The Complete Book of Cheese Part 5

The standard method for making American Cheddar was established in Herkimer County, New York, in 1841 and has been rigidly maintained down to this day. Made with rennet and a bacterial "starter," the curd is cut and pressed to squeeze out all of the whey and then aged in cylindrical forms for a year or more.

Herkimer leads the whole breed by being flaky, brittle, sharp and nutty, with a crumb that will crumble, and a soft, mouth-watering pale orange color when it is properly aged.

Isigny

Isigny is a native American cheese that came a cropper. It seems to be extinct now, and perhaps that is all to the good, for it never meant to be anything more than another Camembert, of which we have plenty of imitation.

Not long after the Civil War the attempt was made to perfect Isigny.

The curd was carefully prepared according to an original formula, washed and rubbed and set aside to come of age. But when it did, alas, it was more like Limburger than Camembert, and since good domestic Limburger was then a dime a pound, obviously it wouldn't pay off. Yet in shape the newborn resembled Camembert, although it was much larger.

So they cut it down and named it after the delicate French Creme d'lsigny.

Jack, California Jack and Monterey Jack

Jack was first known as Monterey cheese from the California county where it originated. Then it was called Jack for short, and only now takes its full name after sixty years of popularity on the West Coast.

Because it is little known in the East and has to be shipped so far, it commands the top Cheddar price.

Monterey Jack is a stirred curd Cheddar without any annatto coloring.

It is sweeter than most and milder when young, but it gets sharper with age and more expensive because of storage costs.

Liederkranz

No native American cheese has been so widely ballyhooed, and so deservedly, as Liederkranz, which translates "Wreath of Song."

Back in the gay, inventive nineties, Emil Frey, a young delicatessen keeper in New York, tried to please some bereft customers by making an imitation of Bismarck Schlosskase. This was imperative because the imported German cheese didn't stand up during the long sea trip and Emil's customers, mostly members of the famous Liederkranz singing society, didn't feel like singing without it. But Emil's attempts at imitation only added indigestion to their dejection, until one day--_fabelhaft!_ One of those cheese dream castles in Spain came true. He turned out a tawny, altogether golden, tangy and mellow little marvel that actually was an improvement on Bismarck's old Schlosskase. Better than Brick, it was a deodorized Limburger, both a man's cheese and one that cheese-conscious women adored.

Emil named it "Wreath of Song" for the Liederkranz customers. It soon became as internationally known as tabasco from Texas or Parisian Camembert which it slightly resembles. Borden's bought out Frey in 1929 and they enjoy telling the story of a G.I. who, to celebrate V-E Day in Paris, sent to his family in Indiana, only a few miles from the factory at Van Wert, Ohio, a whole case of what he had learned was "the finest cheese France could make." And when the family opened it, there was Liederkranz.

Another deserved distinction is that of being sandwiched in between two foreign immortals in the following recipe:

Schnitzelbank Pot

1 ripe Camembert cheese 1 Liederkranz 1/8 pound imported Roquefort 1/4 pound b.u.t.ter 1 tablespoon flour 1 cup cream 1/2 cup finely chopped olives 1/4 cup canned pimiento A sprinkling of cayenne

Depending on whether or not you like the edible rind of Camembert and Liederkranz, you can leave it on, sc.r.a.pe any thick part off, or remove it all. Mash the soft creams together with the Roquefort, b.u.t.ter and flour, using a silver fork. Put the mix into an enameled pan, for anything with a metal surface will turn the cheese black in cooking.

Stir in the cream and keep stirring until you have a smooth, creamy sauce. Strain through sieve or cheesecloth, and mix in the olives and pimiento thoroughly. Sprinkle well with cayenne and put into a pot to mellow for a few days, or much longer.

The name _Schnitzelbank_ comes from "school bench," a game. This snappy-sweet pot is specially suited to a beer party and stein songs.

It is also the affinity-spread with rye and pumpernickel, and may be served in small sandwiches or on crackers, celery and such, to make appetizing tidbits for c.o.c.ktails, tea, or cider.

Like the trinity of cheeses that make it, the mixture is eaten best at room temperature, when its flavor is fullest. If kept in the refrigerator, it should be taken out a couple of hours before serving.

Since it is a natural cheese mixture, which has gone through no process or doping with preservative, it will not keep more than two weeks. This mellow-sharp mix is the sort of ideal the factory processors shoot at with their olive-pimiento abominations. Once you've potted your own, you'll find it gives the same thrill as garnishing your own Liptauer.

Minnesota Blue

The discovery of sandstone caves in the bluffs along the Mississippi, in and near the Twin Cities of Minnesota, has established a distinctive type of Blue cheese named for the state. Although the Roquefort process of France is followed and the cheese is inoculated in the same way by mold from bread, it can never equal the genuine imported, marked with its red-sheep brand, because the milk used in Minnesota Blue is cow's milk, and the caves are sandstone instead of limestone. Yet this is an excellent, Blue cheese in its own right.

