Chapter 29

124. Cottage Cheese is made by coagulating milk and preparing the curd by mixing with it cream or melted butter and salt or sugar as desired. When milk can be procured at little cost, cottage cheese is one of the cheapest and most valuable foods.[43]

125. Different Kinds of Cheese.--By the use of different kinds of ferments and variations in the process of manufacture different types or kinds of cheese are made, as Roquefort, Swiss, Edam, Stilton, Camembert, etc. In the manufacture of Roquefort cheese, which is made from goats' and ewes' milk, bread is added and the cheese is cured in caves, resulting in the formation of a green mold which penetrates the cheese mass, and produces characteristic odor and flavor. Stilton is an English soft, rich cheese of mild flavor, made from milk to which cream is usually added. It is allowed to undergo an extended process of ripening, often resulting in the formation of bluish green threads of fungus. Limburger owes its characteristic odor and flavor to the action of special ferment bodies which carry on the ripening process. Neufchatel is a soft cheese made from sweet milk to which the rennet is added at a high temperature. After pressing, it is kneaded and worked, and then put into packages and covered with tin foil.

126. Adulteration of Cheese.--The most common forms of adulteration are the manufacture of skim-milk cheese by the removal of the fat from the milk, and substitution of cheaper and foreign fats, making a product known as filled cheese. When not labeled whole milk cheese, or sold as such, there is no objection to skim-milk cheese. It has a high food value and is often a cheap source of protein. The manufacture of filled cheese is now regulated by the national government, and all such cheese must pay a special tax and be properly labeled. As a result, the amount of filled cheese upon the market has very greatly decreased, and cheese is now less adulterated than in former years. The national dairy law allows the use of coloring matter of a harmless nature in the manufacture of cheese.

127. Dairy Products in the Dietary.--The nutrients in milk are produced at less expense for grain and forage than the nutrients in beef, hence from a pecuniary point of view, dairy products, as milk and cheese, have the advantage. In the case of butter, however, the cost usually exceeds that of meat. In older agricultural regions, where the cost of beef production reaches the maximum, dairying is generally resorted to, as it yields larger financial returns, and as a result more cheese and less beef are used in the dietary. As the cost of meats is enhanced, dairy products, as cheese, naturally take their place.