animals have their offspring’s and at the end we were talking about the cows
and the milk that they produce. Now, let us talk a bit more about farming the
old ways; as we have said farming is based mainly in recycling all the produce
that comes from the land, therefore it is based on the assumption of waste not
want not, this would also apply to the milk that we take from the cows and
other animals, so this milk must be put to good use and since in those times
there were not many choices, we would make cheese from this milk that we had,
as I will describe later in this article.
As you know, this article is being written because this is also part of
my farm life story, at the same time because I love eating cheese, I would like
to say a few things about cheeses and how good it is, and then we will go back
to our normal farm life story.
Today we enjoy eating cheese in many ways and so do I, in fact in a lot
of prepared foods we use many types of cheeses in many ways, so, cheese is very
popular food; to understand its importance we need to look at food preparation,
and how often the chefs use cheese in preparing their food. Now apart that
cheese can be added to many dishes at the end when preparing the food, there
are things that the cheese is the main ingredient, cheesecakes, macaroni and
cheese and others dishes, you can even make a cheese sandwich by itself or with
other ingredients, I love cheese so much that sometimes I just eat a small
piece of it with nothing else, it leaves my mouth sweet and my stomach
satisfied and happy, I even use it to replace cough lollies and usually it
works, but that is up to the individual taste.
Anyhow here under are a couple of links that will show you how cheese
can be used; I hope you will find them useful:
Cheese
Recipes collection - www.taste.com.au
Cheese
types cooking tips - Ingredients - Taste.com.au
Here we could say a lot more about cheeses and their uses,
but perhaps it is better if we go back to talk about my life story in the farm,
what we thought about cheese then and also how we made cheese, we would also
say the ways that we believe cheese came about, in other words how we started
to make cheese.
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How we started to make cheese?
When we talk about cheese we have
to admit that cheese is one of the best and most used foods that we consume, in
fact we may have to assume that cheese is perhaps the most dairy product that
we use after milk itself, we may assume that about everybody eats cheese nearly
every day or at least has eaten cheese several times during their lives, I am
assuming that because I eat cheese just about every day, even if I eat it only in
small portions, and most other people that I know also eat cheese regularly. So,
sometimes we wonder who invented cheese so to speak, therefore here-under we
are trying to answer that question.
There are reasons to believe that cheese making is very ancient, in fact
there is no way to know how early it started, I have not seen anything written
in the history books about when cheese first appeared, even though they talk
about herds of sheep and cattle, so we have to assume that since they had sheep
and cattle, they would milk them and use their milk beside other things that
they could use these herds for. Since they had this milk somehow ancient people
discovered that they could use milk to make cheese and since then we have made
cheese.
There are several theories how making cheese started, one of this
theorises says that perhaps at the very beginning when some of those shepherd
stored their extra milk, if the milk was left there for too long in would turn
into curd and then in a sort of cheese, perhaps just a piece of very acid
cheese and therefore it would be not as good as the cheeses that we make and
have today, but they started to make cheese anyhow, from this event that occurs
spontaneous if you leave the milk for a long time; you see, even though the
cheese was an acid piece of a semi solid paste, the very ancient people had to
use whatever they had to feed themselves, so they used this cheese and slowly
worked out how to make the milk become cheese; anyhow with the passing of time
in one way or another they worked out how to make cheese properly.
So, since early times once we humans did learn how to make cheese
properly, and then how to cure and keep it for long period of time, we have
been making cheese and eating cheese ever since, because cheese has one of the
best nutritional values and could easily be stored, so, today we are making
several types of cheeses and we can choose which type we want, there are so
many types that would be hard even to know all their names.
But let us see where the cheese comes from; perhaps just to pretend that
we are not sure where it comes from, or to tell the younger generation where it
comes from, since the young people are not exposed to the natural ways of life,
therefore for them would be hard to imagine where cheese comes from, they think
that it just comes from the supermarket. So let me see how I could tell you in
my own way how to make cheese, let us describe and discover how the cheese is
made, and also where it comes from, because I happen to know this first-hand as I
was working in the farms when I was very young, and in our family farm we made
some cheese as well. Here is necessary to state that we use some farm animals
to milk them and then make cheese form their milk, so let us see what I saw and
did when I was young.
