SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #135

[L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt]

That Cheesy Guy, Adamantius wrote :^D
 >What you WILL find are a few Roman recipes, both, I believe, in Cato the
>Elder's book on Agriculture, which would be approximately 3rd century
>B.C., and Columella's De Re Rustica, which is a similar book from around
>the second century C.E.. You might also try Pliny the Elder's Historia
>Naturalis, wherein are descriptions of the process for making things
>like Vestine Cheese, if I remember correctly. The dates I mention are a
>bit iffy, since I'm working from memory here.
>
>Also, you'll find some late and post-period sources in English. They
>include Bartholomew Dowe's "Dairy Book for Good Housewives" (1588)
>Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book (~1604),  Sir Hugh Plat's "Delightes
>for Ladies" (1609), Gervase Markham's "The English Housewife" (~1615),
>and "The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight,
>Opened" (~1669). Fettiplace only gives recipes for fresh soft cheeses,
>while the others go further into the process of making aged cheeses.
>
>People researching this topic seem to have an innate desire to discover
>that their favorite modern cheese is found in period. Almost without
>exception, this doesn't appear to be the case. There are quite a few
>cases where period cheeses from, and named for, a given region, bear
>little resemblance to modern cheeses from the same area, with the same
>name.
>>

What we do know, however, is that similar cheeses do appear in period (sorry
to confuse). Anecdotal evidence suggests that strong cheese, mild cheese,
gooey cheese, dry cheese, poor quality cheese, high quality cheese, curds,
and Whig houses (where they sold the whey much like a coffee bar of today.
There's no accounting for tastes!) all were common. You probably will not
find colored cheeses, but you can find fancy-shaped cheeses and "similated"
cheese from almond milk.

And here is another post-period but probably accurate place to look (it's my
hobby, too): Lady Castlehill's Receipt Book: 1976, Molendinar Press, Glasgow
copyright Haymish Whyte. This is really a cook-book manuscript disguised as
a coffee table book. Some punctuation has been changed to make sense to a
modern non-sca reader. Otherwise, it's faithful. It is probably current with
the OOP Martha Washington, but gives a great recipe for slip-coat cheese.

Also try: Mrs. McClintock's Receipt book for cookery and Pastry work: Ed.
Isabail MacCloud, Scotland's first published cook book from the late 16th
early 17th century, and the stats are,going from memory: Edinburough
University Press, sometime in the 80's.

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to teach a cheese-making
class about three years ago in a kitchen that was a Jr. High teaching
kitchen....had the mirrors over the stove, etc. I was delighted to see the
reaction to the process of hardening the curds. The class actually gasped
when the curd seperated from the whey and I stuck my spoon into a pot of
what looked like milk and was actually a huge solid lump floating in a clear
liquid! It still makes me chuckle, thinking about it. That's Alchemy at it's
finest!

Aoife