LETTER VI.

THE LARDER.--SALTING MEAT, BACON, AND HAMS.--THE DAIRY.--MANAGEMENT OF MILK.--MAKING AND KEEPING BUTTER.--MAKING CHEESE OF VARIOUS KINDS.--ICE-HOUSE, ICE-CELLAR, AND ICE-COOLER.

I will now proceed to say a few words on the other servants' offices. The _Larder_ in a country house is generally a square or oblong room near the kitchen, and sometimes sunk a step below it. It should be kept as cool as possible, and should be contrived to be on the north side of the house. Where practicable, there should be two windows, or rather openings in the walls, opposite each other, filled in with wire network instead of glass, to allow a free current of air through the room, and yet to exclude flies and other insects. The floor should be of brick, and furnished with a drain, so that it may be frequently washed with plenty of water, without much trouble. The walls should be whitewashed, and there should be fixed in them at intervals strong iron hooks or holdfasts, for the purpose of suspending uncooked meat. Other hooks should be fixed in the ceiling, for hung beef, tongues, hams, &c. When the larder is dry, there may be also bacon racks fixed to the ceiling; but, if the situation should be damp, these will be better in the kitchen. In some places a circular rack is hung in the centre with hooks round it for game; but in very large establishments there is a separate larder for game, as the smell, when it is high, gives an unpleasant flavour to the fresh meat kept near it. In the centre of the larder there should be a strong wooden table or chopping-block for cutting the meat upon; and close under the walls there is frequently a raised settlice or dais of brick, about two feet high, which serves to support earthen, slate, or wooden troughs for salting meat. In one of the deepest of these should be a kind of pickle or brine, in which anything that is to be salted for keeping may be put; and the other more shallow troughs may be employed for slightly salting meat that is soon to be used.

The pickle for the large brine trough is made by mixing four gallons of water with a pound or a pound and a half of coarse sugar, four ounces of saltpetre, and six pounds of common or bay salt. This mixture should be boiled in a large kettle, and the scum taken off as it rises. When no more scum appears, the vessel should be taken from the fire, and the liquid suffered to stand till it is cold. Another pickle is made by adding to four gallons of water, fourteen pounds of common salt, eight pounds of bay salt, half a pound of saltpetre, and two ounces of sal prunella. Boil the whole together for half an hour, and take off the scum; when cold it is fit for use. The first kind is best for hung beef and tongues; and the latter for salt beef and pickled pork.

When the pickle is ready, the meat to be salted should be examined, and carefully wiped dry with a coarse cloth, any flyblows or bruised parts being removed. If tongues are to be salted, the roots should be cut off, and laid aside for soups; and then the tongues should be scraped and rubbed dry before putting them into the pickling-trough. The skin of the pork should be scraped and cleaned, and the fleshy part should be carefully examined, and wiped dry, any mass that there may be of congealed blood being removed. All the meat that is to be cured being properly prepared, it should be laid in the pickling-trough and the brine poured over it; and, if there are several pieces of meat, care should be taken to lay them so that the brine may touch every part, and completely cover the whole. Meat which has been preserved in the first pickle for ten weeks or more, if cooked without being hung up to dry, will be perfectly tender, and will eat as well as meat that has been only freshly and slightly salted.

It is said that meat may be kept in this pickle for twelve months, provided the pickle be boiled and skimmed about once in two months, and that during the boiling, two ounces of sugar, and half a pound of salt be added. In general, the articles which have been salted, after remaining about a fortnight or three weeks in the pickle, are taken out and hung up to dry. Some persons lay them to drain, and then hang them up without any other preparation; but others advise them to be wiped quite dry and put in paper bags before they are hung up. Whenever fresh articles are put into the pickle, every thing should be taken out of the trough, and the brine boiled up, the scum being taken off and fresh salt and sugar added, as before directed. Sometimes meat is merely salted when it is to be used in a few days; in which case the meat is put into a smaller trough or pan, and only salt is used in the proportion of a quarter of a pound of salt to every two pounds of meat. The salt should be well rubbed in, and the meat turned every day.

