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Welcome to my article,
Dear readers, in this article of farming and cheese making, let us talk about the milk that the cow produce; as we have said farming it is based on the assumption of waste not want not, this apply also to the milk that we take from the cows and other animals, because this milk must be put to good use, and since in those times there were not many choices, we made cheese from the milk that we had; so, I will describe the procedure how we made our cheese.
Today cheese is an
extremely popular food; to understand its importance of cheese, 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 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 candies,
when I haven’t got them and usually it works, but that is up to the individual
taste and what sort of cheese you use to do that.
Anyhow here under
are a couple of links that will show you how cheese can be used:
Cheese Recipes collection -
www.taste.com.au
Cheese types cooking tips -
Ingredients - Taste.com.au
We could say more
about cheeses and their uses, but perhaps it is better if we go back to talk
about my life story, and how we made cheese the old way, and how we believe
making cheese started.
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How we started to make cheese.
There are reasons
to believe that cheese making is very ancient, in fact, there is no way to know
how early humanity started making cheese, I have not seen anything written in
the history books when cheese first appeared, even though they talk about herds
of sheep and cattle, so, we must assume that since they had sheep and cattle,
they would milk them and use their milk in many ways. 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, some shepherd found that if they stored
their milk for a long time, it would turn into curd and then a piece of acid cheese,
it would not be as good as the cheeses that we make today, but they started to
make cheese, because they needed to save whatever they could; anyhow, knowing
that the milk can become cheese, they started to make cheese. Because the
ancient people had to use whatever they had to feed themselves, so, they used
this cheese and slowly worked out how to make cheese better.
So, since early
times we humans learned how to make cheese, and then how to cure cheese and
keep it for a long period of time, so, we have been making cheese and eating
cheese ever since. Cheese has one of the best nutritional values and could
easily be stored, so, today we are making several types of cheeses.
But, let us tell
the younger generation where cheese comes from, since they are not exposed to
the natural ways of life as we did in the past, therefore, for them is hard to
imagine how cheese is made and where cheese comes from, they think that it just
comes from the supermarket.
So, I am going to
describe how the cheese is made, and where it comes from, because I happen to
know this firsthand, since in our family farm we made cheese. Now the first
thing that we need to know is that we use farm animals to milk them and then
make cheese form their milk.
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This is how we used to milk the cows in the past.
Today it is hard to believe, that this is how milking the cows was done in the past. You see, there were no milking machine for thousands of years, so, everything had to be done by hand the hard way. .
To make cheese we milk farm animals.
Now, to understand
how cheese was/is made, you need to imagine that you are living in a farm in
the past; say seventy years ago or more, because life then was different from
today, so, many things were done in a different way including cheese making.
While I was living
in the farm not only, I learned how to make cheese the old ways, but other
things as well, because I was observing everything around me, as you know it is
natural to observe everything around you, since it is the way that helps us
survive. I have observed Mother Nature, where everything happens at the right
time, you see, most of the farm animals give birth to their offspring when
there is plenty of food to go around, and when there is plenty of food they
make plenty of milk, it happens also when mild and fine weather is usually
expected, this is how Mother Nature has set everything to work and it works
well.
Therefore, it is
for this reason that in springtime most of the animal’s offspring are born,
starting from the goats, sheep, and the cows that usually calf once every year
and they make plenty of milk especially when there is plenty of green food to
eat; we milk the cows, to make cheese and other dairy products from it. So,
hereunder we are going to talk about, how we made cheese at the time when I was
young, and then how we made ricotta cheese, I know that what I am going to say
here is old fashioned, but anyhow, here we are talking about my
life story and the way of how things were done when I was young.
But before we do
that, just to compare, let us talk that today they make cheese in the factories
like Parmigiano Reggiano, which is a well-known cheese all over the world, and
it is used a lot on culinary things. Perhaps this will make us compare the
great difference, between the way they do it now, and the ways that we used to
do it in our family farms when I was young.
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Parmigiano cheese making.
Cheese making
There are many
types of cheese in the world, one of the best cheese in the world is Parmesan
cheese, which is a cheese that is used in many culinary things, you need to
watch one of these cooking shows to see how many times this type of cheese is
used. Now we want 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, since it is one of the most popular 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 want 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.
Parmigiano Reggiano - Parmesan Cheese
One may guess that
the recipes for this great cheese has been the work of many generations of
Italian cheese makers, 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 cheeses in the world. Anyhow, in the old times lots of people made their own cheese; in fact, I have made cheese myself in our family farm of southern Italy and I want to tell you how it was done in the old ways, as most farmers had to do it, 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. So, let us see how I learned to make cheese the old farmers’ way.
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Cheese making in the farms.
Cheese making in
the farms when I was young
When I was young, while working in our family farm, I learned how to make cheese the old way, so,
I want to tell you how it was done. anyhow, I must tell you that this is not like making Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, but is
it more like the poor farmer cheese. 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, what I am writing here has happened in the fifties, but 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 thousands of years, this same way can still be used today, so, let me tell you how we were making cheese then?
In southern Italy
and 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 can use their
milk and they can make cheese and other milk products. Now 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 if you
don’t milk them then 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 milk market, and there was not much demand for milk locally.
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Cheese making grandma way.
In our case we had
two milking cows, so, we would collect up to 30 liters of milk every day in
springtime, 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 make cheese, this is what most
farmer did in the old days, here I am going to explain how this was done.
When I was young my
Grandma who was 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 happened for a few years, and then she
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, let me go over the process, because I
want to make a record of how these things were made in the past. You see, today
in the farm 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. But 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 liter 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
large copper kettle, now this copper kettle had to be clean for a start, beside
that had to be treated from a specialist once a year with a coat of tin or
something like that, this treatment is very much like galvanizing the inside of
the kettle, 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, after that I am ready to make cheese.
---------------------------------------------
Making cheese the old ways.
Making cheese and
then ricotta the old ways
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 liter of milk over the fire without getting burned; then I had to be careful
that the milk would warm up to 37-38 degrees only and no more, otherwise the
process would not work well. So, once the milk reached this temperature, I
would take the kettle off the fire. Now to make cheese you need to add
something like enzymes or an extract, in the milk while it is around 37 degrees
to make the milk curd. In my young days I was lucky because this extract could
be bought at the chemist, and it was a lot easier that the very old ways, when
you had to prepare your own extract. Anyhow at this point I would measure the
amount of this 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 cool, and also it does not react with milk, therefore, wooden utensils were safe to use.
Anyhow, we have left the milk to curd for 10 minutes or perhaps a quarter of an hour has passed since we have added this extract 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, 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; the container is 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 made into the hot whey after I have made ricotta. This action is a sort of pasteurizing 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 pasteurized 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 article we have talked about how we made cheese and in our next hub we will talk about, Making ricotta my grandma way.
To see more click on this link, Compare cheese making.
See you soon.
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