cheese-msg – 10/21/14

Medieval cheese. Recipes. Cheeses which date from medieval times.

NOTE: See also the files: dairy-prod-msg, Cheese-Making-art, cheesemaking-msg, Charles-Chees-art, cheesecake-msg, cheese-goo-msg, clotted-cream-msg.

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This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I  have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

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Thank you,
    Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous
                                          Stefan at florilegium.org
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From: winifred at trillium.soe.umich.EDU (Lee Katman)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: forwarding recipe
Date: 18 Apr 1993 19:18:58 -0400

here is the recipe I was trying to forward a few days ago. 
Let’s hope this different editor does the trick for me....

Winifred                                  Lee Katman
Winifred at trillium.soe.umich.edu           Cynnabar, Midrealm
-------
Greetings from one who is new to the net and the SCA, but not to medieval
cooking:

I have a very good book of recipes called "Fabulous Feasts" by Madeleine
Pelner Cosman which covers what was eaten, how it was presented and what
what was available.  Definitely two thumbs up!  This book has a whole
section on Appetizers.

One that is very easy and fits your requirements is Brie Cheese with honey
and mustard, which consists pretty much that.  Cut the cheese into small
pieces and dolup a little mustard (I prefer mustards with the seeds uncrushed)
and a little bit of honey on top.  Even if this dish gets a little warm it
just softens the cheese.

Victoria Williams Cauldwell
vaw at lclark.sun.edu          

From: jtn at nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: feast formats
Date: 9 Nov 1993 18:39:19 GMT

Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.

Avwye writes,

>	FYI Jeff Smith's _The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines_ is
>not a bad source for modern Greek and Roman foods.  I've made a few Greek
>students less homesick....I've also used it to compare medieval recipes
>against, for things like amounts and cooking times. AND, he recommends Apicus
>in his bibliography. (I believe there are some modern adaptations --not weird,
>just using modern measures, etc.--in the collection, too.)

This is all true.  You should, however, be aware that he's a dreadful source
on period or ancient cookery.  It is one thing to have Apicius in your 
bibliography; it's another thing to write a book that reflects serious
scholarship either in its text or in its recipes.  Smith's book does the
first, but not the second.  -- But it is all good eating.

>	Earlier this thread was exploring the use of cheese in "period" feasts
>served at events.  My plea to cooks: please do not use cheese as a filler in
>every single dish you serve. Some of us can't digest it, and even with the
>lactose supplements our ability to digest dairy products is limited. Nothing

_Nothing_ should be used in every single dish!  Apart from the objection
above, that there are probably people who can't eat it, anything you care
to name (except maybe salt) is going to get seriously old with that much
repetition.

And it isn't period ;^).  Despite complaints to the contrary, the figures
I've been putting together show that even salt isn't that common.

>      And when you do use cheese, please do not use
>American cheddar!  Cheese may be period, but the cheddar variety is not!

Most currently existing named varieties of cheese are post period; the
name generally derives from issues including the specific species of
critters that help make the stuff cheese, which are usually modern.
There are a few exceptions, brie being one of the better known.  Another,
as I recall (but I don't have the information at home), is double gloucester.
You can get it, but at least here, it's killingly expensive.  Cheddar is
actually not a bad substitute -- probably as similar to their hard cheese
are our chickens are to their chickens, or our eggs to their eggs.

Then again, they ate cheeses; that's a plural.  If you're going to push
a lot of cheese at people, it's only sensible to include some variety.

Cheers,
-- Angharad/Terry

From: jtn at nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Cheese questions
Date: 25 Nov 1993 04:59:30 GMT

Greetings, all, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.

Fiammetta Adalieta writes,
>Mistress Angharad, thank you and again thank you for your postings, 

You are most welcome; though I'm not a mistress (wife, yes ;^).

>In the article on Ember day tarts, Angharad mentioned that cheddar and
>munster cheeses (if I remember correctly) are not period.  I was wondering
>what sort of cheeses are, and how we know. 

I looked this stuff up several years back, and came to the conclusion that
there are several lines believed to go back to period, but that I couldn't 
readily find out why they believed them unchanged.  The period or very close
cheeses that I recall offhand still in use today are cream cheese, cottage 
cheese (but fresh, not aged), brie, and double gloucester.

Cheers,
-- Angharad/Terry

From: kellogg at rohan.sdsu.edu (kellogg)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Period soft cheeses (was: Re: Is cheesecake period?)
Date: 22 Oct 1996 17:12:26 GMT
Organization: San Diego State University Computing Services

Monica Cellio (mjc at telerama.lm.com) wrote:
(attribution lost) wrote:

: >Is cheesecake period? If so, when and where?

: Cheese pies of various sorts are period, but not as sweets.  The closest
: thing I know of to dessert-grade cheese pies is from Digby (1669).  The
: closest approximation for the cheese is probably ricotta or farmer's cheese.
: Cream cheese is modern.

        This thread aroused my curiousity, so I did some fairly extensive
web searches.  Cream cheese does seem to be an American original.

        Most cheese websites claim a great antiquity for cottage cheese,
unfortunately without any references.  The one soft cheese that I seem to
have found a solid period reference to is ricotta.
The Sugarplums...All About Cheese site at <URL: http://www.sugarplums.com/
fieryfeature/c.html> shows a print of a painting entitled "The Ricotta
Eaters" by one Vincenzo Campi, who is listed as having lived between
1525 and 1591.

        Anyone know anything else about this painting or artist?

                Avenel Kellough 

From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at postoffice.ptd.net>
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 07:11:23 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #78

About farmers cheese:  What I can buy commercially that is called
Farmer's Cheese is nothing more than what is called "Green Cheese" or
unripened, pressed curds in our historical time frame. If you break it apart
in your fingers you can clearly see that a large curd was allowed to form.
It was salted, pressed (whey removed to make it more solid) and then sliced
into a brick, wrapped, and sold as farmer's cheese. These cheeses are
probably the closest to what we can buy that is similar to what most period
recipes for "cheese tarts" are made of, if somewhat drier. The cheese tartes
or pies in my experience were supposed to be lumpy, although you can see
that this cheese breaks apart very easily. I make my own curds with milk
from Jersey cows. It is far, far superior.

        Now, what I grew up calling Farmer's cheese is something different.
We also called it Cup Cheese, and was in essence a strong smelling liquid
cheese sold in cups or tubs (no rind visible), and roughly had the
consistency of that children's play thing, Slime, although it was clear- to
faint yellow. (PLEASE, no jokes about bodily excreta). It's a Pennsylvania
Dutch (Or Amish) delicacy, and deservedly so if you like stinky cheese.
Anyone from Lancaster, PA out there who could get me a recipe would be
rewarded with my undying thanks!

      I would appreciate a private e-mail or post of the cheese goo recipe.
I have been waivering for months now over fresh cheese with fine herbs or
"savory toasted cheese" (not my recipe--the brie version, but I havn't
gotten my hands on the recipe yet) for a feast. I much prefer my own
cheeses, because they're richer and have far more character and flavor than
bought cheese. Must be the unpasteurized, fresh Jersey Cow milk, cream and all. 

Aoife 

From: Stephen Bloch <sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu>
Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997 14:20:21 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks: viking's pies

Allison wrote:
> Norse Pies, from the James Prescott translation
> 
> Take  cooked meat chopped very small, pine nut paste, currants, harvest
> cheese crumbled very small, a bit of sugar and a little salt.
> 
> That's the entire recipe.  Is it Norse, you Vikings out there?
> 
> I usually use farmer's cheese when harvest cheese is called for, but I'm
> now wondering if that's the wrong assumption.  Cheeses were made in late
> Spring, after the  calves/kids/lambs/??? were weaned, and you had some
> rennet from a calf stomach handy.  By Autumn, how much would such a
> cheese ripen?  Enough to crumble? ...