The following general observations as to curing meat will probably be of more use than multiplying receipts. What is called bay salt (that is, salt made by evaporating sea-water) gives a finer flavour than common salt, but rather more should be used, to produce the same degree of saltness. Sugar makes meat tender, and gives mellowness and richness, but the quantity used should never be more than one quarter of the quantity of salt, or it will make the meat taste insipid. Saltpetre gives a fine red colour, but it is apt to make the meat hard; and, whenever it is used, there should be at least an equal quantity of sugar to counteract its hardening tendency. The usual proportion is, a quarter of an ounce of saltpetre to a pound of salt; or, if used with sugar, one ounce of saltpetre to three pounds of sugar. Meat should never be salted in very hot weather, unless it is wanted for use in a few days; and it should never be put in pickle at that season. If any meat in the slightest degree tainted be put into the pickling-trough, the brine will be spoiled, and should be thrown away. When it is absolutely necessary, in very hot weather, to salt meat to keep, it is said that a tea-spoonful of muriatic acid and of nitric acid (spirits of salt and aquafortis), in equal parts, should be added to every pound of salt. It is also said that a dessert-spoonful of pyroligneous acid added to every pound of salt will give a fine smoky flavour, without any of the trouble attendant on smoking dried meat; but this last must be used with great care, as too much would spoil the meat.

As _Hams_ require to be salted with more care than any other kind of meat, I have given below two or three particular receipts for curing them, all of which I know to be excellent. The first is very useful in the country, as the hams cured by it may be cooked without steeping.

For a ham twenty-four pounds in weight, take two ounces of saltpetre, half a pound of common salt, one pound of bay salt, and one ounce of black pepper. Mix these together, and rub them well into the ham: then let it stand three days, and at the expiration of that time pour one pound of treacle over it, and let it remain twenty-four hours; after that time, let it be turned every day for a month, and each time rub the liquor well into it. After this, steep the ham in cold water for twelve hours, then dry it well and hang it up. It will not require any further steeping when it is to be boiled; and it should be boiled slowly, say at the rate of about three hours for a ham of the weight of ten pounds. This receipt was given me by Mr. Beaton, and it is impossible for any hams to be better than those cured in this way.

The following is the way of curing hams to give them the Westphalian flavour. For two large hams, take one pound and a quarter of common salt, two ounces and a half of saltpetre, three pounds of bay salt, one pound and a half of brown sugar, and one quart of old beer; boil them all together, and pour the mixture over the hams boiling hot. Turn them and rub them well every day for sixteen days; then smoke them with short horse-litter, and hang them up to dry.

The following is another mode of giving hams the Westphalian flavour, and it is said to be excellent. For two hams weighing thirty pounds, take one pound of common salt, half a pound of bay salt, three ounces of saltpetre, and one ounce and a half of black pepper, the latter ground, and finely sifted. Mix all these well together, and rub the hams with the mixture for four days, turning them every day, and having first washed them well with vinegar. On the fifth day, pour over the hams two pounds of treacle, and rub them well with two ounces of juniper berries bruised. Let them remain in this pickle six weeks, turning and rubbing them daily; then take them out of the pickle, and lay them in spring water for four-and-twenty hours; then wipe them dry and send them to a chimney where wood is burnt. When thoroughly smoked, take them down and put them in a chest with wood ashes. I may here observe that, when hams are cured in any ordinary way, it is said that the Westphalian flavour may be given to them by rubbing over them three table-spoonfuls of a mixture of tar and spirits of wine, when they are just taken out of the pickle.

The following is a mode of making _Mutton hams_, which some persons are very fond of, though they are too strong for delicate stomachs. Cut a hind quarter of mutton like a ham, and rub it with one ounce of saltpetre, one pound of sugar, and one pound of salt. Lay it in a pan, with the skin downwards for a fortnight, then roll it in bran, and hang it up to dry.

In some places there is no regular larder, but the uncooked meat is kept in a hanging _Safe_ in the open air, which is drawn up and down by a pulley. Cooked meat is either kept in a similar safe, in a fixed safe, in a separate room called a dry larder, or on a table in the centre of the common or wet larder; but, in the latter case, every dish should be covered with a wire-cloth cover to keep off the flies. In many places the salting-room is apart from the larder, and this is a great improvement.

The _Dairy_ should have thick walls, and a brick or stone floor, so contrived that it may be washed with abundance of water every day, and yet have all the water run off by means of a waste-pipe or drain. There should be a kind of shelf of stone or slate round it, about four feet from the ground, and a table of similar materials in the centre, for the convenience of holding the vessels containing the milk and cream; and the window, if there is but one, should look towards the north, and be filled in with wire-cloth, so as to admit the air and yet exclude the flies and other insects. Besides this wirework, the window should also have either a sash frame with ground glass to open inside, or outside shutters, to exclude the sun in very hot weather, and the cold in winter. A thermometer should be kept in every dairy, and the heat should never be allowed to rise above 55°, or to fall below 50°. There should always be a scullery attached to the dairy containing a fireplace and boiler, as the vessels in which milk is kept require to be frequently washed with scalding-hot water to keep the milk sweet, and to prevent the butter and cream from acquiring an unpleasant taste.