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We use farm animals to make cheese
In order to understand what I am going to say next you need to imagine
that you are living in the past; say seventy years ago or there about in a farm
as I did when I was young, because life then was very different from today, so
many things were done in a different way as well; so while I was living in this
farm, I have learned many things including Mother Nature ways of doing things
and thus I observed what follows here under:
While I was living in the farm I was observing everything around me, it
is only natural to observe everything since it is the way that helps us
survive, and therefore I was observing Mother Nature as well and I saw this; the
ways that Mother Nature has set consists of certain time rules, so, everything
happen in a natural way at the right time, this setting of how things happen in
the natural way is almost faultless, it has to be because this gives the
greatest chance to the new born, just let us look at what happens with the
farms animals, you see, most of the farm animals give birth to their offspring
when there is plenty of food to go around, and when mild and fine weather is
usually expected, this is how Mother Nature has set everything to work and it
works very well indeed, because there is no strain on the new born when they
are weak.
Therefore, it is for this reason that in springtime most of the animals
offspring are born, starting from the goats, sheep, and also the cows that
usually calf once every year and they make plenty of milk especially when there
is plenty of green food to eat, also other animals have their offspring, the
goats have their kids, the sheep have their lambs, the mares have their foals,
and other animals have also their young’s whatever it is according to their
specie; there are reasons to believe that they are born in spring so that they
can grow big and strong during the spring and summer, so that when the cold
weather comes back they would be able to cope with it easily, this is really
how Mother Nature wants it to be, when we do not intervene and upset the
natural ways.
But we the people sometimes do things that go against Mother Nature, as
we want to control everything around us. Sometimes we do very cruel things
also, and one of those things that come to my mind here is that we take away
the calf from mother cow, we sell the calf to the butcher who will kill it and
sell the veal meat to the people to eat it, by doing this not only we get some
money from the butcher, but then we can happily milk the cow, so the poor cow
cops it both ways. You see we take plenty of milk from the cows after selling
their calves, and what we do with most of the milk? We could sell the milk, if
there is a market for the milk, or we could make cheese from it. So, hereunder
in this hub and next hub we will be talking about, first how we made cheese,
and then how we made ricotta cheese, I know that what I am going to say here is
going to be old fashion, but here we are talking about my life story and the
way of how things were happening when I was young.
But before we do that, let us talk about the modern ways of how they
make cheese today, say in the cheese factories like Parmigiano Reggiano, which
is a well known cheese all over the world, and it is used a lot on many
culinary things. Perhaps this will make us compare the great difference,
between the way they do it now on a grand scale, and the ways that we used to
do it then in our family farms when I was young.
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Parmigiano cheese making
Cheese making
Parmigiano cheese making
Cheese making
There are many types of cheese in the
world, but it would be wise not to mention them because it would take some time
to write and to read them; so let us talk mainly about one of the best cheese
in the world, Parmesan cheese, which is a cheese that is used in many culinary
things, you just need to watch one of these cooking shows to see the many times
this type of cheese is used. Now we would also like to talk about from where
this type of cheese comes from, as this cheese has a special recipe that is
protected even today, so let us talk about this cheese:
The king of cheeses must be Parmigiano
Reggiano, as its name suggests it is from the province of Parma and surrounding
territories in northern Italy, here I would like to point out, what is the
Difference between Parmesan and Parmigiano-Reggiano?
The answer to this question is this: (I am
going to use this explanation from the internet) Due to Italian D.O.C.laws
that protect the names and recipes of certain cheeses, a cheese cannot be
called Parmigiano-Reggiano unless it is made using a specific recipe and
production method within the provinces of Parma, Reggio-Emilia, Modena, and
specific regions in the provinces of Bologna and Mantua. The D.O.C laws are
meant to preserve the integrity of traditional cheeses by insuring the flavor
and quality. Therefore, any cheese made outside of these regions with a
slightly different recipe or production method cannot be called
Parmigiano-Reggiano.
You can check a few things about this great
cheese with this link below;
One may guess that the recipes for this
great cheese has been the work of very many generations of Italian cheese
makers in the first place, and then many generations of organizing the great
factories of cheese making, one has to look at some of these photos where they
cure and store the cheese until it matures to see what we mean.
