The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-04-24
EATING LIVE FOOD.

Prof. H. w. Com and the New York
other as historian, have let US into a few
secrets that 1t would have been pleasanter
not to know. Science constantly does this,
so that it is getting to be that not only is a
little learning a dangerous thing, but any
knowledge at all on some points is exceed
ingly disagreeable. Few readers of THE
HERALD are there, no doubt, who do not
recall the horror with which they received
the revelations of the microscope, that
tremendous exsggerator which shows US
the abominable looking Inhabitants of a
single drop of clear water, with their i'm
mense pop eyes and attenuated tails. The
thought of swallowing a myriad of such
living, wriggling creatures at one gulp of
the fluid sparkling and bright In the
liquid Light melted from the "icicle that's
curdled by the frost and hangs on DAMS
| temple" was torture. And to think, too,
of the weird population of a breath, in
hailed from the passing zephyrs. Aye,
there's the rub For IL is these invisible
winged denizens Of the circumambient air,
freighted with consumption, fever and pes
that have produced the greatest terror, SO
that we shudder at encountering the very
word bacteria"
PROF. Conn, with that cold blooded and
pitiess Indifference which the man of
science schools himself to, has made kind
of catalogue of comestible and nutritious
bacteria. Leaving DR.. KOCH to take care
OF the harmful little insects, he tells US of
q variety that are good TO est-not like that
certain convocation of polite worms"
that HAMLET referred to, but the kind that
are eaten. We knew before. of course,
that certain epicures affect an appetite for
rancid cheese OF peripatetic nature; but
Prof. Conn enightens Us on the
uses the shippers perform, not only for
cheese but for butter, cream and milk as
well. Thus, milk curdles just as ToPsY
| ''growed," or because it was "built that
way,n and in quart of it, that is to say
before it reaches the pump or hydrant,
there are fifty millions OF bacteria-some
that produce whey, some curd, some that
are odorless and some that family suggest
Limburger or other frOmages from not toe
foreign lands. These creatures can't be
kept out of the milk, which even thunder
cannot sour in the udder, but they can be
slaughtered by heating to temperature
that must be under $50 degrees If the
'boiled milk'' taste is to be kept off.
Bacteria are indispensable in the manu-
facture of butter and cheese, which will
not mature or "ripen" without them
Where there are fifty millions to a quart
in milk, there are millions to the drop in
cream. And right here we have some use
full hints as to why butter is stronger
sometimes than at other times. Referring
to these bacteria the writer in the Times
says:
When they are few, the oily globules slip ant
slide over one another SO easily that the butter
fat atoms cannot be separated readily. But al
tn e bacteria increase, they secrete Tactic acid
, which breaks down the cream globules, thu
setting free the butter. which coalesces int
masses. Moreover, this "ripening" produce
The favor. If too ripe that is, if the bacteria
l growth be not checked at the right time, tn
) butter is strong; but if there are bacteri
r enough, and not too many, then we have tn
q genuine odor and flavor of cowslips and new
mown hay.
The same things are true of cheese bu
y in greater degree, and the suggestion is
0 natural one that the dairy business wi
q sooner or later develop the industry G
8 breeding high class strains of butter an
: cheese bacteria canning them perhaps afte
Q the fashion of caviar, and otherwise pre-
a pairing them for the export trade Thu
: we shall, without counterfeitin'g, be able I
b produce at will the appetizing Sweitze
kase, which resembles peanut candy wit
Y the nuts picked out, the loud and nose-con
o pressing Limburger. with its moist sill