Though I do not imagine your knowledge of a dairy to be very great, I suppose you are aware that the milk is drawn from the cow into a can or wooden pail, and brought into the dairy, where it is strained, and then put into shallow vessels or milk-pans, in which it is left for several hours in order that the cream may rise. Cows are generally milked twice a day; the morning's milk being skimmed in the afternoon, when the afternoon's milk is put into pans, or set up as the dairy-maids call it, and the afternoon's milk being skimmed in the morning. The cream, after what is wanted for the table has been taken out, is put into a large wide-mouthed jar or stein, and saved for butter. Cheese is generally made of new milk, which is put at once into the cheese-tub without setting it up in pans. The cheese-tub and cheese-press, the churn and all the apparatus for making butter, generally stand in the dairy scullery, where the operations of cheese and butter making are carried on.

Various kinds of vessels have been recommended for milk, and they have been made of lead, zinc, slate, and other materials. China are the best; but the old-fashioned wooden or earthenware pans appear to be the most general favourites; the only objections being, that wooden pans require a great deal of care to keep them clean, and that the leaden glaze of the earthenware pans is apt to be affected by the acid of the milk, if it should be kept till it becomes sour. No good dairy-maid, however, would ever keep milk in her pans till it became acid: and, if by any chance wooden vessels became tainted by having had in them sour or otherwise spoiled milk, they should be soaked in water in which a large piece of soda has been dissolved; and, if this does not sweeten them, they must be boiled in soda and water, and then immersed in pure cold water for a day or two.

Milk when drawn from the cow is warm, and it should be set up in the dairy before it is quite cold, or the _Cream_ will not rise properly. Cream for butter may stand twelve hours on the milk, but the cream that rises in two or three hours after the milk is set is considered the richest. In many places the milk is skimmed twice, the second time twelve hours after the first; but the second skimming is considered very inferior to the first. In Devonshire, the dairy-maids set the milk-pans on a hot hearth, in order to raise the rich cream peculiar to that county.

In Scotland, _Butter_ is made by churning the whole of the milk, which is put into the churn as it comes from the cow, and kept there till it is slightly sour before it is churned; but this makes the operation of churning very laborious, and the butter has always a sour taste. In England, butter is made only from the cream, which is not put into the churn till wanted for churning, but is kept previously from three days to a week in a deep earthen vessel, and is stirred every day when fresh cream is put in.

Churns are of two kinds, viz. the plunge-churn, the motion of which is up and down; and the barrel-churn, which turns round, and is considered much the best. Churning is generally performed in the open air in summer, and in the dairy scullery near the fire in winter. If kept too cold, the butter will not "come;" and, if too hot, the butter will be soft, and will soon become rancid.

When the butter has come, as the dairy-maids call it, it is gathered together with the hand or a net, and put into a kind of shallow tub; the buttermilk is then emptied out of the churn, which should be left to drain for half an hour or thereabouts, and be afterwards well washed with scalding water and a little salt. The butter in the mean time is kneaded and worked with the hand, or with two small and very smooth pieces of wood, to get all the buttermilk out of it; and in England water is generally poured over it to assist in this operation, though in Scotland it is said that water spoils the butter. When all the buttermilk is worked out, the butter is slightly salted, and then made up into rolls or lumps with the two pieces of wood. In the South of England, as soon as the butter is made, it is put into water; but in the North it is laid in a dry cool place, and covered over.

When butter is intended for salting, it is not made into rolls, but the salt is worked into it as soon as the buttermilk has been removed. The following composition is recommended as a very good one for salting butter for home use. Take two parts of salt, one part of lump sugar, and one part of saltpetre. Beat them well together, and add one ounce of this composition to every sixteen ounces of butter.

When cows are fed on turnips, an unpleasant taste is given both to the milk and butter; but it may generally be removed in the following manner. Pour a quart of boiling water on two ounces of saltpetre, and, when it is thoroughly dissolved and cold, bottle it for use. If two table-spoonfuls of this mixture be put to every four gallons of milk, as soon as it is brought into the dairy and strained, it is said to take off the unpleasant taste; or a lump of saltpetre about the size of a walnut may be put into the cream-pot and well stirred twice a day, when the fresh cream is added. In winter, butter is sometimes so pale as to look almost like lard, but it may be coloured by a little arnatto, which is sold for that purpose in the grocers' shops; or the juice of carrot scraped and strained through muslin, or that of the flowers of the marigold, may be used. In either case the colouring matter is mixed with the cream before churning.

