The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-05-03
CONCERNING CHEESE.
ITS MANUFACTURE AS OLD. AT LEAST,
AS THE TIME OF JOB.

Named q Valley For It-Memories Call
ed Up by Neufchatel, Gouds and Csmem-
BERTHE Poets Tribute to Cheese.
Next to the "staff of life' itself, cheese |
holds the highest place in universal esteem |
as an article of food. To recall the old |
Cheshire chestnut we all like cheese, |
our brothers all like cheese, and we may
of additional brothers they would all like |
cheese too.
Our remote ancestors seem to have
"liked cheese" as well as we do, for its
manufacture IL one of the oldest In the
world.
Roquefort is perhaps now the only i'm
portant kind made from the milk of sheep,
but anciently it was not so. The very
word butter itself seems TO show that cows
milk was not used for the purpose by the
ancient Greeks at all events, as it means
literally OK cheese.
They seemed to have made their cheese,
as the Cyclops Polyphemus made his, of
sleeps milk only.
If it be true that only sleeps milk was
used for cheesemaking in primitive times,
then it is easy to explain why we do not
find it among those domestic arts of which
the ancient Egyptians have left us such
abundant pictorial records, since we know
that the Hyksos made shepherds an abom-
ination to the Egyptians"
Cheesemaking must at one time have
been very important industry among the
Israelites, as one of the principal valleys
in Jerusalem, that between Mounts Zion
and Moriah, was known in the time of
Josephus as the Tyropeon, or Cheesemak-
ers' valley.
Nowadays cheese is almost entirely
made from the milk of cows, about 100,-
| 600 being employed in Cheshire alone. The
| Roquefort does not owe it's great excellence
| to its ovine origin, but to the splendid and
| natural cellarage-a labyrinth of dry
| mountain caverns, wherein 1t Is matured.
Their ventilation is so perfect that no
deleterious "mold' or must can lodge
| there.
At Mont d Or, in France, very good
cheese is made of goats milk.
| Neufchatel calls up memories of the lake
beneath the pine clad Jura, with the profile
of Mont Blanc lying far away on the south
ern horizon, like dream of ethereal sculp-
ture Parmesan speaks of farther wander
ings past that horizon into the land of song
and azure skies. Gruyere takes us up
among the glories of the high Alps to the
border of the ice and snow, where we listen
to the tjnkle of the cowbells, the everlasting
sony of the cicadas, and the occasional echo
music of the native horn (c'quante time,
si'v'plait, IN 'sieu' bah one wants to 60
home again).
Perhaps the strong odor of cheese may
have, according to well known physiolog'
ical principles, n great deal TO do with its
power as memory refresher can well
remember my first introduction to that
DURAN of Gaseous delicacies, the "petit
Camembert." 1t brings no romantic as
sociations beyond the pretty face of the
damsel who served me, but the SIN, the
St, well, the perfume, now always sets
before me every stick of furniture in the
somewhat squalid room wherein the intro
duction took place.
So do / remember my first tasting o
Gruyere, more than 30 years ago, at TIT
Schweizerhof in Basic But / didn't lik
it, and to this day don't.
Gouda cheese recalls little of the pictur
esque, save to those who can find it II
, green flats dotted with magnifled penny
box toys, and cows enveloped in Brob
I. dingnagian flannel waistcoats. But TO
me it brings to mind a drive in our owl
lake country, through the sleet of wild
winter night, and at the end welcome ant
warmth and soft lights, and my genia
! host-a very realization of Father Christ
mas" with flowing snow white beard ant
locks, and jolly, rubicund face, and all |
retired "bagman's' knowledge Of goot
cheer, and oh, such an ambrosia of
round of spiced beef, with-ye gods-sucl
horseraJish sauce, made with such cream
, and such nectar of whisky punch to wasl
.. 1t down with! 1t was to the Dutch cheese
which then first ate, what the Swiss but
ter and honey were to my first Gruyere
> To go back for little to the antiquitie
of cheese-one thinks of the venerable oil
, Jokes connected Herewith, of good KIM
: Arthur's serving men, "all of whom wer
thieves" and how
The Scotchman was burned in his usquebaue
The Englishman drowned in his ale,
! And the Welshman,
who "made his mouth like mousetrap'
(perhaps he meant it for rabbit bur
row.,
. was nearly choked by mouse,
$ But he pulled-pulled-pulled it out by the tai
And this draws on the conundrum b
the author of Where was Adam whe
f, -" etc, "What comes after swectsY
Answer, 'Cheese." "And what comes aft
I er cheese?' Answer, Mouse
So we step back into genuinely classics
e times and think of the pseudo Homeri
I "Batrachomyomachia" C'Battle of tn
Frogs and Mice'O, in which that valiar
; hero, Tyrophagus, bears SO distinguish
part.
: Tyrophagus means literally Cheese ea
err" and is the name given in the calenda
to the fifth Sunday in Lent by the caster
! church, probably to mark some degree
], the severity of the Lenten fast, which
more stringcntly observed there than
u the west.
An Authorization of the same word
e namely, "tyro," is familiar to us, meal
{ ing "a beginner" one who should no
venture on 'strong meat" or attemI
anything relatively to perfect achiev'
ment) more difficult than the masticatio
of cheese.
And this brings us to another venerabl
, jest, which l dsinter from the good oil
& Elegant Extracts"
Jack, eating rotten cheese, did say.
a. Il. n.