Cheese
Get some milk, the richer the better. It is normally the milk of an ungulate, that peculiar class of mammals which ranges (literally) from aardvark to zebra and includes donkeys and drongs, rhinos and rorquals, cows and sea-cows. Extract the whole milk into a vessel and let it stand for a while.
Add edible acids or enzymes, bacteria being the most common bio-active agents which wield such tools, to force the proteins to denature and coagulate. Some bacteria are homofermentative: they produce only lactic acid. Some are heterofermentative: they are more creative and produce aldehydes and ketones as well. Let the mixture ferment. This gives you curds (casein, fat) and whey (minor proteins, lactose).
You want the curds. Precipitate the casein with rennet, or some other source of stomach enzymes. This separates as a soft solid, trapping some fat in a matrix of collapsed proteins. Let the curds separate and then bag them in cheesecloth or other fine material that is tough and clean. Fluid drains out, leaving a semi-solid mass behind. How solid is up to you, the cheesemaker.
This mass can now be artistically ripened, naturally from outside in, a process that leaves a smooth graduation from rind to centre. Or not so naturally, by having more bacteria or other organisms (cheese mites, for example, in Mimolette) eat into the cheese and die, letting the air into places it wouldn't normally reach. You can pierce holes or syringe the organisms into the cheese. Let the cheese age.
Wash the cheese, package the cheese, do many other artistic things to it. It will soon be ready to eat for some people, or a revolting mess to others. This is what the cheesemaker's art is all about. This is what it means to be a cheese artisan.
Add edible acids or enzymes, bacteria being the most common bio-active agents which wield such tools, to force the proteins to denature and coagulate. Some bacteria are homofermentative: they produce only lactic acid. Some are heterofermentative: they are more creative and produce aldehydes and ketones as well. Let the mixture ferment. This gives you curds (casein, fat) and whey (minor proteins, lactose).
You want the curds. Precipitate the casein with rennet, or some other source of stomach enzymes. This separates as a soft solid, trapping some fat in a matrix of collapsed proteins. Let the curds separate and then bag them in cheesecloth or other fine material that is tough and clean. Fluid drains out, leaving a semi-solid mass behind. How solid is up to you, the cheesemaker.
This mass can now be artistically ripened, naturally from outside in, a process that leaves a smooth graduation from rind to centre. Or not so naturally, by having more bacteria or other organisms (cheese mites, for example, in Mimolette) eat into the cheese and die, letting the air into places it wouldn't normally reach. You can pierce holes or syringe the organisms into the cheese. Let the cheese age.
Wash the cheese, package the cheese, do many other artistic things to it. It will soon be ready to eat for some people, or a revolting mess to others. This is what the cheesemaker's art is all about. This is what it means to be a cheese artisan.
etched with acid at 10:28:00 am
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