_Cheese_ is made by coagulating milk with rennet, and then separating the whey or watery part from the curd, which, when salted, pressed, and dried, becomes cheese. Rennet is the stomach of a calf washed, cleaned, and salted thoroughly inside and out, being left in an earthen jar, with a thick coating of salt on it, for three or four days. It is then taken out of the pickle and hung up to dry, and in many places it is kept in this state till wanted; but in others, after it has become dry, it is resalted and placed again in the jar, which has a bladder or a piece of thick paper pierced with pinholes tied over it, the rennet being kept twelve months in this state before it is used. In London, calves' stomachs and those of lambs, prepared for rennet, are kept in large casks and sold in the oilmen's shops. In whatever way the rennet has been pickled and preserved, it is always soaked in brine made of salt and water or salt and whey, before it is used, and a bunch of sweet herbs is generally put into the brine in which the rennet is soaked, in order to give an agreeable flavour to the cheese. The whole, however, must be strained off clear before it is put to the milk.

Whenever cheese is to be made, the milk must be warmed to about 90° of Fahrenheit, or the rennet will not act. As soon as the curd has set, it is separated from the whey in several different ways, and on the manner in which this is done the kind of cheese produced will principally depend. When a _Stilton_, or any other kind of rich buttery cheese, is to be made, a very strong brine is prepared of salt and cold water, in which is steeped a bundle of sweet herbs, consisting of thyme, hyssop, marjoram, and savory, with a branch of sweet-briar, and a few peppercorns. This is suffered to remain three or four days, after which it is strained off, and the rennet having been put into it and soaked four or five days, is then ready for use. When all is prepared, the morning's new milk, together with the cream from the last night's milking, is put into a narrow, but deep, circular pan, and the liquid rennet put to it.

As soon as the curd is formed, it is very carefully removed from the pan, without breaking it, if possible, and laid on a deep circular sieve, where it is slightly pressed, in order that the whey may drain from it. It is then put into the cheese-vat, which should be ten inches and a half deep, and eight inches and a quarter over, with a moveable hoop of wood on the top, over which a piece of flat board is generally laid. As soon as the cheese has acquired a sufficient consistency, it is removed from the vat and firmly bound round with a clean cloth, which is changed every day, and the cheese bound tighter and tighter, till at last it becomes sufficiently firm to stand alone. Every time the cloth is changed, the cheese is wiped at the top and bottom and turned, so that each end may be equally level. When it has become sufficiently firm to support itself without the cloth, the cheese is removed to the cheese-room; but it still requires to be turned twice a day, and brushed, for about three months.

_Single and double Gloucester cheeses_ are made very differently from Stilton, though the rennet is prepared for both in nearly the same manner, except that some allspice and a little saltpetre are generally added to the brine. In some places the brine is made of whey, in which enough salt is put to make it float an egg; but it is said that cheeses made in this manner are very apt to heave.

The best _single Gloucester_ cheese for toasting is what is called a one-meal cheese; that is to say, it is made entirely of new milk taken fresh from the cow. An inferior kind is called a two-meal cheese, and it is made with the evening's milk after it has been skimmed in the morning, mixed with the morning's new milk. The milk is then warmed, and coloured with a little arnatto, care being taken, however, that none of the solid part of the drug goes into the milk; the usual practice, indeed, is to dip the arnatto in a little milk, and then to rub it on a flat stone or plate. The colouring matter thus produced is washed off into a basinful of milk, which is then allowed to stand and settle, so as to deposit its sediment before it is poured into the cheese-tub. The rennet is then added, and the whole is kept moderately warm (the milk should never sink below 80°) till the curd is come, which is generally in about an hour. The curd is then broken up with a flat piece of wood called a cheese-knife, and the whey is strained from it; the fragments of curd being frequently moved about, to allow the whey to escape from them. Some boiling water is then mixed with a little of the cold whey, and poured quite hot upon the curd, so as to cover it, the curd being stirred briskly about, and afterwards left for half an hour to sink. The liquor is then drained off, and the curd taken up by the hands and carefully squeezed as it is put into the cheese-vat, which is not only filled, but has as much piled on the top as it will hold. When this is done, the curd in and on the vat is turned into a cheese-cloth, and the vat is washed with whey. The cloth, with the curd in it, is next placed in the vat, and the ends of the cloth are turned over the top of the curd, and tucked into the vat round the edges. It is then put into the cheese-press, where it remains about three hours, after which it is taken out and the cloth changed, before it is again put into the vat and into the press. In this state it remains three or four hours longer. It is then taken out of the vat and out of the cloth, and rubbed well with salt all over, taking care that the salt touches every part, after which it is put into the vat without a cloth, and replaced in the press. The next morning it is taken out of the press and again salted and turned, and the same operation is repeated in the evening. After this it is suffered to remain five or six days in the press, being taken out every morning and turned, but not salted. It is then removed to the cheese-room, where it is turned every day for ten or twelve days, and frequently scraped and rubbed. In some places, when the cheese is thoroughly dry, the outer rind is painted with a mixture of Spanish brown and Indian pink, rubbed in with the hand. The whey from this cheese produces a great deal of butter; and, indeed, it is generally set up for cream as soon as it comes from the curd.

