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Cheese (Nutritive value of such milk)

the nutritive value of such milk, then it is that such preparations can be made very useful; and they can be added, whilst knowing that they will be easily digested, and almost completely absorbed, and that they can do the sick person no harm. Looking at the subject all round, these are among the most trustworthy of all the artificial foods, and have the further advantage that they are economical, because the casein is extracted from skim milk, which would otherwise be thrown away."

It must be remembered that Cheese by its preparation loses the basic alkaline salts, which should serve the purpose of neutralizing uric acid, as formed during its use by combustion in the system. About certain parts of Saxony, in the Altenburg district, where the peasantry consume much Cheese, bladderstones of uric acid formation are found to be very frequent. But in Switzerland, where Cheese is likewise largely consumed, such bladder-stones are rare, simply because much fruit, rich in salts of potash, is also eaten there. As Cheese ripens it owes the elements of its savour to the decomposition of its casein, which substance in its original state is without flavour, or odour; the presence of fat prevents decomposition from going too far. Nevertheless, a butyric fermentation proceeds in the Cheese, giving it presently a strong odour, and advancing to putrescence, so that many varieties of the aliment will then produce in the eater toxic symptoms more or less pronounced. The principal poisonous agent in such Cheese is chemically tyrotoxicon, and old decayed Cheese sometimes causes through the presence thereof colic, diarrhea, double vision, pain about the heart, and collapse. But the mould of Cheese is of vegetable nature, a fungus, and not bacterial, nor bacillary. One pound of sound Cheese made from a gallon of new milk contains as much fat as three pounds of beef, and as much protein (animal substance) as two pounds of beef; the casein, and the butter-fat are very nutritious. Casein consists as to its elements, of hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, and sulphur. If sugar and bread be eaten with Cheese, then all the constituents of a valuable meal are secured, but vigorous outdoor exercise should be taken so as to ensure its digestion.

Toasted Cheese is digestible if it is new, and lightly cooked, with perhaps cream, or butter added; but tough toasted Cheese is about as indigestible as leather. A Welsh Rabbit is made of Cheese melted with little ale, and then a poured over slices of hot toast; sometimes cream is added, also mustard, or Worcester sauce. If freely peppered with cayenne, it proves of help to hard drinkers when threatened with delirium tremens, and serves instead of more drink to satisfy their cravings. In Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark the baker, having no fixed name, was called by his companions "Toasted Cheese." The famous "Olde Cheshire Cheese " Tavern, in Fleet Street, London, is historically associated with Johnson, and Goldsmith. Here you may yet see the Doctor's chair, and sit where he, and Goldy sat. In The Cheese Isaac Bickersteth made an epigram which contains the oft-quoted lines :- 66 Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love:

