Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1894-06-15
CHEESE MAKING.
HOW THIS FOOD PRODUCT is
MADE ABROAD.
Processes by Which the Foreign Ar
ticle Gets the Quality Gourmcts
Relish So Mitch Roquefort
Cheese Ripened in Caves.

comparatively we1l known. In great
measure their quality depends upon
the care with which they are aged.
Among European cheeses, which with.
ill couple of decades in this country
have superseded those of England in
popularity, there is certain mystery
in tho processes by which they are
manufactured In the soft cheeses
the product of the Now Jersey farm
may really be said to fairly compete
with those of Europe. But these imi-
tations have their restrictions. For
instance, these worthy imitators of a
delicacy 80 popular have either vainly
or not at all attempted to reproduce
the famous Roquefort
This cheese is probably one of the
oldest known. 1t is certainly one of
the oldest mentioned in any written
book. Pliny mentions it i'll one of his
works, and Rabelais when he wrote
the phrase that has since become so
commonplace, "thst the moon is made
of green cheese" is more likely to
have had in mind the green-streaked
RoQucfort than the green sage cheese
of England of the time of Shekospeare.
The making of Roqucfort cheese is
something of n romance. The village
from which it takes its name is stu
ated in deep, narrow gorge, with
high, precipitous walls of limestone
rock. This cheese is made from the
milk of the black goat, which has n
fertile pasturage of ten or twelve
leagues in the valley below.
This milk is heated almost to boiling
and set aside. In the morning it is
skimmed, heated to ninety eight do
grees and mingled with the mornings
milk for coagulation. When the curtl
has been divided with clean wooden
paddle and the whey drawn off it is
we'll kneeded by tho hands of the
pretty mountain maidcns and pressed
in layers into moulds with perforated
bottoms. Usually II thin layer of
moultly bread is placed between the
layers of curd, tho object being to
hasten the ripening by supplying the
green mould peculiar to this cheese.
This bread is always made tho week
before Christmas, of equal parts of
summer and winter barley, with con-
siderable sour dough and little vine
gar. The mouldiness which this pro-
duces is not sufficiently apparent for
the taste of tho high-classcd connois-
sieur, unless the cheese is kept for
three months and it's action fastened
by warmth. When it strikes the
peasant that it is mouldy enough the
cheese is ground, sifted, moistened
with water and kept from contact with
the air.
In the caves and assures i'll the walls
of the town, and in vaults rudely con-
structed in these assures, the ripen-
ing of the Roquefort cheese is carried
ON by the cold currents of mir which
whistle through them NIL the year
round Those vaults which have cur
rents flowing from south to north are
believed to yield the best cheese.
The proprietor of these caves keeps
the cheeses sometimes for several
years. The chceses when brought i'll
are classified according to their merit.
Salt is sprinkled over them, and they
are piled one on another for two or
three days. Then they are taken
down, the accumulated salt carefully
rubbed in and then they are piled up
again and left for n week They are
scrapcd and pared, pricked through
and through with needles driven by
machinery in order to accelerate the
gathering of the green mould in the
interior, and after this are left iii
piles again for fifteen days, till they
become dry and firm in texture and
their interiors begin to be covered
with mould.
Another foreign cheese which is n
favorite here is the small, round
Dutch cheese known MS the Edam. 1t
is called after small and hourishing
town of that name, located not far
from Amsterdam. 1t looks very
much like small redcnnnon ball, and
there is n story that when, during the
siege OF one OF the cities of Holland,
the real cannon balls gave out, these
cheeses were used to supply the guns.
Another favorite, which is found in
every French restaurant in this city,
but is not nearly SO we'll known as 1T
deserves to be in American restau-
rants, is the Gruycre This takes its
name from Switzerland, where it is
supposed to have originated, but MS a
matter of fact it is now made largely
in Germany, in France and in New
Jersey. What is called the real
Gruyere is mostly made in little huts-
sometimes called chalets- high up in
the Alps at the time of the year when
the pastures on the mountain sides are
accessible and these little huts inhab-
liable.
The milk is put into great kettle
and swung over n gentle fire, where
it obtains temperature of seventy
seven degrees. Then the rennet is
added; when the coagulation has adj
vanced far enough the curd is cut in
to very fine pieces. Then it is rubbed
and sifted through the fingers into the
kettle again, and submitted to tenn
perature of ninety degrees. 1t is then
strained from the whey and collected
in cloth. Salt is rubbed in carefully
from time to time on the outside.
One of the stories told OF the com
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