Pineapple

Pineapple cheese is named after its shape rather than its flavor, although there are rumors that some pineapple flavor is noticeable near the oiled rind. This flavor does not penetrate through to the Cheddar center. Many makers of processed cheese have tampered with the original, so today you can't be sure of anything except getting a smaller size every year or two, at a higher price. Originally six pounds, the Pineapple has shrunk to nearly six ounces. The proper bright-orange, oiled and sh.e.l.lacked surface is more apt to be a sickly lemon.

Always an ornamental cheese, it once stood in state on the side-board under a silver bell also made to represent a pineapple. You cut a top slice off the cheese, just as you would off the fruit, and there was a rose-colored, fine-tasting, mellow-hard cheese to spoon out with a special silver cheese spoon or scoop. Between meals the silver top was put on the silver holder and the oiled and sh.e.l.lacked rind kept the cheese moist. Even when the Pineapple was eaten down to the rind the sh.e.l.l served as a dunking bowl to fill with some salubrious cold Fondue or salad.

Made in the same manner as Cheddar with the curd cooked harder, Pineapple's distinction lies in being hung in a net that makes diamond-shaped corrugations on the surface, simulating the sections of the fruit. It is a pioneer American product with almost a century and a half of service since Lewis M. Norton conceived it in 1808 in Litchfield County, Connecticut. There in 1845 he built a factory and made a deserved fortune out of his decorative ingenuity with what before had been plain, unromantic yellow or store cheese.

Perhaps his inspiration came from cone-shaped Cheshire in old England, also called Pineapple cheese, combined with the hanging up of Provolones in Italy that leaves the looser pattern of the four sustaining strings.

Sage, Vermont Sage and Vermont State

The story of Sage cheese, or green cheese as it was called originally, shows the several phases most cheeses have gone through, from their simple, honest beginnings to commercialization, and sometimes back to the real thing.

The English _Encyclopedia of Practical Cookery_ has an early Sage recipe:

This is a species of cream cheese made by adding sage leaves and greening to the milk. A very good receipt for it is given thus: Bruise the tops of fresh young red sage leaves with an equal quant.i.ty of spinach leaves and squeeze out the juice. Add this to the extract of rennet and stir into the milk as much as your taste may deem sufficient. Break the curd when it comes, salt it, fill the vat high with it, press for a few hours, and then turn the cheese every day.

_Fancy Cheese in America, lay_ Charles A. Publow, records the commercialization of the cheese mentioned above, a century or two later, in 1910:

Sage cheese is another modified form of the Cheddar variety. Its distinguishing features are a mottled green color and a sage flavor. The usual method of manufacture is as follows: One-third of the total amount of milk is placed in a vat by itself and colored green by the addition of eight to twelve ounces of commercial sage color to each 1,000 pounds of milk. If green corn leaves (unavailable in England) or other substances are used for coloring, the amounts will vary accordingly. The milk is then made up by the regular Cheddar method, as is also the remaining two-thirds, in a separate vat. At the time of removing the whey the green and white curds are mixed. Some prefer, however, to mix the curds at the time of milling, as a more distinct color is secured. After milling, the sage extract flavoring is sprayed over the curd with an atomizer. The curd is then salted and pressed into the regular Cheddar shapes and sizes.

A very satisfactory Sage cheese is made at the New York State College of Agriculture by simply dropping green coloring, made from the leaves of corn and spinach, upon the curd, after milling. An even green mottling is thus easily secured without additional labor. Sage flavoring extract is sprayed over the curd by an atomizer. One-half ounce of flavoring is usually sufficient for a hundred pounds of curd and can be secured from dairy supply houses.

A modern cheese authority reported on the current (1953) method:

Instead of sage leaves, or tea prepared from them, at present the cheese is flavored with oil of Dalmatian wild sage because it has the sharpest flavor. This piny oil, thujone, is diluted with water, 250 parts to one, and either added to the milk or sprayed over the curds, one-eighth ounce for 500 quarts of milk.

In scouting around for a possible maker of the real thing today, we wrote to Vrest Orton of Vermont, and got this reply:

Sage cheese is one of the really indigenous and best native Vermont products. So far as I know, there is only one factory making it and that is my friend, George Crowley's. He makes a limited amount for my Vermont Country Store. It is the fine old-time full cream cheese, flavored with real sage.

On this hangs a tale. Some years ago I couldn't get enough sage cheese (we never can) so I asked a Wisconsin cheesemaker if he would make some. Said he would but couldn't at that time--because the alfalfa wasn't ripe. I said, "What in h.e.l.l has alfalfa got to do with sage cheese?" He said, "Well, we flavor the sage cheese with a synthetic sage flavor and then throw in some pieces of chopped-up alfalfa to make it look green."

So I said to h.e.l.l with that and the next time I saw George Crowley I told him the story and George said, "We don't use synthetic flavor, alfalfa or anything like that."

"Then what do you use, George?" I inquired.

"We use real sage."

"Why?"

"Well, because it's cheaper than that synthetic stuff."

The genuine Vermont Sage arrived. Here are our notes on it: