[Sca-cooks] Thoughts on cheesemaking

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 22, 2006, at 9:20 AM, Christiane wrote:

> I was talking with my dad the other day about Sicilian food,  
> because we're going to Sicily in October. And we were talking about  
> cheeses, and he mentioned casually that his Uncle Tony made dried,  
> salted ricotta (ricotta salata).
>
> He simply boiled whey, added something to it to make it curdle  
> (rennet?) and then put the curds into a beehive-shaped wicker  
> basket lined with cheesecloth; he'd cover the basket with more  
> cheesecloth, and then put something heavy on the cloth to press the  
> curds. He'd leave it covered in the basement to age and dry.

I've made ricotta using both the old-fashioned-method, where it's a  
by-product of other cheesemaking and you don't get a very high yield,  
because you've already made mozarella (or whatever) with that milk,  
and the new method, which is higher-yield, because all you get from  
your milk is ricotta and whey. It almost sounds, from your  
description above, that you're describing some kind of fusion of the  
two methods, and I'm wondering if this is really how your Uncle Tony  
made ricotta. Of course, he was there and I wasn't, but my experience  
has been:

You bring milk to a given temperature and hold it for a while,  
basically to pasteurize/semi-sterilize, it, and then you may or may  
not want to innoculate the milk with a bacterial starter, like  
yogurt, buttermilk, or any of several others. At some point you add  
rennet or another coagulant, draw the whey off the curds and use them  
to make cheese. Once you have whey, you don't have to add any  
additional coagulants. You then take the whey and bring it back to a  
simmer or a low boil, at which point the remaining proteins begin to  
coagulate further into a slightly foamy raft of white curds (this is  
the second cooking -- re cocta -- from which "ricotta" takes its  
name). You skim these off the top and wait while more curds form on  
top, and skim them off again, until no more foam arises. The stuff  
you skimmed off and collected in a bowl or pot, is ricotta.

The more modern method involves adding rennet (and maybe a starter)  
to milk, and getting tiny, soft curds. It's close enough to the other  
stuff, and you get more of them, but no other cheese (I don't know,  
maybe you can boil the whey as in the method above). It's also faster.

>
> I flipped open my copy of "Pomp and Sustenance," and found a photo  
> of a dried, salted ricotta turned onto a plate. It held the shape  
> of the cheese-making basket beside it. And I realized I was looking  
> at a cheese like Uncle Tony used to make.
>
> I found this interesting quote about ricotta from a Clifford Wright  
> essay:
>
>    "Two of the earliest mentions or depictions of ricotta are  
> related to Sicily. Professor Santi Correnti, chairman of the  
> history department of the University of Catania and a preeminent  
> historian of Sicily, writes that during the reign of the Sicilian  
> king Frederick II, in the early thirteenth century, the king and  
> his hunting party came across the hut of a dairy farmer making  
> ricotta and, being ravenous, asked for some. Frederick pulled out  
> his bread loaf, poured the hot ricotta and whey on top and advised  
> his retinue that cu' non mancia ccu' so' cucchiaru lassa tutto 'o  
> zammataru (Those who don't eat with a spoon will leave all their  
> ricotta behind)."
>
> Now I want to make ricotta salata. Off to research where to find a  
> local purveyor of whey ...
>
> Gianotta

I suspect you might have an easier time finding a purveyor of  
milk... ;-)

Adamantius




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