Now, we have talked about Parmigiano
Reggiano because it is one of the best known cheese in the world, just ask a
chef and he will tell you how good this cheese really is to use for his cooking;
now we are not going to tell you how this cheese is made, because we do not
know how, but the point we want to make here is that lots of people have always
made cheeses; we are saying this because we know for a fact that in the old
times lots of people made their own cheese, as we have stated above already; in
fact I have made some cheese myself in our family farm of southern Italy and I
would like to tell you how it was done in the old ways, as most farmers had to
do it anyhow, because we the farmers had to use as much as we could from what
was available and to turn milk into cheese was one of them, now because I was
working in the farm I did it also, so let us see how I have learned to make
cheese the old farmers’ way.
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Cheese making in the farms
Cheese making on the farms when I was young
As you might already know, as we have said this before, when I was young
I ended up working in our family farm. Now, while I have been writing about my
life in the farm, I have become aware that I have also learned how to make
cheese in the farm and I am sure that some of you would like to know how it was
done in those old times, perhaps just to compare to what happens these days;
well I have to tell you that this is not exactly making Parmiggiano Reggiano cheese,
but is it more like the poor farmer everyday cheese, but let me tell you how we
did it then anyhow, so that we may compare those times with the modern times,
and how we do those things now. So, I am going to tell you here-under how to
make this type of cheese and ricotta my grandma way, I am saying my grandma
way, because my grandma taught me how to do it.
Now before I start I need to say that what I am writing here has really
happened in the fifties, I had to tell you this because a lot of things have
changed since the fifties, but the principle of how these things were done the
old times does not change much, so what we were doing then was the same ways
that it had been done for hundreds of years or perhaps even thousands of years,
this same way could still be used today, if the need arises, so let me tell you
what and how we were doing this cheese making then?
In southern Italy and perhaps in many other parts of the world, the
farmers use to milk the cows the goats, the sheep and perhaps other animals as
well, so that they would have their milk and also could make their cheese and
other milk products, so this was also happening in our small farm. For those
people that is not familiar with this sort of farm life I need to explain that
milking is done twice a day in the morning and in the evening, milking is a
must to do at the right times otherwise the animals will suffer, and also if
you don’t milk them then slowly those animals will produce less and less milk.
So, what to do with all this milk that we collected by milking the cows, goats,
sheep, etc. You need to know that the most constant and important rule in
farming is waste not want not, so we had to use everything available to us to
achieve the best results, and one of these was to make cheese from this milk,
since there was not a real milk market, and also there was not much demand for
milk locally.
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Cheese making grandma way
This is cheese making my grandma way
In our case we had two milking cows, so we would collect up to 30 litres
of milk every day in spring time, when there was plenty of green food for the
cows to eat. In those times everybody needed to be self sufficient and nothing
would be allowed to go waist, the theory was waste not want not, therefore
everybody was ready to do those things necessary to save whatever had to be
saved, therefore the milk that we had collected from the cows we used to made
cheese, this is what all farmer would do in the old days and I am going to
explain it to you how all this was done, including some description of how in
the very old time before my times was done.
When I was very young my Grandma who would be staying and sleeping in
town overnight would come to the farm to help us in the farm, so she would make
cheese from this milk that we had milked from the farm animals, this thing
happened for a few years, and then she slowly taught me how to make cheese. The
whole process was simple but at the same time it was hard for a young bloke,
but as I grew older and stronger and able to do it I was left most times on my
own. So, if you don’t mind let me go over the process, because I would like to
make a record of how these things were made in the past. You see, today in the
farms things are different, because now there is a vehicle that collect milk
from these farms and take it to the cheese factory to make cheese and any other
milk products. So let me tell you how we made cheese and ricotta when I was
young and how my forbear had made cheese themselves for centuries if not
thousands of years before me.
After milking the cows the evening before and the morning we had about 30
litre of milk that we could make cheese with. Now the first thing that I had to
do was to light a fire in the fire place of the farm and make sure that there
was enough fire wood ready beside the chimney for the whole process, set a
strong three legged steel device on this fire that I had started that was
capable to hold the weight of the milk in this special container safely. Then I
would get this special large copper kettle, now this copper kettle had to be
clean for a start, beside that had to be treated from a specialist perhaps once
a year with a coat of tin or something like that, this treatment is very much
like galvanising the inside of the pot, and it needs to be done properly, so
that all copper surfaces inside the kettle should be covered in full. Now that
I had this large kettle ready, I would strain the milk with a fine strainer
while I am filling the kettle with the milk and after that I am ready to make
cheese.