But why did you kick me downstairs ? دو The fare of the "Cheshire Cheese," whilst of the good old English sort, is world famous; its steaks and its ham are traditions ; but the celebrated pudding, made for two centuries from the same recipe, and served every Wednesday and Saturday to an appreciative and hungry gathering, is the crowning glory of the Old Tavern. This pudding ranges from fifty, to sixty, seventy, or eighty pounds in weight; and gossip has it that in the dim past the rare dish was constructed of a hundredweight proportion. It is composed of a fine light crust, in a huge basin, and there are entombed therein beefsteaks, kidneys, oysters, larks, mushrooms, with wondrous spices, and gravies the secret of which is known only to the compounder. The boiling process takes from sixteen to twenty hours, and the scent of it on a windy day has been known to reach as far as the Stock Exchange. The process of carving it is as solemn a ceremony as the cutting the mistletoe with the golden sickle of the Druids. Old William, for many years the head waiter, could only be seen in his real glory on pudding days. He used to consider it his duty to go round the tables insisting that the guests should have second, and third, aye, with wonder be it spoken!-and fourth helpings! Any gentleman say 'Pudden?'” was his constant query; and this habit was not broken when a crusty customer growled, "No gentleman says 'Pudden.' " William, like most of his customers. has passed away, but a room remains consecrated to his memory and is still called by his name. 66 Cheddar Cheese, made chiefly at Pennard, contains from 23 to 29 per cent of casein (proteid), from 30 to 40 per cent of fat, and from 3 to 5 per cent of mineral salts; its savoury residuum is very small. Cheshire Cheese is very similar, but contains more sugar of milk. The common Dutch Cheese, as supplied by our grocers, is a small, hard, round Cheese made from skimmed milk, and coloured outside with madder. It contains from 19 to 24 per cent of casein, and only from 16 to 24 per cent of fat, with from 5 to 6 per cent of sugar of milk. But in Holland the Dutch, or "Cottage" Cheese, is a preparation of pressed curds, prepared with muriatic acid instead of rennet, and served with salt, or with sugar, and cream; this is "smeer-kaas," pot-cheese. In the Dutch and Factory Cheeses, curdled thus with acid instead of rennet, the highly important and essential earth-salt, phosphate of lime, is left behind dissolved in the whey, and thus the food value of these Cheeses is seriously lowered. Phosphates of the earth-salts are concerned in bone-making for the growing subject, also to some extent in building up the brain, and nervous substance in the body, though not so vitally in the latter respect as is commonly supposed. Bone contains about 11 per cent of phosphorus, but brain substance less than 1 per cent. The phosphate of lime which is supplied by Cheese made with rennet, is probably in a condition of such fine division, that it can be readily dissolved by the gastric juice in the stomach. For a dish in which there is a true cooking of Cheese by solution, and with an admirable result, grate six ounces of rich Cheese (Parmesan is the best), put it into an enamelled saucepan, with a teaspoonful of flour of mustard, a saltspoonful of white pepper, a grating of Cayenne, the sixth part of a nutmeg (grated), two ounces of butter, two tablespoonfuls of baked flour, and a gill of new milk; stir it over a slow fire till it becomes like thick, smooth cream (but it must not boil); add the well-beaten yolks of six eggs; beat for ten minutes, then add the whites of the eggs also beaten to a stiff froth; put the mixture into a tin, or into a cardboard mould, and bake in a quick oven for twenty minutes; serve immediately.

Stilton Cheese has been made until lately almost always in Leicestershire, being a solid, rich, white English production, the cream of one day being added to the entire milk of the next; then the curd is put into moulds, and allowed to sink of itself, no pressure whatever being applied. Other kinds, such as Cheddar, are subjected to a pressure of as much as one ton, or twenty-five hundredweight. Stilton Cheese requires, first, lactic bacteria to convert the milk sugar into lactic acid; then other special bacteria act on the casein, and peptonize it, changing the curd from a hard, insoluble substance into what is soluble and digestible, whilst the oidium, or lactic mould, gives the coating; the blue inner mould goes by the name of Penicillium glaucum. This fine Cheese can now be imitated anywhere by using rich milk, and the famous Bacterium B. 41, of which pure cultures are made, and employed all over the world.

Gorgonzola is an Italian Cheese (North Italy), made from the native pasture milk, and strongly resembling Stilton. After the curd has been thoroughly squeezed, a tumblerful of milk putrescent to mouldiness is added. This Cheese is coloured by Sage leaves, and its green mould is said to be an imitation effected by transfixing the Cheese here and there with copper skewers which are left in for a while. Originally this Cheese was made of so rich a quality as to fetch half-a-crown a pound (the mode of its manufacture being kept then a strict local secret), but now most of the Gorgonzola Cheese which comes into the market is fabricated, and sells for about tenpence a pound. Again, the green colour of certain other Italian Cheeses is attributed to the milk having stood for a time in copper vessels, during which time of repose the milk would absorb an appreciable quantity of copper. In twenty-five samples of Parmesan Cheese, there was found to be present to every two pounds of the Cheese, from 0.8 to 3.3 per cent. of copper. Parmesan is a hard, dry, highly-flavoured Italian Cheese coloured with saffron. It is made among the rich pasturage of the Po meadows, from cows' milk partly skimmed. Professor Macfadyean told his hearers at the Royal Institute, February, 1903, that there is no finer food in the world for nutritive purposes than Cheese grated, and put into proper soups, such as of lentil, and the like, just as the Italians invariably sprinkle Parmesan over their "Minestra."