The _double Gloucester cheese_ is always made with one meal's milk warm from the cow, and the dairy-maids generally put a lemon, stuck with cloves, into the brine in which they steep their rennet. The cheese-making then proceeds in the same manner as for the single Gloucester, except that, when about half the curd has been put into the vat, an ounce of salt is sprinkled over it before the rest of the curd is put in. The remainder of the operation is the same as for the single Gloucester; the principal difference being in the thickness of the cheese, which, of course, is occasioned by the greater depth of the vat in which the curd is put.

In many parts of Gloucestershire, what is called _Sage cheese_ is made. For this a couple of handfuls of sage leaves and a handful of parsley are generally put into a portion of the evening's milk, and suffered to remain all night. In the morning the milk is warmed, and, after being strained from the leaves, it is turned to curd with the rennet in the usual way. In the mean time a portion of the morning's milk, into which no colouring matter is put, is turned to curd by rennet; and the curds of both kinds are kept separate through the processes of draining and scalding, till they are ready to be put into the vat, when they are mixed according to the fancy of the dairy-maid. Sometimes the green curd is pressed into a tin or wooden mould, so as to form a dolphin or some other fanciful figure; in which case it is taken carefully out of the mould, and put into the vat without breaking it, and the white curd is crumbled between the fingers and pressed carefully and firmly round it. In other cases the sage and parsley leaves are only bruised, and the juice which is pressed from them is mingled with a portion of the morning's milk; or one portion of the milk is coloured red with the juice of boiled beet-root, another green with the juice from spinach leaves flavoured with sage, and another yellow with the bruised petals of the marigold. Portions of milk are coloured with these different substances and coagulated separately, the curd being varied when putting into the vat, according to the fancy of the dairy-maid. In other cases the whole of the milk is coloured and flavoured with sage.

_Cheshire cheeses_ are generally very large, most of those made in spring being one hundredweight each. The rennet for a Cheshire cheese is not considered fit for use till it is three years old. It is soaked in warm water the night before it is wanted, and in the morning the liquor is considered ready without any further preparation. The evening's milk is set up for cream in the usual way, and in the morning the cream is taken off and put into a brass bowl made hot by rinsing it with boiling water. A third part of the skimmed milk is then put into another brass bowl, warmed in the same manner; and the two are put into the cheese-tub, and mixed with the morning's milk warm from the cow. The whole is coloured with the juice of scraped carrots, or of the bruised flowers of the marigold. The liquor from the rennet is then added, and, being well stirred in, the tub is closely covered and kept in a warm temperature till the coagulation is complete, which is generally in little more than half an hour.

As soon as the curd is well set, it is divided and turned over with a bowl to separate it from the whey; after which it is broken into small pieces by the hand, and suffered to settle down, while the whey, which swims at the top, is poured off. The curd is pressed on one side of the tub with a loose board, and the whey that runs from it is again poured off. The curd is then drawn into the centre of the tub, and formed into a heap, and the board is laid on the top and heavy weights placed on it, generally amounting to a hundred pounds. This presses the curd into a solid mass, and squeezes out an additional quantity of whey.

The mass of curd is then cut into slices, and boards and weights put upon each slice. This is repeated several times, till not a drop more whey will run from the curd; after which it is removed to a dry tub, and crumbled with the fingers as small as possible. It is then well salted, and put into a cheese-vat made warm by being scalded with boiling water, and heaped up as high as it will go, the additional curd being kept in its place by a movable tin hoop. A flat board is then laid across the top to press down the curd, which generally rises to a point in the centre of the vat, and the heavy weights are again put on it. At the same time wooden skewers are run into the cheese, in order that every particle of whey may be drawn out of it.

