A Riddle for Your Enjoyment

Four stiff standers,
Four dilly danders,
Two lookers,
two crookers,
And a wig-wag.

from: Origins of Rhymes, Songs and Sayings

Find the Answer Here

Information about Dairy Products

Milk
Butter
Curds and Whey
Rennet
Making Cheese
Make Butter and Cheese at Home!

Milk

When we milk our cow, the milk comes out white and looks a lot like store-bought milk. Our milk, however, has not been pasteurized or homogenized like modern store-bought milk. Pasteurization is a heating process that kills microorganisms in the milk. Homogenization mixes the fat into the milk so it does not separate out. When our milk is left to stand overnight, thick yellowish cream will rise to the surface of the milk. This cream is skimmed off and churned to make butter. The milk underneath is used to make cheese.

Cows in the eighteenth century did not produce much milk compared to modern cows. Our cows are Red Devons. Eighteenth-century breeds like Red Devons do not produce much milk even when they have lots of food to eat-- which was not always the case, as they had to forage for their own food in the woods. Only selective breeding has allowed modern varieties to produce up to 30 quarts of milk per day! Most cows in the 18th century gave about one quart (four cups) of milk each day. To preserve milk for later use, people made it into butter and cheese.

Butter

Butter is made from the cream that rises to the surface of the milk. We set the milk out in a wide, shallow pan over night. In the morning, the yellow cream can be skimmed off and put into our churn. We move the dasher up and down inside the churn, which mixes up the cream and eventually makes butter. Churning works best if done gently and continuously until the butter comes. This means that the butter forms into lumps and separates from a liquid left in the churn. We pour off this liquid, called buttermilk, and save it to drink. This is not usually sour like the cultured buttermilk that you can buy at the store for making biscuits or pancakes.

Next we wash the butter two or three times with clear, cold water. This washes away leftover buttermilk. Then we work the butter by stroking it with wooden spoons to force out any remaining liquid. If we don't wash and work it, the butter will not last as long. Then we sprinkle salt on the butter and mix them well together. The salt will help the butter keep longer without spoiling. The butter is now ready to pack into a stoneware jar for storage.

Curds and Whey

The curds and whey eaten by Miss Muffet before her unfortunate encounter with the spider are the simplest form of cheese. The cottage cheese we eat today is similar to curds and whey.

If you simply let fresh, unpasteurized milk sit for a day or two at room temperature, you will get the beginnings of very simple cheese. The bacteria found in the milk will cause it to clabber or curdle, which means that it is thickened and somewhat sour tasting. The clabbered milk can be cut into pieces, which shrink and float in a thin liquid. The thick pieces are called curds and the liquid is called whey. This is different from what happens to the store-bought milk that gets forgotten in the back of your fridge and ends up all lumpy and bad-smelling. That is spoiled milk. You cannot make true clabbered milk from store-bought, pasteurized milk. During pasteurization, the clabbering bacteria are killed along with the harmful bacteria.

Rennet

To make cheese in a quicker and more reliable way, people use rennet to curdle milk. Rennet can be obtained from the stomach of a calf. Many eighteenth-century cookbooks include recipes for making rennet bags out of calf stomachs. Our farm family cannot afford to slaughter our calves for rennet. Luckily, nature provides us with an alternative form of rennet. Several plants, including sorrel, nettles and lady's bedstraw can be used to curdle milk. The farm family here usually boils the herb lady's bedstraw in water and then uses a small amount of the resulting liquid to curdle a pail of milk.

Making Cheese

There are several ways of making cheese. One way is to mix milk with some clabbered milk. We warm the mixture until it feels slightly warm when dribbled on the wrist, which is called blood warm. Then we add the rennet and let the cheese sit in a warm place, totally undisturbed, for about an hour. A curd will form, and when it breaks cleanly over our fingers, we know it is ready for cutting. We then cut the curd into equally-sized cubes, and we stir them well by hand. Then we heat the curds gently, stirring them every once in a while. The curds will shrink, bleed whey, and become firm. We know they are ready when we bite one and it squeaks! Next we will drain the curds through cheesecloth and salt them. We have soft cheese!

You Can Make Butter and Cheese at Home!

To Make Butter:

You need:

• Heavy whipping cream from the grocery store
• Glass jar with tight-fitting lid

Pour the cream into the glass jar and screw the lid on tightly. Shake the jar back and forth at a steady pace. After a while, the cream will separate into butter and buttermilk. You will know they have separated when you can see chunks of butter floating in the buttermilk. (It helps to have more than one person for this, as it is tiring to keep shaking the jar!)

Take out the pieces of butter and wash them (squish around with a spoon) in several rinses of clean, fresh water until the water stays clear; this is how you know all the buttermilk is washed out. Pack the butter in a container and store it in the refrigerator. Or, if you would like to preserve it 18th century-style, mix in about a spoonful of salt to every 2 cups of butter. If you will be storing it for a long time, mix in a lot of salt-- just remember to wash the salt out before you use the butter!

Pour the buttermilk through cheesecloth or a strainer to take out all the remaining particles of butter. You can store the buttermilk in the refrigerator for a few days to use in cooking.

To Make Cheese:

You need:

• 2% milk from the grocery store
  
• 1 T. vinegar or lemon juice
  
• a non-reactive pan (like stainless steel)
  
• a piece of clean, loosely-woven cloth

Pour the milk into the pan and heat it slowly over a stove until it is almost at the boiling point.

Turn off the heat, and pour in about a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice. Stir the mixture a few times, then let it sit undisturbed for a while--at least an hour. The milk will curdle, with chunks forming at the top and the liquid settling to the bottom.

When it looks like it is finished curdling (about an hour), pour the mixture through a cloth. The chunks (curds) will be caught in the cloth while the liquid (whey) drains through.

Tie the cloth closed, and let the bag hang somewhere until it is finished dripping. You now have soft cheese! You can eat it immediately, or store it in the refrigerator for a few days.

For additional helpful information and supplies, try the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company at www.cheesemaking.com

Answer to the Riddle: a cow