Camembert Cheese is made from new milk coagulated by the action of rennet, being then ladled into moulds, and allowed to drain; these are then salted, and turned daily, whilst kept in caves, or cold cellars, for six weeks until ripe. The different flavours of the various sorts of Cheese are due, not to something in the local soil where each is produced, but simply to methods in making, which give more or less play to the several kinds of microbes. Taking Camembert as an example, on the outside of this is to be seen a greenish colour, consisting of a dead fungus, which while it lives gets into the curd, and feeds on the acid of the fresh Cheese for its maintenance. Meantime this acid is fatal to the particular microbes which give the Camembert its distinctive flavour; but directly the acid has been all used up by the fungus from within the Cheese these microbes begin to multiply, and spread. The special fungus, or mould is allowed to exist on the walls of the Camembert Cheese factories, and its little poppyheads burst, keeping the air full of dusty spores which penetrate the curd. Then the microbes which are already there (since the exhaustion of the curd acid by the fungus) start work, and convert the curd into soft digestible Cheese. So is it similarly, with all the foreign Cheeses. A French doctor has identified the several microbes which produce the approved flavours, and which can be supplied in separate bottles. With such microbes, and a few plain directions about temperature, any Cheese may be made at option. The monks of Briquebec, Port du Salut, have been noted for supplying a famous Cheese, the secret of which they would not reveal. But some scientists secured specimens of its particular microbe, then cultivated the same in test-tubes, and were thus enabled to tell all the world how the said famous Cheese can be produced. A Camembert Cream Cheese is made to-day at Reading, its imported bacteria being the Micrococcus maldensis, and Bacillus fermitatis, and its mould Penicillium candidum. Nowadays, at the different dairy factories up and down the country, whither the farmers send their milk, the butter-fat is extracted, whilst the residual milk, sugar, casein, and other solids remain in their hands wherewith to feed the calves; and as these creatures require some sort of fat in place of the Cheese-cream, cod-liver oil is added, at sixpence a gallon, very successfully. Roquefort Cheese is made from the milk of ewes, and goats. When dry enough the Cheeses are placed in a deep cavern of the limestone rock, at a temperature of 40° Fahrenheit. They are salted, and the mould fungus is scraped off from time to time, until they turn from a white to a blue, and on through that to a reddish brown; this is a rich Cheese, and has to be kept a considerable time before it is ripe enough for eating. Gruyere Cheese (from Gruyere, a Canton of Switzerland) is made by the curd being pressed in large, and comparatively shallow moulds, then heavily salted for a month, or more, while still in the moulds. It is traversed by abundant air-bubbles, and open passages, whilst flavoured by the dried herb Melilot, or sweet yellow Clover (admirable against nose-bleeding). Sage Cheese is coloured with bruised Sage leaves, or in Scotland with lovage leaves, also with marigold leaves, and parsley. "Marbled with sage the hardening cheese she pressed." Gay.

Sydney Smith, when writing to Robert Murchison, the geologist (December, 1841), said: "Heaven send I may understand your book, but my knowledge of the science is too slender for that advantage, a knowledge which just enables me to distinguish between the caseous and the cretaceous formations; or, as the vulgar have it, to "know chalk from cheese"; (the real meaning of which is to have ready possession of one's wits; to know a poor, spurious article from a good, or genuine one). Groaning Cheese, as we read in Bourne's Popular Antiquities, takes a part in the blithement, or entertainment, provided after the birth, or at the christening, of an infant. "It is customary at Oxford to cut what we in the north call the Groaning Cheese in the middle, when the babe is born, and to so proceed with the cutting as by degrees to form with it a large kind of ring, through which the child is passed on the christening day." "As thin as Banbury Cheese" was a favourite simile with our ancestors: "Our lands and glebes are clipped and pared to become as thin as Banbury Cheese." "Rosted A Welsh Rabbit, which is practically Cheese-toast, is popularly so named after a jocular fashion, much the same as a "Norfolk capon," or red herring, or "Glasgow magistrate." Similarly an Essex lion is a calf, a Field Lane duck is a baked sheep's head, and potatoes are Irish plums, or Irish apricots.