After standing some time, the cheese is taken out of the vat, and laid on a large cheese-cloth, and the curd again broken from the top down the centre, and more salt mixed with it; after which it is pressed into the vat by the hand as before, and weights are again put upon it, while skewers are run through holes purposely left in the vat, into the sides of the cheese, as before. Another vat having been scalded by being rinsed with boiling water, the cheese is wrapped in a cloth and put into it; the ends of the cloth being folded over the cheese as tightly as possible, and tucked inside the vat, where they are kept down by a tin hoop called a binder, which is forced in between the cheese and the upper part of the vat. The cheese is then put into the press under a pressure of about a ton weight, and a number of thin iron skewers are passed through the holes in the vat into the sides of the cheese. After four hours it is turned, and the skewers removed to fresh places, when the cheese is put into the press for another four hours; after which, the process is repeated. It is then put into the press, and left there all night; the following morning it is again turned, and put into the press without the skewers. It remains in the press for four or five days, being regularly turned every morning and evening; and it is taken from the press into the cheese-room, where it is salted on the outside, and tightly bound with a linen cloth. It is kept in this state and turned twice a day for a week; after which it is put on the shelves to dry for a fortnight or three weeks, during which period it must be turned and wiped every day. Lastly, it is then laid on straw, and kept rather warm, lest the rind should crack; and, when the rind begins to feel hard, its surface is rubbed over with butter, and the cheese is ready for the market. It is rather singular that, notwithstanding the pains taken to drain every drop of whey from the Cheshire cheese, its whey yields no butter, and is seldom made any use of except for feeding pigs.

_Cheddar cheese_ is made like Cheshire, except that when the cheese is broken down to be resalted, before it is put in the cheese-press, the curd is crumbled, and four or five pounds of fresh butter are mixed with it. The cheese is then put in a cloth into the vat, and placed under the great press, where it remains only about a quarter of an hour, before it is turned and put into a clean cloth: this process is repeated three or four times; after which the cheese is wrapped in a very fine cloth, and has three or four other cloths wrapped round it. It is then put into the press, and remains there for forty-eight hours; after which it is taken from the press, washed in whey, and then laid on a shelf upon a clean cloth to dry. It is afterwards laid on a shelf without any cloth, and turned every day till it begins to ripen.

The _Wiltshire cheeses_ are of four kinds: the thin, the thick, the loaf cheese, and the pine-apple, or net, cheese. The first two kinds are made nearly the same as the Gloucester cheeses; for which, indeed, they are frequently sold in the London markets. The principal difference in the manufacture consists in the curd, before it is scalded, being cut into dice of about an inch square each, and a thick layer of salt being thrown over them, which is said to harden the surface of the curd, and to prevent its buttery particles being washed away by the hot water. The curd is also put into the vat while it is as hot as the dairy-maid can handle it; and salt is strewed in between every layer. In all other respects, the manufacture of the cheese is exactly the same as in Gloucestershire till it is ready to be carried to the cheese-room, where it is either laid upon elder leaves or the shelves are washed over with their juice, in order to prevent the devastations of mites. The loaf cheeses are made the same as the others; but their vats are from ten inches to a foot in diameter, and six inches deep; and, when the curd is put into the vat, it is in four layers, with alternate thin layers of salt. These are what are generally sold in London as Wiltshire cheeses. The curd for the pine-apple cheese is prepared in the same way as the others; but, instead of being put into a vat and then into the cheese-press, it is put into a net with no other pressure than from the hand of the dairy-maid; who, however, prides herself on getting as much into the net as it can possibly hold. The net is then hung up in the cheese-room, and requires no further care.