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Making cheese the old ways
Making cheese and then ricotta the old ways
Dear readers, I want to point out to you the way that I am making cheese
and ricotta this time here, is the way that we used to make cheese then, of
course there may be other ways to make cheese and ricotta, but hereunder is the
way that I was taught from my grandma.
So now that I have the fire going steady but at a slower pace, and had this
three legged device set over the fire to hold the kettle safely, if nobody was
around to help me lift the kettle, I had to be extra careful to lift the kettle
containing about 30 litre of milk over the fire without getting burned; then I
had to be very careful that the milk would warm up to 37-38 degrees only and no
more, otherwise the whole process would not work well. So once the milk reached
this temperature more or less, I am saying this because we had to guess the
milk temperature by putting a clean finger in the warming milk, anyhow once the
temperature was right I would take the kettle off the fire. Now let us go on to
see what we need to do next, you see to make cheese you need to add something
like enzymes or an extract so to speak (or perhaps acid, but I am not sure
about acid) in the milk while it is around 37 degrees to make the milk curd. In
my young days I was lucky here because this extract could be bought at the
chemist and so it was a lot easier that the old ways, when you had to prepare
your own extract. Anyhow at this point I would measure the amount of caglio
(this was the name of the extract) and mix it in the milk with a wooden devise
which was purposely made.
You see in the old time people had to do most things in wood for this
purpose because wood does not rust, it does not conduce heat so while one end
is hot the other end will not be affected and remains cold, and also it does
not react with milk, therefore wooden utensils were safe to use; and last of
all but not the least important was that these wooden utensils could be carved
from the farmers themselves, when in winter times was cold and miserable to go
out of the farm building.
Now let me tell you how the enzymes to curd the milk were collected or
prepared in the past, when there were no chemists to help the process how to
curd the milk. I know this is going to be a shocker for some people but that
was the way that it was done in the very old times. First of all a very young
lamb is killed after feeding on milk, so that its stomach is full of milk. You
see in the young lamb stomach there are these enzymes that curd the milk for
the lamb to digest it, as this is the way for the lamb to absorb the milk
nutrients and grow. You need to harvest the stomach of the lamb, because this
is where all the process starts. There are a few ways how to use this stomach,
and one of the less shocking ways is that once you have this lamb stomach you
seal it by tying top and bottom and hang it up to dry in a cool clean place.
When it becomes dry you can use the powdery stuff inside to curd the milk. You
need a little bit of this powder and a little lukewarm water to mix together
and you are ready to add it to the milk that you want to curd. This is how it
was done in the very old days when there were no chemists to help, this is the
ways our forbears have done it, since this is the way that Mother Nature itself
has set up.
Now let me go back to cheese making as we have left the milk to curd for
a while. 10 minutes or perhaps a quarter of an hour has passed since we have
added this caglio to the warm milk and now the milk is firm like jelly, our
next move now is that we use the wooden devise that we stirred the milk with
and push it into this curd and start breaking it to small pieces. After that we
stop and wait a moment for the particle of fresh cheese to start sinking to the
bottom as the whey and the cheese become separated, now I put my washed clean
hands in the kettle and go to the bottom of it, the fresh cheese has all sunk
at the bottom, so I start pushing it slowly to one side of the kettle, by doing
this I am slowly compacting the new cheese by pushing the whey out of it, I am going
to do this until a firm ball of new cheese is formed. Once I have this firm new
ball of cheese in my hands I lift it into a container; wait a minute this is
not a real container, but it is something like a woven basket purposely made
for this task, so that the whey can continue to run out the fresh cheese. Now I
have about four to five kilogram of fresh cheese and by the time it matures may
become three kilograms. The whole process does not end here, because there are
a couple of other things we need to do to complete the first part of cheese
making. One is that I need to get all the whey back into the kettle so that I
can make ricotta from it, and after I make ricotta I have to dip for a few
minutes the new fresh cheese that I have just made into the hot whey after I
have made ricotta. This action is a sort of pasteurising the new cheese, since
the whey is very hot after making the ricotta; you see the milk that we have
used to make the cheese has never been pasteurised as we have warmed it below
40 degrees. Having made the new cheese and dipped it in the whey for a few
minutes, now that cheese needs to be cured for a few months, this curing
usually involves sea salt and vinegar. Now in this hub we have talked about how
we made cheese and in our next hub we will talk about how to make ricotta
cheese. See you then.
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