“She was cutting down a few of the hard cheeses from the rafters in the smokehouse. Grady Love would take them in trade for the staples they needed. There was little to carry in the basket these days. In the unseasonable weather the hens had nearly stopped laying. She used water-glass eggs to cook with, put down in a crock during the summer. There was no cream or butter, the dairy taking all the milk that was produced. It was late in the day before she got started. She put on her heavy coat and boots. “I’ll be back in time to fix supper, Ma. So don’t fret if it gets dark. Days are so short now.””
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Take a pottle of milk as it comes from the cow, and a pint of cream, put to it a spoonful of runnet, and let it stand two hours, then stir it up and put it in a fine cloth, let the whey drain from it, and put the curd into a bowl-dish, or bason; then put to it the yolk of an egg, a spoonful of rose-water, some salt, sugar, and a little nutmeg finely beaten, put it to the cheese in the cheese-fat on a fine cloth, then scrape on sugar, and serve it on a plate in a dish. Thus you may make fresh cheese and cream in the _French_ fashion called _Jonches_, or rush cheese, being put in a mould of rushes tyed at both ends, and being dished put cream to it.
Sources: The passage is from Helga Sandburg, The wheel of earth, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from May, The accomplisht cook of 1660, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — plum cloth, cheese stamp.