I shall now give you only one more receipt for making keeping-cheeses, and that shall be for the far-famed _Parmesan_. This celebrated cheese is made with skim-milk. The night's milking is skimmed in the morning, and the morning's milk is skimmed about two o'clock in the afternoon: the two are then mixed together and put into a large copper kettle, suspended over a fire by a crane. The milk is stirred till it has reached 125° of Fahrenheit. The kettle is now turned from the fire, between which and it a wooden screen is placed; and, when the bubbling of the milk has subsided, a piece of rennet, tied in a linen rag, is put into the milk, and squeezed several times in different places. The rennet is then taken out, and the milk well stirred; after which it is left till the curd has formed, which is generally in about three quarters of an hour. As soon as this is the case the kettle is again turned on the fire, and the mass of curd is heated to 150°, being well stirred and divided while it is heating. A fourth part of the whey is now taken out of the kettle, and the curd is heated to 180°, stirring it rapidly all the time; and a few pinches of powdered saffron are thrown in, which not only colour it, but give that peculiar flavour always perceptible in Parmesan cheese. The cheese-maker (for as Parmesan cheese is always made by a man, I must not say the dairy-maid) then takes a small quantity of the curd in his hand, and squeezes it; when, if he finds it adhere together, the kettle is instantly turned off the fire, the wooden screen is again interposed, and the curd is left to settle. The whey which rises is immediately poured off, and two or three pailfuls of cold water are thrown over the curd. The cheese-maker immediately plunges his arms into the kettle, and, gathering the curd to one side, contrives to slip the whole mass into a large cloth, which is raised as rapidly as possible, and transferred to a mould without a bottom. This is an operation which requires both strength and skill; for the cheese hardens so rapidly, that it requires the greatest exertions to get it into the mould without spoiling its shape. By its own power of contraction it presses out every drop of whey. An iron plate, with a slight weight on it, is laid on the top to keep it flat; but, by the time it is cold, it is become so hard as to require no further pressure. It is then taken out of the mould, and a thick layer of salt put on its upper surface. The next day the cheese is turned, and the under surface salted in the same manner. In this way the cheese is turned and salted every day for thirty or forty days, till the salt will no longer dissolve. The rind of the cheese is then scraped, and, after a little colouring matter has been rubbed over it, it is covered with linseed oil.

I will now say a few words on _Cream cheeses_, and then, I think, you will have had quite enough of this subject.

A _York cream cheese_ is made by taking a quart of new milk warm from the cow, into which is sometimes put half a pint of cream, and adding to it two spoonfuls of the water in which a piece of rennet has been steeped all night. The milk is then set before the fire till the curd is formed, when it should be taken up without breaking, if possible, and put into a frame made of oak wood, seven inches long within, four inches wide, and three inches and a half deep. This frame being open at the top and bottom, it must be placed upon rushes to permit the whey to run out; to encourage which, a board must be put within the frame to support a weight to press down the curd, between which and the curd some rushes must be put. After standing two days, the rushes must be renewed, when the cheese should be taken from the vat and turned as often as necessary. This will make an excellent cream cheese without the cream; and, indeed, the York cheeses sold in the shops are always made of milk only, without any cream. The rushes should be sewed together with thread.

A kind of cream cheese is, however, made in Yorkshire of cream only, without any rennet. "Take any quantity of cream and put it into a wet cloth. Tie it up, and hang it in a cool place for seven or eight days. Then take it from the cloth and put it into a mould (in another cloth) with a weight upon it, for two or three days longer. Turn it twice a day, when it will be fit for use."

The following is a receipt for making a _Bath cream cheese_. Add half a pint of cream to a quart of new milk, and warm the mixture till it is about 80° of Fahrenheit; then stir in as much rennet as will coagulate it. As soon as the curd has formed, put a cloth over the bottom of a large shallow vat, and, taking the curd up with a skimming-dish, place it in the vat and wrap the cloth over it. As the curd shrinks, the vat must be filled up with fresh curd, till the cheese is of a proper thickness. When the cheese has become a little firm, it is turned out of the vat and laid in a dry cloth. A board is then put over it, on which is placed a weight of two pounds. At night it is put into another clean cloth, and the next morning it is slightly salted with a little fine dry salt, and placed on a bed of fresh nettles or strawberry leaves, being covered with leaves of the same kind. These leaves are changed every morning, and the cheese is turned twice a day for a fortnight, after which it is fit for use.

I think I have now told you almost all I know relative to those points of domestic economy in which a country life differs from a life in town. I have, however, omitted to mention an _Ice-house_, which you will find an important addition to your comfort in summer. A common ice-house is a kind of well, built in Roman cement, and sunk in the ground. It is arched over, and the ice is put in through a hole in the top. A door is on one side for taking the ice out, and there is a drain at the bottom for carrying away the water that runs off as the ice melts.

A more modern invention is a small _cellar_ built adjoining the house, with double walls, the space between the walls being filled with charcoal. The cellar has double doors with a space between, so that one may be shut before the other is opened, to prevent the entrance of the atmospheric air. The ice is kept in a sunk part made like a bath, at the farther end of the cellar, furnished with a drain to carry off the superfluous water; and in the other part of the cellar are shelves, on which wine or food can be placed to be kept cool. The old-fashioned ice-house was always made in the park at some distance from the house, and consequently was of very little use; but the modern ice-cellar is very useful for keeping cool, water, butter, and other articles of daily consumption; which can be fetched out of it when they are wanted, as easily and expeditiously as they could be out of a common dairy or pantry.

When ice is supplied from a distance, it will soon melt, if exposed to the atmospheric air during summer. To prevent this it may be kept in an _ice chest_, that is, a large deep coffer lined with cork, and with a double lid; or in a box called a _refrigerator_, which may even be brought into the dining-room. The refrigerator consists of a double frame of wood, with the space between filled in with charcoal. The bottles of wine are placed in little tin cases left for them, and ice is put between the cases. Below the ice is a tin grating, through which the melted water runs, and is let off when requisite by a cock. The box is made to hold two bottles of wine on one side, and a bottle of water and a glass for butter on the other.

The _American refrigerator_ is another contrivance of the same nature, which will keep the ice unmelted for a fortnight even during the hottest weather in summer. This box, like the other, is double, the inner part being of lead, and the space between the two being filled with sawdust. There are two lids so as completely to exclude the air when both are closed.

_The usual mode of cooling wine and other liquids by ice_, is to surround the bottle, or other vessel in which the liquor is contained, entirely with ice, observing that the hottest part of the wine is always at the top of the bottle, but that if the top is chilled faster than the bottom, the cold wine descends, and that which is still warm rises and takes its place. As, therefore, the wine is liable to be set in motion by the process of cooling, it is best to decant it before it is put into the refrigerator, as otherwise there will be danger of disturbing the sediment of white wine and the crust of port. When ice is perfectly clean and clear, like that of the Wenham Lake, it is sometimes broken into small pieces, and put into the liquid which is to be cooled; but this could not be done with the ice collected from the dirty ponds near London.

When it is wished to cool wine rapidly, it is only necessary to put it into a thin glass bottle, and to wet the outside with ether; as cold is produced by rapid evaporation sooner than in any other manner, wine-coolers are formed on this principle.

_A freezing mixture_ for cooling wine, and for freezing ice-creams, may be formed by mixing five parts of sal ammoniac with five parts of nitre and sixteen of water. A mixture of snow or pounded ice and salt produces a most intense cold, but it is only while the salt is melting the ice or snow that the cold is felt. Muriate of lime, mixed with snow, produces a still greater degree of cold. Several other mixtures may be used for freezing; but those producing the most intense cold are mixtures of nearly equal parts of sulphate of soda with nitrous or sulphuric acid, the sulphate predominating. Eight parts of sulphate of soda, mixed with five parts of muriatic acid, will produce a cold equal to zero. When any liquid is to be frozen by these mixtures, the bottle containing the liquid is put into a wooden vessel containing the mixture; and if the cold is to be very intense, the outer vessel may be placed on a flat piece of cork in a much larger empty vessel, the whole being covered with a woollen cloth. Water freezes soonest when it has been boiled, and forms the most compact and beautiful ice.

_The principal utensils required_ for making ice-creams are a tub large enough to contain about a bushel of ice, which must be pounded small, and mixed with salt, nitre, or soda, and a freezing-pot made of pewter, like those sent out with ice-creams. Copper spoons or spaddles are also required for stirring the ingredients of which the ice-creams are composed, while the process of freezing is going on. When all is ready, the ingredients for the ice-creams are poured into the freezing-pot, which is put up to its cover into the tub full of ice and salt, and kept turning round continually by its handle till the freezing is completed. The turning the pot is the most difficult part of the operation, and it requires great attention, as, unless the ingredients are kept in constant motion, the sugar, which is the heaviest, will sink to the bottom, and the other articles will be unequally frozen, so as to form unsightly lumps. The cover must be taken off occasionally, to see how the process is going on, and the cream that has adhered to the sides of the freezing-pot should be scraped off, and mixed with the rest by the spaddle, in order to prevent waste. The whole of the ingredients should also be mixed together with the spaddle if they appear to be settling irregularly.

_Ice-creams_ and water-ices should be perfectly smooth, and soft enough to break easily with a spoon. The ice-creams are made by mashing the fruit with which they are to be flavoured, and adding to a pint of the juice, after it has been strained, a pint of thick cream, the juice of half a lemon, and sugar to the taste. The lemon-juice should be put in last. Sometimes whipped cream is used, the cream being first mixed with sugar, and laid on a fine sieve, turned the bottom upwards in a bowl, as it is whipped, so that the cream which drains from it may not be wasted. Water-ices are generally only the juice of the fruit strained and sweetened, as, if water is added, the ice is apt to freeze too hard. Lemon-ice is composed of the juice of four lemons, and the rind of one, to a pint of clarified sugar-syrup, the whole being strained before putting it into the freezing-pot.