Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1900-02-07
A CHAPTER ON CHEESE
Various Foreign Makes That Have
Become Popular in This
Country.

The history of cheese may be con-
sidered as condensing the whole pas
toral poetry of the Aryan race. The
mild and gentle cow, sacred still among
the Aryans of India, fell especially to
the charge of the women. Our very
language proves this. Our word daugh.
ter comes from the Sanscrit duhitar,
meaning the mixer, from the very duo,
to milk. Dug, for teat, is doubtless
from the same.
Cheese-making has been feminine
profession from the start, and on some
English farms to this very day the
money coming from the sale of the
cheese is considered as the special per-
quisite, pin money, of the wife. Eng
land has long been famous for the
quantity and quality of it's cheeses.
America, in wholesale way, is destroy
ing all the traditions Of cheese. Yet,
though America makes cheese by the
mountain-load every year, there are
not, as in England, France and Italy,
any localities famous for special
brands.
The reason is not far to seek. Our
cheese factories collect the milk of va
rious areas, having different soils and
peculiarities of pasturage, and mix
them, striking thus an average, eatable
indeed, but lacking character.
It has been proved that the quality
depends on the pasturage. Cows, dairy
maids and special methods of making
have been taken from Cheshire to an
other part of England, and the result
was a product very different from the
famous Cheshire cheese. Cheddar, too,
which comes from vale in Somerset,
has flavor for which there is no chem
ical counterfeit. 1t smacks of the soil;
it, breathes of the pasture.
Brie comes from small district near
Paris and is a cream cheese of unrivaled
delicacy, but not easy to keep during
warm weather.
Camembert, a cheese very similar,
though coarse in flavor, which is made
in a large area in Normandy, has been
steadily pushing into favor.
Pont PEveque comes from Norman
dy. 1t is not, as some might suppose,
merely camembert gone dry, but is
Intentionally made more solid and
milder in taste, and is ten per cent.
more costly.
Port du Salut is another cheese of the
same order, but superior in flavor to all
except true Brie. It costs about the
same as Brie, and it may take rank
over that, as that has done over Rogue
fort, and as Roquefort did over Swiss,
which was the first foreign cheese that
ever really had hold on the affections
of the American stomach.
Roquefort, though its price yet is
high, is a richer cheese, more fond of
lingering on the breath than the others.
It is made of goats milk and the chiaro-
oscura effects in it are caused, not by
rusting it with insertions of wire, but
by dropping into it some handfuls of
peasant bread.
Gorgonzola, not French, but italian,
is more expensive than Roquefort,
though it's base is the same, namely,
the milk of the goat. This cheese comes
from the Milanese district of Italy, re-
tains its aristocratic richness unspoiled
by the democratic climate of America,
and is good cheese to swear by.
Wherein it-differs from Limburger-
q good one to swear at.
Parmesan, another Italian or Sicilian
variety, has been kept Is years and
found still delicious and full of life and
power.
Neufchatel is French cheese, not a
Swiss, as many fancy, from the name
n. Y. World.