Cheese," wrote Dr. Tobias Venner (Via Recta ad vitam longam, 1620), "is more meete to entise a mouse or rat into a trap than to be received into the bodie, for it corrupteth the meats in the stomacke, breedeth adust cholericke humours, and sendeth up from the stomacke putrid vapours, and noysome fumes which greatly offend the head, and corrupt the breath." "To conclude, (he adds), "the much eating of Cheese is onely convenient for rustick people, and such as have very strong stomackes, and that also use great exercise." So much for the old author! Per contra we read in Pickwick what Charles Dickens thought on the subject: "A couple of Mrs. Bardell's most particular acquaintance had just stepped in at her house in Goswell Street to have a quiet cup of tea, and a little warm supper of a couple of sets of pettitoes, and some toasted Cheese. The said Cheese was simmering, and browning away most delightfully in a little Dutch oven before the fire, and the pettitoes were getting on deliciously in a little tin saucepan on the hob." 66 Though Welsh Rabbit be so called, yet no one knoweth well why ye name be added," said Mrs. Glasse. The Welsh Rabbit, if it has ever been a local dish (the name may possibly be Gaelic), has never certainly within the knowledge, or memory of present man been a Welsh dish. It was a special attribute of the London Club House, or Tavern, of the old school. Three or four Welsh Rabbits apiece were a fair allowance as supper for a man of average appetite; and our great-grandfathers ate them, and went (or were carried) to bed, and slept none the worse, nor dreamed of gout, or dyspepsia. In those days every Tavern of London had its Welsh-Rabbit maker, whilst the price of this dish was eighteenpence. The cook brought Cheese-grater, hard bits of stale Cheese, thick slices of stale bread three or four days old, a pat of fresh butter, a mustard pot, and a gill of old ale. Into a clean saucepan went the ale, and it was quickly brought to a boiling point; the Cheese, first grated fine, went in next, followed by the butter, and the mustard. For some persons the bread was toasted, for others merely warmed in the oven; and on this the seething mass was poured, and then immediately placed before the eater. Such is the only genuine formula for making a Welsh Rabbit. A modern cookery book will order to 'melt slices of rich Cheese,' evidently without knowing that Cheese, to be mixed thoroughly with the other ingredients, and to be rendered digestible by thorough cooking, must be grated. Slices of melted Cheese will mix with nothing, and would rapidly cool into a capital imitation of shoe-leather." New Cheese has some acid reaction, but by degrees, as the Cheese ripens, this disappears. Some of the casein begins to decompose, and evolves ammonia, which neutralizes the acid of the Cheese; likewise the fatty acids combine with the ammonia, and become neutral. If the fermentative ripening of Cheese goes on to actual putrefaction, then poisonous products become developed, and may be mischievously taken up into the blood. But certain kinds of Cheese, when only partially decayed, will start a useful digestive fermentation in the contents of the stomach, after a full meal, just as sour leaven when introduced into sweet dough, will cause the whole mass to ferment; and therefore it is that the taking a small portion of Cheese, partly decayed (but not putrid), at the end of an ample dinner, will promote the better digestion of the whole meal. Old Cheese can scarcely be discerned to be the same as when it was new. Matthiolus (1570), was of opinion that only then is it good for gouty persons, being also applied outwardly to the parts where they feel their great pains; some persons have been instanced who by the use thereof have been recovered. Dr. Haig says: "No one has, I believe, found any xanthin, or uric acid, in milk, or Cheese."

To summarize the matter, Cheese may be eaten for two distinct purposes: either for the general sustenance of the body as a food abundant in animal nourishment (casein), and warming fat, with milk sugar; or as a sort of digestive condiment, taken, as it were, in morsel form just at the end of the usual fare, as is customary at old-fashioned dinner tables, with a ripe Cheese in a tasty stage of decay, and mould. The vegetable moulds of Cheese are Aspergillus glaucus, blue and green; Sporindonema casei, red; and the Cheese mite is an Acarus. The savoury principle of Cheese, a chemical oxide termed "leucine," has of all foodstuffs the highest sapidity. 66 6 a "Mice," wrote old Fuller, are the best tasters of the tenderest Cheese, and have given their verdict for the goodness of the Welsh." Horace Smith tells a little story which is appropriate in this respect : ""My dear children,' said an old rat to his young family, the infirmities of age are pressing so heavily upon me that I have determined to dedicate the short remainder of my days to mortification and penance, in a narrow and lonely hole which I have lately discovered; but let me not interfere with your juvenile enjoyments: youth is the season for pleasure: be happy therefore, and obey my last injunction, never to come near me in my retreat! God bless you all!' Deeply affected, whilst snivelling audibly, and wiping his paternal eye with his tail, the old rat withdrew, and was seen no more for several days, when his youngest daughter, moved rather by filial affection than by that sense of curiosity which is attributed to her sex,