SC - Hatd Cheese Stefan (was Cressee webbed)

[Nanna Rognvaldardottir]

Stefan inquires: 
>>>>I think most of our yellow cheeses are artifically colored or at least
intentionally colored. Anyone out there who has actually made cheese
have any comments? So I would wonder if the period cook would have
had multi-colored cheese available unless he intentionally colored
it. And I would imagine if that were the case, it would have been
explicitly mentioned since it would be out of the norm. The recipe
is pretty explicit on coloring the noodles in two colors, for instance.

It may also be that we have been so conditioned by seeing brightly 
colored foods, due to the use of artifical colors, that we consider 
the more pastel shades not to be useful, whereas the medieval diner
may have been quite happy with them.<<<<

The colouring of cheese seems to have been a fairly
late Elizabethan practice.  Traditional "common cheese"
made on the farm for commons were largely low-fat, 
skimmed milk cheeses which were hard and crumbly.
The popularity of whole milk cheeses such as Cheddar
were called "rich cheeses" and were deep golden yellow.
In an attempt to match the appearance of these more 
expensive cheeses, a practice of colouring less rich
cheese with saffron arose to deceive the buyer and
get more for their simple skimmed-milk cheeses.  The 
modern colouring agent is a vegetable extract from the
fruit of a West Indian tree, Bixa orellana.  This was first
used in the mid-eighteenth century, first called "anatta",
but soon after became "anatto".  It is still in use today.
Some of the really orange cheeses like Leichester and
many Scottish cheddars are heavily coloured with it.

I doubt that cheeses were so coloured in medieval period
times as the colours were fairly naturally varied,  according
to regions, due to the type of cattle, sheep or goats being 
milked and the local composition of pasturage.  The common
Gurnsey and Jerseys we use in American dairy production
were not common on the contenient, even to this day.
The composition of the milk varies considerably with breeds
and what they consume.  Sometimes the microflora can
add colour as well as the method and length of aging.
The prohibitions against adulterations we see in medieval
law in fakery of metals, gems, pearls, etc. would lead me
to believe that colouring of cheese to fake a higher quality
product would not have been tolerated.  It was with the
rise of the middle classes at the end of the SCA periods 
that such fakery became widespread as they were content 
with the illusion of the quality of foods being consumed by 
the upper classes.  Much of medieval cheesemaking 
knowledge (and product) came out of the monastaries
which would not have coloured their cheeses either.

Such richly coloured cheeses were evident mostly where 
whole milk cheese or "cream" based cheese were produced.
The cheeses of northern (Scandinavian) countries are largely
whey cheeses and more often made with goat's milk (Gjeost,
Pultost, aka Ramost or Knaost) and are white or very pale
yellow for the most part.  Others are Prastost (Sweden
16th C.), Gotaost or Getost, Hushallsost (farmer cheese).
Finnish cheeses are unusual in their manufacture as they add
eggs (Ilves cheeses) or roasted or smoked whole cheeses.  
Most of these cheeses were only farm produced and are hard 
to find today.  Some cheeses of Denmark are unusual in that they
were made without rennet using the juice of insectivorous plants
like the sundew (drosera) but from my study more likely the
butterworts (pinguicula).  This has been long noted by Linnaeus
(Flora Lapponica, p. 10) and similarly by peasants in the Italian Alps
(Pfeffer, through Oppenheimer) .  This was known to the ancients
as Galium verum (Czapek).

Pinguicula vulgaris (tatort).....I wish I knew how to produce proper
dicritical marks on my keyboard.....makes an odd proto-cheese
known as Taettemaelk..... damn I can't even get an "ae" to work....
or "ropey milk" in Norway.  From this we get the name Tattegraes
"curdlegrass"  and Undslaeva Greas.  These plants were especially
effective on reindeer milk it seems.  Some sources also list the
Venus' flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) emzynes being used (but this 
is bullshit as this species ONLY occurs in the coastal Carolinas and
has only one species in the whole Genus).  The insectivorous
species of the sundew and butterwort range worldwide and have 
numerous species.  I have cultivated and studied these species 
for over 35 years and have alway been fascinated by them.

Anyway back to cheeses, as I have digressed rather far from the topic
at hand....I would love to hear from Nanna about Icelandic cheeses such
as Skyr (sounds yummy), Mysingur, and their version of the Norwegian 
Mysost.

Swiss cheeses (undyed) vary greatly in colour and taste with variations
of milk, altitude and curing processes too numerous to list.  Italian 
cheese tend towards hard white cheeses probably due to the hotter
conditions there.  These are the grated cheeses we find so popular
in Italian cookery.  I won't venture into the "blue" cheeses as these
are unique to themselves and deserve separate coverage (I also
abhor their tastes), though the white mold cheeses like brie and 
Camembert are delightful (but way past period).  Neufchatel however
dates way back into the medieval period (but not so tasty as brie).

This post only skims the surface (appropriate pun) of this topic and
I am sure you have reams of material already in your datafiles, Stefan,
on individual cheeses.  I am interested though in getting new comments
from our large number of list members from places where other than 
commonplace cheeses are available.  Supermakets carry a good variety
now but the .....prices..... are.... obscene.

Akim Yaroslavich
"No glory comes without pain"