I'm not a cheese expert -- I'm sure Gideanus will have something to say
on this -- but the last time we made Norse Pies, we used Roquefort, a
more-or-less wild guess based on the words "crumbled" and "rich" (which
apparently doesn't appear in the Prescott translation).  I'm not fond of
blue cheeses, but it worked pretty well.

					mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
                                                 Stephen Bloch
                                           sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu
					 http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/
                                        Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University

From: Uduido at aol.com
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 10:47:13 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Yolks vs whites

<< the
 cheesecake called sambucade in the Forme of Cury uses egg whites and a
 curd cheese, which could easily be of the low-fat variety. >>

If you do "substitute" low or non-fat cheeses in a recipe, please experiment
ahead of time. The melting/cooking consistencies of several of these products
are granular rather than meted and creamy after heating.

Lord Ras

From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 14:55:32 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Yolks vs whites

  If you do "substitute" low or non-fat cheesesw in a recipe, please experiment
  ahead of time. The melting/cooking consistencies of several of these products
  are granular rather than meted and creamy after heating.

Indeed. In fact, I have found that very few of them work.

Consider, for example, that fat free cream cheeses tend to "air harden" when
left out.  They dry into a rather unattractive plastic flake.  Still just as
tasty, but really yucky looking.  (For a fast example, pour some honey on a
piece of bread that was covered in fat free cream cheese... and it will
obligingly dessicate in front of your eyes.)

	Tibor

From: JTRbear at aol.com
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 21:10:33 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Yolks vs whites

Tillamook makes a reduced fat cheddar that works fine in chees sauces and
melts pretty well straight.

Jean-Philipe Lours

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 21:48:15 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - Cheese recipes

Kerridwen wrote:
> I am looking for a starting place for recipes for period cheeses.  I am
> willing to do the research but would appreciate a nudge in the right
> direction.

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think you'll find very many recipes for
making cheeses in sources considered classically period, unless they're
non-English sources I haven't seen translated yet, which is possible.
There are a few recipes for things like chinches, junket, and lait larde
which are for various curd foods or "whitmeats" in the 14th-15th-century
English repertoire (ex. The Forme of Cury, etc.). One of the problems
you'll encounter is that cheeses either tended to be made on small farms
by presumably illiterate farmers, or at monasteries whose records became
sparse after their dissolution in the 15th century or so. Detailed
descriptions of the cheesemaking process just don't seem to proliferate.

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.

Good sources for information on ancient-vs.-modern cheese are C. Anne
Wilson's "Food and Drink in Britain", and, Heaven help me for saying so,
the Larousse Gastronomique, which, as I have frequently said, is pretty
much reliable only where French foods are concerned.      
 
G. Tacitus Adamantius

From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at postoffice.ptd.net>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 07:16:35 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #135

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  

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 10:20:07 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #135

Aoife wrote back at me, who'd previously pontificated:

> 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.

Yuppo! Cheese is cheese, and each has some variant on the qualities
other cheeses have, so this isn't surprising. True that anecdotal
evidence indicates that there were cheeses coated with mold or a dry
rind, etc. My point was only that just because a recipe calls for Brie,
it doesn't necessarily follow that modern runny Brie with a white rind
is what is being referred to. I remember reading that Roquefort, for
example, is perfectly well-known in period France. The catch is that  it
had no blue veins, but, if I remember the statement correctly, had a
moldy white rind like the modern Brie or Camembert. It may be that some
local dairy person picked an opportune (or inopportune, depending on
your POV) moment to scald the wooden equipment, killing the "official"
Roquefort mold, leaving room for the little penicillium buggers we know
and love today to proliferate and become the new "official" mold.

Adamantius

From: nweders at mail.utexas.edu (ND Wederstrandt)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 08:06:26 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: SC - Soap

Just taking the Good Huswife's Jewel back to the library so I have it with me:

To make good sope.
<snip>

Also is the tidbit to make cheese yellow you must add Saffron.

Clare R. St. John

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 11:19:58 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - coloring cheese?

ND Wederstrandt wrote:
> I didn't think so either... I mean I knew they colored cheese but didn't
> know everything they used... when I pulled the sope recipe this morning
> from Good Huswife's Jewel(1596) I saw the note on a different page stuck in
> the middle of how to preserve apples and what makes a good pig.  It makes
> sense since vast quantities of saffron were grown around Saffron-on-Waldon
> (hence the name)  I make soft cheese so next time I make some I'm going to
> try it.  I haven't tried marigolds either but will try a batch with that as
> coloring. Does anyone else know what coloring agents were used?
> 
> Clare St. John

Well, various green leaves, primarily sage and parsley, are known to
have added both flavor and color to soft cheeses eaten fairly fresh.
This may have arisen as a side effect of using herbs to curdle the milk
(sage and nettle tops seem to be the standard).  Markham (Again! Oy!
[Slaps forehead]) calls for saffron to be added to the peculiar mixture
he says should be used to "run" your milk into curds. Another thing to
consider is that for aged cheeses, they tend to become fairly
yellowish-brown as they become drier, with the ratio of fat to total
mass becoming higher.

Adamantius

From: Gretchen M Beck <grm+ at andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Wed,  4 Jun 1997 12:50:32 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Cheese recipes

There is a very early period cheese recipe in Lucius Junius Modratus
Columella, On Agriculture, book VII, section VIII. My impression is that
this was written sometime after the Caesars but sometime before the fall
of Rome--I may be wrong on this, and it may be earlier.  According to
the Pittcat (University of Pittsburgh Library), ol' Lucius had an
Italian translator in the 15th C, as well as a German one.

toodles, margaret 

From: jodi_smith at juno.com (Jodi N Smith)
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 17:50:35 EDT
Subject: Re: Fwd: SC - Goat Cheese

I have entered goat-milk cheese in Arts & Sciences competitions, with
good results.  My documentation for the use of goats in making cheese
comes from:

Larousse Gastronomique, by Prosper Montagne (translated by Nina Froud and
a bunch of other people), Crown Publishers, New York 1961

Food in History, by Reay Tannahill, Stein & Day, New York 1973

It also seems like several of the books about all the various kinds of
cheeses have chapters on the history of cheeses, and sometimes the
history of particular varieties of cheese.

Good Luck!
Mistress Drahomira, Unser Hafen, Outlands

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 07:38:29 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - Goat Cheese

Sharon L. Harrett wrote:
> Does anyone have documentation for goats' milk cheese in period? I have some
> secondary for Classical Greece and Rome, but that's not enough. I seem to
> remember seeing an article on the history of cheeses in a magazine (possibly
> Food &Wine) but can't find it. I have a friens who raises goats and makes
> wonderful cheese, and she would like to enter it in Art-Sci, but can't find
> anything reliable for dates and places. Help please?

There are pretty detailed instructions for making sheep's and
goat's-milk cheeses in Columella's book on husbandry (De Rustica?) which
is 1st-2nd century C.E., and they are referred to in the various
Tacuinum Sanitatis manuscripts, which are 14th century. The process is
not described in the medieval manuscripts, but Columella's process is
still more or less what is used today, and it is reasonable to assume
the same thing was done in the middle ages.

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 11:08:42 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Culinary A&S Entries

Mark Harris wrote:
> I'd be interested in hearing more about the dry, smoked sausage and the
> cheese. Did you make these from the raw materials? recipes?

The sausage was as close as I could get to the Polonian Sawsedge in Sir
Hugh Plat's "Delighted for Ladies" (c. 1609), made following the recipe
pretty closely. It is, in fact, a kielbasa. As for the cheese, it was an
English Slipcote, so called because it is a pretty soft cheese inside a
rind of the dried outermost layer, rather than a mold coating. You can
give it a squeeze, and the coat slips off. Recipes for this are found in
numerous sources, ranging from the Penn Family receipt book to Kenelm
Digby to Martha Washington's Cookery Book.

I neither slaughtered the hog nor milked the cow, but otherwise did my
best ;  ).

> I don't remember the article, but I will be trying to find it in my not
> very well organised TIs, so you can tell me just to go there. But I would
> like to hear any elaborations or corrections.

Apart from the omission of a good chunk of the notes and bibliography
(the article was pretty long, are you surprised ;  ) ?  ), there isn't
too much I would add if I were to write it over again. You can find it
on the Web, now that I think of it, on the Ostgardrian Web pages at:

http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/sca/cooking/ppb.html 

Adamantius

From: marilyn traber <margali at 99main.com>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: butter in period?
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 12:48:41 -0400

XSimmons wrote:
> Know what you can make from all that skimmed milk, after you've
> separated off the cream?  Cottage cheese!  ("Yum, yum," cried all the
> dieters.)
>
> Just for grins, cottage cheese is also period.  Curds [14c] and whey
> [before 12c] (solids and liquid) form in the cheese-making process,
> which generally involves enzymes from a calf's stomach.  (Still like
> rennet custard, regardless of the origin of the rennet!)
>
> Curds are rich in casein, a protein that also helped make milk-paint
> work (and is now used in making plastics.) Whey is high in lactose,
> vitamins, and minerals, and contains some fat.  Perhaps that is why
> curds and whey are mentioned as food for children.  (Imagine having
> cottage cheese for breakfast, instead of "frosty choco-nut sugar
> crunch
> bomb" cereals!)
>
> Ly Meara al-Isfahani (who likes her curds and whey with cinnamon and
> honey)

   I got into cheesemaking not because I recreate stuff, but I grew up
near a cheese factory and grew up eating chese curds-not in the form of
cottge cheese, but in the form of pre cheese. In the cheddaraing
process[and other forms of solid cheese] the curds forming the cheese
are drained and compressed. You can actually do this with cottage cheese
of you know what you are doing. Curds like this are essentially
unripened uncompressed "green" cheddar. A "green" cheese isnt
necessarily a green colored cheese, but the compressed cake of cheese
that the "grain" pattern of the curds is still visible. The medievals
would also batter and fry these curds sort of like our mozzarella
sticks. Well, I have the taste for curds, and make them just for the
"precheese" With the whey left over after the curds precipitate out, you
make a condenses whey spread by gently heating the whey til almost all
of the water is gone, and you have a rich velvety lightly carmel colored
goo that is high in vitamins.

margali

Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:46:11 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #262

ND Wederstrandt wrote:
> I was at the wonderful Central Market and found some cheese with Nettles in
> it.  I was tempted to get it to try but didn't have enough cash.  I also
> read that nettles can be used for cheesemaking as well as being a fiber and
> dye plant.  The Vikings were very adept at using it.
> 
> Clare St. John

Yep. Especially after they invaded Scotland and Ireland...

Actually, though, there are recipes for nettle cheese in Columella,
Markham, and Digby (howzzat for a law firm?), I believe.

Adamantius

Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 12:43:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Re- SC - Hierarchy-Cathe

I love a coincidence! This is from the "barely-1-day-old" letter from Laurel
Queen of Arms.

	Tibor

From the section on accepted arms:

Michael Houlihan. Badge. Vert, a wedge of Emmental cheese reversed Or.

<Snip> 
    Emmental is the correct name for what
    is sold as Swiss cheese in the United States.  It is a period
    cheese, which was sold in wheels and blocks.  

Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 15:05:04 -0500
From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at ptd.net>
Subject: SC - oat recipe

<snip>

While these are not documented recipes, Cheese and other food was potted in
late period, and oatcakes are so simple to make that I am unaware of an
historical example of their recipe, although I have read accounts of their
existence.

Oatcakes, Potted Stilton   adapted from Farmhouse Cookery...Recipes from the
Country kitchen, Reader's Digest, London 1980.

<snip>

Potted Stilton (or any other strong flavored cheese):

1 lb. mellow Stilton or other cheese, crumbled or grated
4 oz butter, unsalted, at room temp.
1/2 tsp mace
1 tsp grainy prepared mustard
clarified butter
Combine all the ingredients together except the clarified butter and mash
very well to incorporate. pack tightly into a crock and seal with clarified
butter. if desired, decorate the surface with carrot flowers, herb leaves,
etc.. and pour on another fine layer of clarified butter to seal. Chill.
Serve cold, with oatcakes.

And that, folks, is what makes Oats an Artform.

Aoife

Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 20:02:06 -0500
From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at ptd.net>
Subject: SC - Fromage Bleau

>Ill have to find my reference books, but essentially, the varietys of
>cheese relate to the local products, if memory serves-cheddar comes from
>cheddar, meunster comes from meunster, parmigian from parma, you get the
>drift. I do know that the blue mold in blue cheese is proprietary to
>that one cavey section of france, and unless it comes from there, it is
>only 'blue cheese'.
>
>margali

Actually, the blue culture in Roquefort is made from moldy bread crumbs that
the curds are sifted through prior to being packed in the vate.

Aoife

Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 10:36:02 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Cheddar

James and/or Nancy Gilly wrote:
> It's been said several times on this list that cheddar cheese is not period,
> because the cheddaring process wasn't invented until (I think) the 1700s.
> What precisely is cheddaring?
> 
> Alasdair mac Iain

Hmmm. This is a tough one.

The problem is that the process that cheddaring actually is, is
different, and apparently older than, the processes that are sometimes
_called_ cheddaring. Confused yet?

All right. Cheddaring _is_  a process, which may or may not (with
emphasis on the "not") have been developed in Cheddar, Somersetshire,
England, of taking coagulated milk, allowing the mass to settle under
the whey, with the aid of heat, cutting the firmed mass into blocks, and
stacking them up on each other, allowing gravity to compress them for
anywhere from a few minutes to two hours. This alters the casein
filament structure, resulting in a change of the mass from a stack of
blocks of "jellied" milk, to a stack of horizontal layers of long
fibers, which can be shredded like mozzarella or "string" cheese. That
is cheddaring. The stack is then ground in a mill into small grains
called curds. Yes, I know we had curds, technically, quite a while ago,
but what the hey...anyway, these curds are then made into cheese using
various arcane techniques that I won't go into now.

Another process that is sometimes, erroneously, referred to as
cheddaring, is the production of Cheddar cheese using curds collected
from a commune of different small dairy farms, which results in a very
consistent and rather abundant (in Cheddar terms) product, without the
variations from year to year that are commonly associated with wine
production, but which are also part of the whole cheese thing. That
process is believed to have originated in late 18th-, early 19th-century
America.

Also, cheddar is an early English example of a "cooked" cheese, where
the coagulated milk, or the separated or cut curds are slowly warmed in
their whey, to firm them up. The cheese recipes in, say, Kenelm Digby,
don't include this process. Digby, by the way, refers to Cheshire, which
is somewhat similar to Cheddar, and which also usually calls for the
cooking process mentioned above. The question remains whether the
Cheshire Digby refers to bears much resemblance to modern Cheshire, and
whether it was cooked. As for Cheddar, cheese have been made there for
_quite_ a long time, but it isn't clear how much pre-nineteenth century
Cheddar cheese resembled the cheeses made in Cheddar (and several other
places) today.

It's a pretty safe bet that the deep yellow or orange cheddar found in
the USA isn't very close to a period cheese that might have been made in
Cheddar. There might be a coincidental similarity in flavor, but the
color and the texture would be quite different.

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 14:47:11 -0400
From: renfrow at skylands.net (Cindy Renfrow)
Subject: Re: SC - Problems of Thought....

Cheddar cheese *is* period, & I don't know where folks have gotten the 
idea that it isn't.

"Cheddar, parish Sedgemoor district, county of Somerset, England...Cheddar
cheese was first made there at or before the beginning of the 12th century
and was aged in caves nearby... Cheddar is one of England's oldest cheeses.
The original, so-called farmhouse variety remains in limited production in
modern times.
In the traditional method of cheddar manufacture, the firm curd is cut, or
"cheddared," into small bits to drain the whey and then pressed firmly into
cylinders...The cheese, a light orange-yellow in colour, is wrapped in thin
muslin and coated with wax.  It is aged a minimum of three to six months,
preferably one and one-half to two years..."  Encyc. Brit.

The cottage industry of producing Cheddar cheese arose in the 16th century,
and spread to N. America in the late 1700s.

Cindy/Sincgiefu
(who'd gladly walk a mile through the snow for a pound of aged Vermont
sharp cheddar)
renfrow at skylands.net
http://www.alcasoft.com/renfrow/

Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 15:43:59 -0600
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - sources

>I am interested in doing research on period cheese making and dairying.
>Does anyone have reccomendations for period sources about this. I am
>looking for recipies, if possible, but anything would be interesting.
>I have a copy of Menaigier de Paris, what others should I see?
>Thank you!!!
>Emmanuelle of Chenonceaux

Here is a web site that just came to my attention. It is on Scottish
cheesemaking.

http://www.efr.hw.ac.uk/SDA/cheese1.html

Bear

Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 11:11:54 -0000
From: "Yeldham, Caroline S" <csy20688 at GlaxoWellcome.co.uk>
Subject: RE: SC - herb cheese

> I am interested in herb cheeses. I know that in Apicius there are a
> couple of recipes that list herbs and other ingredients to mix with fresh
> cheese before serving. However, I haven't found anything in later period
> books. Has anyone seen any period cook books that talk about flavoring
> cheeses with herbs?
>
> Clarissa

C Anne Wilson, in 'Food and Drink in Britain' talks about spermsye cheeses,
flavoured with herb juices, and I'd love more information on this, if anyone
can help.

BTW I had a look in Stefan's Floregium in the cheese sections, and noticed
there was no mention of the 'crumbly' cheeses which are common here in the
UK, such as Wensleydale, Lancashire and Cheshire cheeses.  As 'cheddared'
cheeses are OOP for me, these are the type I use commonly as replacements.
They are keeping cheeses, but have a soft, crumbly texture closer to curd
texture, usually white in colour.  Double Gloucester is much closer to
cheddar in texture than these cheese (and I speak as someone from
Gloucester!).  I'm puzzled about this, don't you have them in the States?

Caroline

Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1998 11:14:54 -0500
From: maddie teller-kook <meadhbh at io.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Tastes of Britain Class Notes

Christine A Seelye-King wrote:
>        Samit - Curds with Garlic - Early Period, "A Celtic Feast".
> Large curd cottage cheese was drained, and then mixed with butter, sour
> cream, garlic, and chervil.  Used as a spread on Rye Bread. Very yummy
> (and I hate cottage cheese), kind of a lumpy cheese spread.

I love this recipe.  I usually make it with farmers cheese which has a small
curd and doesn't need to be drained.. and the results are wonderful... you might
want to try it.
Also, have done this with a homemade fresh curd cheese with great results.

Meadhbh

Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 09:13:46 -0500
From: Brian Songy <bxs3829 at usl.edu>
Subject: SC - cheese

I've lurked here for several months on the sca-cooks list, not out of
shyness, but out of a feeling that I had little to contribute - - I'm very
new to the SCA.  But this week, I decided that I would put forth a best
effort to come-up with something of interest, even if it was based upon
secondary sources (like the internet).  Therefore I present, for your
entertainment, criticism, amusement and use the following chart of cheeses:

Type of Cheese          Date of Earliest Reference              Reference
Feta                    {1184BC}                                [1]
Sbrinz                  "...Roman times..."                     [6]
Romano                  "...since the time of Christ..."        [6]
Cantal                  "...to the time of the Gauls..."        [6]
Munster                 8th Century                             [6]
Gorgonzola              879AD/11th century                      [1], [6]
Roquefort               1070AD/"was the favorite cheese         [1], [6]
                        of Charlemagne and King Charles VI"
Wensleydale             {1150AD}                                [4]
Grana                   1200AD/13th Century                     [1], [6]
Fontina                 13th Century; "favorite of the          [6]
                                Duke of Savoy"
Beaufort                {1267AD}                                [2]
Emmental(aka "Swiss")   {1267AD}                                [2]
Comte                   {1267AD}                                [2]
Cheddar                 1500AD                                  [1]
Parmesan                1579AD/{1200AD-1300AD}                  [1], [3]
Gouda                   1697AD                                  [1]
Gloucester              1697AD                                  [1]
Stilton                 1785AD                                  [1]
Camembert               1791AD                                  [1], [5]

{} signifies I consider that the date is dubious.
/  two dates reported

Sources:
[1] http://www.efr.hw.ac.uk/SDA/book1.html
[2] http://www.franceway.com/cheese/history.htm
[3] http://www.parmigiano-reggiano.it/estoria.htm
[4] http://www.wensleydale-creamery.co.uk/history.htm
[5] http://www.camembert-country.com/cwp/cam_hise.htm and
http://www.cheese-gourmet.com/
[6] http://wgx.com/cheesenet/wci/

Brian of Trollfen
Bxs3829 at usl.edu

Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 09:42:09 -0500
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: SC - RE: cheese

You might wish to add:

Cheshire           54BC  "Julius Caesar discovers the Britons making..."
Gruyere            1722   "introduced into France"

Referenced in Trager, James, The Food Chronology.

You can also add Trager to the references for Camembert and Roquefort.

The dates look reasonably accurate from a couple minor forays into cheese
history, but I would consider them working dates, subject to change when
confronted with better evidence.  I'll tuck your list into the notebook for
future reference.

Bear

Subject: Brie cheese
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 23:30:11
From: Lady Lisette <starkiller at picknowl.com.au>
To: stefan at texas.net

Phew! It took a while, but I finally dug out the documentation for Brie in
period. The source, is of all places, the "Family Circle Recipe
Encyclopedia", Editor Susan Tomnay, Murdoch Books, North Sydney Australia,
1995. Here is the quote.

"BRIE A soft creamy-yellow whole cow's milk cheese with a thin, white
edible skin. It is aged from the outside in by moulds and bacteria that
grow on the rind. Brie is made in a large flat wheel shape and is cut into
wedges for serving. The cheese has been made since the 8th century when
Charlemagne ate it at the priory of Reuil-en-Brie and pronounced it 'one of
the most marvelous of foods.'" pg58.

Lydie

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 12:37:04 EST
From: LrdRas at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Cheese chart?

Don't forget to add Ricotta which is described in Platina.

Ras

Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 10:25:08 SAST-2
From: "Ian van Tets" <ivantets at botzoo.uct.ac.za>
Subject: SC - brie

Dee, if you liked baked brie, I wonder if you would like losyns?

Fomre of Cury #88:
Take good broth and do it in an erthen pot.  Take flour of payndemayn
and make therof past with water, and make therof thynne foyles as
paper with a roller, drye it harde and seeth it in broth.  Take
cheese ruayn grated and lay it in disshes with powdour douce, and lay
theron loseyns isode as hoole as thou myght, and above powdour and
chese;  and so twyse or thryse, and serue it forth.

I got this out of Maggie Black's book too (this was the first one
that made me think all might not be well with her redactions).  She
states at the front of one of her other books that cheese ruayn
(rewain, etc.) is brie (substantiation, anyone??) but somehow ignores
that for this recipe.  Doubtless if you don't have your own pet
recipe for powder douce dozens of people on the list will oblige.

Cairistiona

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 14:10:56 -0500
From: Marilyn Traber <margali at 99main.com>
Subject: Re: SC - salted cheese?

> Fish and ham I understand, but cheese?  I realize salt is used in making
> cheese, but the impression I get from this is of salt used to preserve
> cheese for extended periods.  Am I reading too much into this or missing
> some basic cheesy knowledge and now giving Margali the cheesemaker a
> good laugh behind her hand?
>
> curiouser and curiouser was, Puck

yep, Puck....I can always use a good laugh!
You use salt not just for taste, but to draw out more whey [the water content
encourages the growth of nasties, hence dried, salted foods] but some milks
[goat and sheep being the worst culprits] seem to enhance the salty taste more
than cows milk. For 1 lb of cheese made in the chedder fashion [that we are
going to take to an event without refrigeration] i use a good 2 tbsp of flake
salt and it is not what people would call particularly salty[unlike some navy
personnel I can mention..]

margali

Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 15:11:56 -0800
From: "James L. Matterer" <jlmatterer at labyrinth.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Bread and Circuses

> And, FWIW, the whole cheese/bread/butter thing at the beginning of a
> meal seems to be way off prevailing medieval European medical theory
> (dairy products, especially cheeses and cheese dishes, would normally be
> served at or near the end of the meal to close the chest and stomach up
> while digesting, and I've seen no evidence of butter being spread on
> bread in medieval Europe, and some evidence to suggest it was not).
>
> Adamantius

As for cheese, John Russell (Boke of Nurtute) says that it is "hard
cheese" that should be restricted to the end of the meal, not all
cheeses or dairy products. In fact, he recommends that cheese be served
with the very first items of a dinner.

Before dinner Russel says you should serve:
"Good sone, alle maner frute that longethe for seson of the yere,
Fygges, reysons, almaundes, dates, butur, chese, nottus, apples & pere."

After dinner should be:
"Aftur mete, peeres, nottys, strawberies, wyneberies, and hardcheese."

Furnivall (editor of Boke of Nurture) says that the cheese used in the
beginning may be butter-cheese, milk-cheese, or cream-cheese, as
contrasted with hardcheese. Butter was considered a separate item.

Huen
- --
A Boke of Gode Cookery
http://www.labs.net/dmccormick/huen.htm

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 13:48:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robin Carrollmann <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Roasted garlic  was  my latest feast

> << and then grate good cheese of Aragon >>
>
> What would be a modern equivalent of this Aragon Cheese?

Aragon cheese is still made in Spain.  I do not know if the modern version
is the same as it was in period.  I have never tasted it, so I'm not sure
what more commonly found cheeses might be used as a substitute.  Here's a
description, taken from www.cheese.com, if it helps:

Aragon

Description: Made by curdling milk with rennet or thistle-flower extract
for 40 minutes at 95 degrees F. Curd is cut into small bits, drained,
molded and pressed by hand. Aragon ripens for a week in a controlled humid
environment. This cheese is sometimes made with a mixture of ewe's and
goat's milk.

Country: Spain

Milk: ewe and goat milk

Texture: semi-hard

> Rosalyn MacGregor
> (Pattie Rayl)

Brighid
Robin Carroll-Mann

Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 15:42:35 -0400
From: Christine A Seelye-King <mermayde at juno.com>
Subject: SC - Fw: [TY] Say Cheese

Some interesting thoughts on cheese from the Tavern Yard.

- --------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mark Mettler <mettler at bulloch.net>
To: <TY at reashelm.ce.utk.edu>
Date: Fri, 04 Jun 1999 15:05:45 -0400
Subject: [TY] Say Cheese

First:  What is Roquefort Cheese:  It is made by hand using the milk of
the famous Lacaune Sheep from the Causses region of Southern France. The
cheese is aged in the limestone caves of Combalou, where the combination
of humidity, temperature and air flow are just right. The caves also
contain the mold, Penicillium roqueforti, which are responsible for the
cheese's blue vein.

Second:  Who and When: Once upon a time a young shepherd was guarding
his herd of ewes (sheep) near the "Grotte (caves) du Combalou", a large
cliff face that dominates the village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon. He was
just about to prepare his midday meal when he saw in the middle distance
a young lady. She appeared to be remarkably beautiful.

Fascinated, he decided to follow her. He left his dog to look after the
herd and hid his lunch consisting of bread ("pain de seigle", this is
bread made from 60/70 percent rye flour and 40/30 percent wheat flour)
and cheese (curd from ewe’s milk) in the cool, damp rocks of the
"grotte".

The chase was on. Unhappily, history relates that our shepherd never
found the young goddess. He returned to his herd, tired, hungry and
disappointed. In his absence the bread had decomposed and given the
cheese streaks of blue veins. He was to hungry to ask himself what had
happened ; all he knew was that the taste was remarkable. It did not
take long for him to share the mystery with his fellow herdsmen. Within
a short time many of the " grottes" had been converted into "cabanes en
bois"(oak planks were built in the interior of the grottes where the
cheeses were left to ripen). The word "cabanes" is still with us today
as the people that work in the cellars are called "cabaniers."

That is the legend of how Roquefort cheese was born. This exquisite
alchemy is the product of milk, bread, air and time. In the words of
Curnonsky, a well known Parisian gastronome, "the Roquefort is the son
of the mountains and the wind."

Over centuries the center of Roquefort cheese making has always been
Roquefort-sur- Soulzon a village perched on the side of cliff of Causse
du Larzac, between Millau and Saint-Affrique, some 700 kilometers south
of Paris.

And now a word from the Cheese Book on cheese as a whole:

Most authorities consider that cheese was first made in the Middle East.
The earliest type was a form of sour milk which came into being when it
was discovered that domesticated animals could be milked. A legendary
story has it that cheese was 'discovered' by an unknown Arab nomad. He
is said to have filled a saddlebag with milk to sustain him on a journey
across the desert by horse. After several hours riding he stopped to
quench his thirst, only to find that the milk had separated into a pale
watery liquid and solid white lumps. Because the saddlebag, which was
made from the stomach of a young animal, contained a coagulating enzyme
known as rennin, the milk had been effectively separated into curds and
whey by the combination of the rennin, the hot sun and the galloping
motions of the horse. The nomad, unconcerned with technical details,
found the whey drinkable and the curds edible.

Cheese was known to the ancient Sumerians four thousand years before the
birth of Christ. The ancient Greeks credited Aristaeus, a son of Apollo
and Cyrene, with its discovery; it is mentioned in the Old Testament.

In the Roman era cheese really came into its own. Cheesemaking was done
with skill and knowledge and reached a high standard. By this time the
ripening process had been developed and it was known that various
treatments and conditions under storage resulted in different flavours
and characteristics.

The larger Roman houses had a separate cheese kitchen, the caseale, and
also special areas where cheese could be matured. In large towns
home-made cheese could be taken to a special centre to be smoked. Cheese
was served on the tables of the nobility and travelled to the far
corners of the Roman Empire as a regular part of the rations of the
legions.

During the Middle Ages, monks became innovators and developers and itis
to them we owe many of the classic varieties of cheese marketed today.
During the Renaissance period cheese suffered a drop in popularity,
being considered unhealthy, but it regained favour by the nineteenth
century, the period that saw the start of the move from farm to factory
production.

Adapted from "The Cheese Book," by Richard Widcome. Chartwell Books
(Seacaucus, NJ), 1978.
- --
Gryffri de Newmarch
Chronicler of Forth Castle - http://www2.gasou.edu/SCA/chronicler
of the Southern Creative Anachronists - http://www2.gasou.edu/SCA
Keeper of the Book - http://www2.gasou.edu/SCA/newmarchbook

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 19:44:28 EDT
From: LadyAletha at aol.com
Subject: SC - yellow cheese

>and that the ubiquitous cheddar worked well, though the orange stuff
>was a bit agregious (the yellow food coloring being added fairly recently
>to duplicate the effects of the cow eating a lot of real grass)

actually, an acquaintance of mine with an interest in historical cheeses will
wax quite eloquent about how dying cheese yellow/orange is in fact
period--15th cen, I think he can document it to.  The color indicates a
higher cream content...so of course, people started faking it to make their
cheese look "richer."  I'll ask him to send me the documentation if anyone
would like, though it may take a bit.

Alethea

Date: Thu, 02 Sep 1999 20:44:40 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - yellow cheese

LadyAletha at aol.com wrote:
> >and that the ubiquitous cheddar worked well, though the orange stuff
> >was a bit agregious (the yellow food coloring being added fairly recently
> >to duplicate the effects of the cow eating a lot of real grass)
>
> acually, an aquaintence of mine with an interest in historical cheeses will
> wax quite eloquent about how dying cheese yellow/orange is in fact
> period--15th cen, I think he can document it to.  The color indicates a
> higher cream content...so of course, people started faking it to make their
> cheese look "richer."  I'll ask him to send me the documetation if anyone
> would like, though it may take a bit.
>
> Alethea

In theory, yes, it does indicate a higher cream content, but it also
depends largely on what the cow has been eating. Consider the snow-white
butter made outside Rome, for example, or the fact that a many
full-cream cheeses are white. Some quite lean ones are yellow.

In my own experience with making cheese, primarily the Digby slipcote
cheese, it becomes more yellow as it ages. I guess as it dries out
somewhat, the butterfat content overall does become higher.

Another consideration: I believe Gervase Markham, in The English
Hus-wife, provides us with a rather odd rennet/starter recipe, which
contains egg yolks and saffron, to name a couple of the less orthodox
ingredients. I assume this stuff would be pretty yellowish.

Adamantius

From: r19832345 at aol.com (R19832345)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Charlemagne's Cheese [long]
Date: 05 Sep 1999 18:32:13 GMT

whew.... I wish i had the time these days to do such detailed
research...Bravo....

had you seen my list of dates/cheeses?
  Any comments?  they would be appreciated, as this is but a page in a larger
work I will eventually get back to completing one day.

Origin/Usage:  Middle east B.C./ Appenzell-Switzerland 742 A.D.>
Asiago-Italy 1200 A.D.> Beaufort-Romans B.C.> Bellelaye(Tete de
moine)-Switzerland 15th cent> Roquefort-France-Romans B.C.>
Caciocavallo-Italy 13th cent?> Camembert-France 12th cent>
Cantal-France Romans B.C.> Cheddar-Britian 15th cent> Cheshire-
Britain 12th cent> Comte-France 13th cent> Cream cheese-unknown
Ancient> Ennentaler-Switzerland 16th cent> Fontina-Italy 13th
cent> Gammelost-Norway 1st cent> Gouda-Holland 13th cent>
Gruyere-Switzerland 12th cent> Gruyere de comte-France 13th cent>
Herve-Belgium 13th cent?> Limburger-Belgium 13th cent?> Livarot-
France 13th cent> Maroilles-France 10th cent> Munster-France 13th
cent?> Parmesan, grana, Lodigiano, Lombardo, Veneto, Bresciano,
Grana Padano Emiliano and Parmigiano Reggiano-Italy 13th cent>
Pont L'eveque-France (Angelot) 13th cent> Saint Nectaire-France
13th cent?> Sapsago-Switzerland 15th cent> Sbrinz-Switzerland-
Romans B.C.> Stracchino(Piccante [sharp] and dolce [mild]) 12th
cent>Vacherin Fribourgeois-Switzerland Ancient> Wensleydale-
Britain 1066>

Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 00:36:53 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Russian Black Bread

Tollhase1 at aol.com wrote:
> CmUaSrKgYaNlOiLES at 99main.com writes:
> << take the leftover whey and simmer it until it is a thick
>  goo. about as simple as you can get!
>  margali >>
>
> What temperature, or does it matter.  Most cheeses it does.

"Simmer" generally denotes around 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Small bubbles
rise to the surface, but it's less than a full, rolling boil. The point
is to denature protein that hasn't already been curdled in the making of
a previous cheese.

In short, this seems to be a form of ricotta, the genuine version of
which is re-cooked, as per its name. The difference would seem to be
that Margali is instructing us to cook the whey until it boils away, or
nearly so, as I believe is done with some Scandinavian cheeses like
gjetost and mysost, while the name "skimmerkase" would suggest the
cheese is skimmed off the top, as ricotta used to be.

Adamantius

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 22:32:56 -0000
From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nanna_R=F6gnvaldard=F3ttir?=" <nannar at isholf.is>
Subject: Re: SC - Charlemagne's Cheese [long]

> At any rate, he has either been an extremely uncritical user of
> secondary sources that involved a great deal of invention, or he
> has been an enthusiastic inventor himself (including the
> invention of the quote attributed to Charlemagne).

Well, neither story originates with Toussaint-Samat (who is a she, BTW, not
a he). Larousse Gastronomique says in the entry for roquefort: "it was
Charlemagne´s favourite cheese", and in the entry for brie: "Brie appears to
have been in existence in the time of Charlemagne, who is said to have eaten
it at the priory of Rueil-en-Brie."

Nanna

Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 18:55:12 -0500
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Charlemagne's Cheese [long]

>Well, neither story originates with Toussaint-Samat (who is a she, BTW, not
>a he). Larousse Gastronomique says in the entry for roquefort: "it was
>Charlemagne´s favourite cheese", and in the entry for brie: "Brie appears to
>have been in existence in the time of Charlemagne, who is said to have eaten
>it at the priory of Rueil-en-Brie."

When did Toussaint-Samat write? Is it clear whether her book is earlier or
later than the edition of the Larousse you are quoting?

In any case, my impression is that the Larousse is quite unreliable on
matters historical.

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:53:38 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: cheddar in beets recipe

Ian Gourdon wrote:
> >Regarding the recipe you posted it sounds  good but what justification is
> >there for the use of Cheddar cheese? Did this cheese exist at that time? -Ras
>
> Cheese Variety          Year(AD)
> --------------          --------
> Gorgonzola              879
> Roquefort               1070
> Grana                   1200
> Cheddar                 1500
> Parmesan                1579
> Gouda                   1697
> Gloucester              1697
> Stilton                 1785
> Camembert               1791
>
> Data compiled from Scott (1986).

We know a cheese made around/marketed from Cheddar existed at that time.
We don't know what it was like, but I've recently had some uncooked (And
un"cheddared") English cheddar that might be pretty close to what it
was, and that was more like a hybrid Parmesan and aged Gouda.

Adamantius

Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 15:57:20 -0500 (EST)
From: cclark at vicon.net
Subject: Re: SC - Re: cheese question

Lady Jehanne de Huguenin wrote:
>surely you could interpret "semisoft cheese" as cottage cheese? ...

I don't think so. Cottage cheese is a very soft unripened cheese. Muenster,
Gouda and Roquefort are examples of semisoft cheeses. Brie is a soft ripened
cheese. Cheddar and Swiss are hard. Parmesan is very hard.

Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon

Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1999 00:54:06 -0600
From: Stefan li Rous <stefan at texas.net>
Subject: SC - Currant vodka cheese

Angus replied to my comment on vegemite and cheeses at Central Market
with:
>         <snip>
> > I have yet to buy any of the vegemite. I'm afraid that with all the
> > imported cheeses
> > (including a Swedish one this last time that said it was the same as
> > cheese
> > made in the 15th century, except they added Vodka and a berry),
>         <snip>
> Just out of curiousity, what's the name of the cheese ?

Ok, I went and got the cheese out of the refrigerator this time.

The main label says: "Vodka Currant" Semi-soft Prastost (I think the a
has double dots over it) ,Aged over 12 months. Product of Sweden.

The explantion on the label says:
"Aged by Swedes since 1500 AD. this favorite Swedish tithe to their
Priests is still as flavorful as back then - but now with a splash of
Currant flavored vodka! The Priests savored nothing but the best!"

The web address they give (I've seen more and more web addresses on
food items) is: www.vodkacheese.com
- --
Lord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas           stefan at texas.net

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 19:15:51 -0900
From: Kerri Canepa <kerric at pobox.alaska.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Late Fall/Early Winter Vegetables

Henry wrote:
>I haven't tried armoring them, though. What's a good cheese to use on parsnips?

Hm. I don't know how authentic Gruyere is, but I like to use it with a variety
of different things. I did armored turnips with Gruyere and also Tart for Ember
Day. Both came out quite yummy.

I have used Raclette and Tomme de Savoie and they would do really well for any
recipe calling for "ripe" or "old" cheese. Both are rather on the bitey side
without being overpowering. They also melt well when heated.

For milder cheeses I've used Baita Friuli and Parmesan, besides Gruyere. I can't
get fresh curds or cheeses here in Anchorage (it's making me seriously consider
learning to make it myself) except Mozzarella which is fine except that the
consistancy is too firm.

Since we're on the topic of cheese, does anyone know where a cream cheese
without stabilizers can be acquired?

Kerri
Cedrin Etainnighean, OL

Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 13:18:40 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: Re: SC - 16th Century recipes a few questions. . .

And it came to pass on 30 Jan 00,, that Varju at aol.com wrote:
> I know that the "cheese" debate has occured on the list before,
> but for the life of me I cannot remember if  Parmesian was listed as one
> of the period cheeses.  Is Parmesan cheese period?

> Noemi

"Queso de Parma" (cheese from Parma) and "queso Parmesano 
rallado" (grated Parmesan cheese) appear in several 16th century 
Spanish recipes, if that's any help to you.  How period it would be for 
German cooking, I don't know.

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 18:48:21 -0500
From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net>
Subject: SC - Fw: [SCA-AE] Cheesemaking book

Interesting information from the Aethelmark List. Thomas, are you aware of
any other texts on cheesemaking pte-1600?

Phlip

Philippa Farrour
Caer Frig
Southeastern Ohio

- -----Original Message-----
From: Jakys the Cheesemonger <jazzmanian at myremarq.com>
To: sca-aethelmearc at andrew.cmu.edu <sca-aethelmearc at andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Saturday, March 18, 2000 6:56 PM
Subject: Re: [SCA-AE] Cheesemaking book

>Katja,
>  Thus far, I have been fielding these questions via e-mail, since I had
>no idea there was such interest. However, at this point, I may as well
>post.  There is, thus far to my knowledge, only one source from period
>that I know of concerning cheesemaking from our period.  It is entitled
>"La Summa Lacticiniorum" by Pantaleo de Confluentia, written in Turin,
>Italy in 1470.  The original is, apparently, the only copy and is in a
>museum/library in England at present, and sadly unavailable for loan
><g>. (Yes....... I asked.)
>  However, a limited issue work was published by Irma Naso some time
>back, entitled "Formaggi del Medioevo" (Medieval Cheese). It was an
>analysis of the original work from a grad student in Italy. I was
>finally able, this winter, to get a copy shipped on loan to me from the
>research library at Notre Dame.  We could only have it for two weeks,
>but managed to photocopy the entire thing. The first part is written by
>Naso, and is an analysis of the work (sadly in Italian, never officially
>translated).  We were able to bang out a translation of what appeared to
>be the key parts of it, but it's mostly commentary by the author on the
>economy of Italy at that time, and the effects of it on the dairy
>industry.  However it contains a reprint of the entire original work.
>Other sources have referenced this work as an analysis of cheesemaking
>techniques, milk sources, equipment, etc. and speak of it highly.
>Sadly, it was written in a somewhat "corrupted" version of Latin in use
>in northern Italy at the time. A few friends have stopped by to help
>translate a few bits, but it's slow going. I know of no software that
>will translate it for me in our new "automagic" ways to a usable online
>form.  I don't have it in electronic copy.  I hope to finish a complete
>translation this year, and when done, I'll publish it on the web for the
>research use of all Scadians.
>  (Hint..... anybody good with Latin that would like me to mail them a
>chapter to translate is free to contact me. <g>)
>   If anyone else has access to similar works, I would be very happy to
>hear from you.
>Yours in Service,
>Lord Jakys the Cheesemonger
>Shire of Sterlynge Vayle
>AEthelmearc

Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 13:36:31 CEST
From: "Christina van Tets" <cjvt at hotmail.com>
Subject: SC - Re: cheese colouring

Stefan asked:
>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.

I think this may depend on where you or your persona come from.

TOTALLY UNSUBSTANTIATED HEARSAY (warning for those of you who will curl up 
and moan in agony if they read stuff like this without academic support...): 
  I have read that Celts, among others, used Lady's Bedstraw to curdle their 
milk for cheese, as it not only curdled it, but coloured it a reddish-gold, 
and that this is where Red Leicester cheese comes from.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:  I came across an OOP reference (OK, it was Little 
House on the Prairie, but you can duplicate some of those recipes really 
easily) to using grated carrots to colour milk prior to curdling.  For my 
most recent attempt I tried this in warm milk, while I was letting the 
starter grow a bit in it.  This worked beautifully.  I used about 1/2 cup 
grated carrot for about 4 litres of milk, and got a lovely creamy colour for 
the soft cheese, which turned to a really good pale to mid yellow when the 
cheese developed a rind.  Unfortunately, I can't say what it looked like in 
old age because my lord husband got to it before it matured properly.

>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.

It may also be that we assume that people in days gone by had colourless 
surroundings because _we_ see their statues, etc as they are now, without 
the polychrome decoration, and their mosaics all pale and faded.  It's quite 
startling to see a statue or mosaic that hasn't had this happen, for one 
reason or another, and to realise just how gaudy some of these things 
actually were.  I can imagine very easily that this kind of aesthetic could 
be transferred to food presentation.  Perhaps we need to go back to 
paintings of food to answer this question.

Cairistiona

Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 09:41:42 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: cheese colouring

Christina van Tets wrote:
 
After Stefan wrote (I think!) 
> >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.
> 
> It may also be that we assume that people in days gone by had colourless
> surroundings because _we_ see their statues, etc as they are now, without
> the polychrome decoration, and their mosaics all pale and faded.  It's quite
> startling to see a statue or mosaic that hasn't had this happen, for one
> reason or another, and to realise just how gaudy some of these things
> actually were.  I can imagine very easily that this kind of aesthetic could
> be transferred to food presentation.  Perhaps we need to go back to
> paintings of food to answer this question.

Of course this idea can be taken too far, too, as with the commonly-held
SCAdian belief that "There-is-no-such-color-as-pink-in-period, only
faded red!" I'm half-horrified at the prospect of, say, a Phydias
Poseidon in bright red lipstick, but what the hey...

FWIW, I'm aware of various herbs added to cheeses, probably initially as
herbal curdling agents, which may have continued to be used for flavor
and/or color, even when calf rennet and such became a more common denaturizer.

Among other cases of artificial colorings added to cheeses, I'm aware of
Gervase Markham recommending a rather peculiar process for turning the
marrowgut and wealcrud of a calf into rennet, which involves both egg
yolks and saffron (plus rosewater and various other things). This might
contribute to a yellower color of the finished cheese, too, although I
suspect the saffron and rosewater are there as much to mask any musty
flavors accruing in the various soaking processes used to make this
rennet, as for coloring.

But, ultimately, a lot of early "yellow" cheeses, including Cheddar,
apparently, relied simply on a high butterfat content and trace pigments
from whatever the dairy cow ate for their color. This is also true of Parmagianno.
  
Adamantius

Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 09:32:26 -0500
From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkings at mindspring.com>
Subject: SC - Hatd Cheese Stefan (was Cressee webbed)

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 artificial 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

Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 07:22:01 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Par Leijonhufvud <parlei at algonet.se>
Subject: Re: SC - Hatd Cheese Stefan (was Cressee webbed)

On Tue, 4 Jul 2000, RANDALL DIAMOND wrote:
> 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

But the Drosera species (Drosera rotundifoli, etc) was used for this, at
least according to some sources (among them
http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/di/drosera/drose/drosrot.html, but I have
read it in other places as well).

> 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).

IIRC there are claims that brie is period. 

> 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.

Hmm, I can get a edible "cooking" brie for as low as 49 SKR/kg (app.
US$2.75/lb). This is not the good stuff (that's 2-4 times as expensive),
but is quite edible and very nice in cooking (tarte de bry, etc). The
traditional scandinavian hard cheeses (V‰sterbotten, etc) tend to be
more expensive ($3-5/lb). BTW, these prices include the Swedish 25%
"sales tax".

/UlfR
- -- 
Par Leijonhufvud                                      parlei at algonet.se

Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 11:21:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jenne Heise <jenne at tulgey.browser.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: cheese colouring

> TOTALLY UNSUBSTANTIATED HEARSAY (warning for those of you who will curl up 
> and moan in agony if they read stuff like this without academic support...): 
>   I have read that Celts, among others, used Lady's Bedstraw to curdle their 
> milk for cheese, as it not only curdled it, but coloured it a reddish-gold, 

I have also heard this. Lady's Bedstraw does dye a reddish-gold.

Mrs. Grieve's _Modern Herbal_ (which is not period and not my favorite
source but it IS online) says of Ladies' Bedstraw:

"The plant has the property of curdling milk, hence another of its popular
names ' Cheese Rennet.' It was called ' Cheese Renning' in the sixteenth
century, and Gerard says (quoting from Matthiolus, a famous commentator of
Dioscorides), 'the people of Thuscane do use it to turne their milks and
the cheese, which they make of sheepes and goates milke, might be the
sweeter and more pleasant to taste. The people in Cheshire especially
about Nantwich, where the best cheese is made, do use it in their rennet,
esteeming greatly of that cheese above other made without it.' The rich
colour of this cheese was probably originally derived from this plant,
though it is now obtained from annatto. "

Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net

Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 21:50:40 -0500
From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkings at mindspring.com>
Subject: SC - Re: Hard Cheese Stefan

Par Leijonhufvud comments:

>>>>But the Drosera species (Drosera rotundifoli, etc) was used for this, at
least according to some sources (among them
http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/di/drosera/drose/drosrot.html, but I have
read it in other places as well).<<<<

I did mention this specifically in my post adding however
that I believe that the Pinguicula (butterworts) were more
commonly used, not that Drosera wasn't used.

>>>>IIRC there are claims that brie is period.<<<<

My error!!!  Brie is certainly period, first mentioned
in the court of Champagne in 1217.  Henry IV and
Louis XII both loved Brie cheeses.  It was Camembert
to which I was specifically referring.  There is a statue
in Vimoutiers to Marie Harel who allegedly first made
Camembert cheese in 1791.  Actually this is an inaccurate
legend as what we know as Camembert was described
by the name "Livarot" in a 17th century dictionary.  Actually
the cheese was made in the Pays d'Auge as "Augelot" in
the time of William the Conquerer.   In truth, Marie Harel
is the inventor of modern Camembert as she was the first
cheesemaker to develop the pure white cheese flora of
today's Camembert.  Period Camembert had red or blue
rinds as ripening was natural.  In the 19th century, the
factory production inoculates the cheeses with Penicillium
candidum.  Likewise, Brie also originally had a red rind, which
cheese gourmets insist was the best part of the cheese.
I tend to agree as I think even the white mold is delicious.

> 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.

>>>>Hmm, I can get a edible "cooking" brie for as low as 49 SKR/kg (app.
US$2.75/lb). This is not the good stuff (that's 2-4 times as expensive),
but is quite edible and very nice in cooking (tarte de bry, etc). The
traditional scandinavian hard cheeses (V‰sterbotten, etc) tend to be
more expensive ($3-5/lb). BTW, these prices include the Swedish 25%
"sales tax".<<<<

I can't even get locally made cheddar for that low a price.
Generally, the price of domestic cheese at our large
supermarkets in my area starts at $5.99 US to $8.99 US.
Imports like Brie start at $7.99 US for the cheap stuff.
More esoteric imported cheeses start at $12.99 US and
go astronomical quickly.  Consider yourself fortunate.

Akim Yaroslavich

Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 09:04:56 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Re: Hard Cheese Stefan

RANDALL DIAMOND wrote: 
> Brie is certainly period, first mentioned
> in the court of Champagne in 1217.  Henry IV and
> Louis XII both loved Brie cheeses.  It was Camembert
> to which I was specifically referring.  There is a statue
> in Vimoutiers to Marie Harel who allegedly first made
> Camembert cheese in 1791.  Actually this is an inaccurate
> legend as what we know as Camembert was described
> by the name "Livarot" in a 17th century dictionary.  Actually
> the cheese was made in the Pays d'Auge as "Augelot" in
> the time of William the Conquerer.   In truth, Marie Harel
> is the inventor of modern Camembert as she was the first
> cheesemaker to develop the pure white cheese flora of
> today's Camembert.  Period Camembert had red or blue
> rinds as ripening was natural.  In the 19th century, the
> factory production inoculates the cheeses with Penicillium
> candidum.  Likewise, Brie also originally had a red rind, which
> cheese gourmets insist was the best part of the cheese.
> I tend to agree as I think even the white mold is delicious.

I've heard it alleged that Brie once had a blue rind, and that
artificial steps to introduce pennicilium into the center of the cheese
weren't taken until fairly recently, so while blue cheeses did exist,
they weren't what English dairy folk would call "vinny" (veiny?).

Part of the problem is that a lot of the documentation for cheeses is
based on the name of the market town they were traditionally sold from.
Cheeses from Brie, from Roquefort, from Chesire, and from Cheddar (not
to mention Rouen) all existed in period, but it is sometimes unclear as
to exactly what these cheeses were like.

Last year I had a wonderful opportunity to taste a cheese made in the
area around the town of Cheddar, called, appropriately, by that name,
made by a family that had been making farmhouse cheeses in the area
since the mid-fifteenth century (or so they claim). It was Cheddar. It
was [allegedly] in a period style. It just wasn't a whole lot like the
Cheddar most people are familiar with. It was neither white nor orange,
just the medium yellow often associated with old Parmagianno, which it
also resembled in flavor. (Hints of real Gouda, too!) It also was, I
believe, uncooked, so discussions of Cheddaring or the periodicity
thereof wouldn't be relevant.

Good stuff, though.

Adamantius

Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 21:40:50 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Cressee webbed

Elysant at aol.com wrote:
> Some time ago (perhaps you have it on the Florithingy?) we did talk about
> when various cheeses (we know about) began to appear...  perhaps if we review
> and expand such a list we can see which candidates of cheese "might" have
> been used in England in the time of the recipe we are talking about, and what
> colour they are in the original countries they were made in rather than what
> you see on the shelves here, as as with poor old Cheddar, the U.S. mass
> manufacturing and marketing guys might have done a number on the cheese in
> question and if that's all we have to look at we might end up with wrong
> assumptions about it - including colour.

A primary candidate might be Rouen, a pale, mild, semi-firm Norman
cheese that appears to be the "chese ruayn" frequently mentioned in the
14th-15th-century English corpus of recipes, either as an import or
perhaps as a style name for a locally produced version. Presumably Brie,
another of the few cheeses mentioned by name in the corpus, was probably
imported from France, but anything is possible. Of course I'm
concentrating on the English sources, since Cressee is from one of them.

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 14:39:36 -0400
From: margali <margali at 99main.com>
Subject: Re: SC - My anti modern cheese thing was: toys for tot feast

> I seem to recall Columella saying certain herbs can be pulverized to
> actually _be_ the coagulant. One of them IIRC, was sage.
>
> Adamantius

Ladies Bedstraw, meadowbright and IIRC something ending in -wort other than mugwort. Ladies Bedstraw is the bestknown one. I prefer rennet, but you can buy vegetarian rennet made from bedstraw.

margali

Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000 22:19:24 EDT
From: Seton1355 at aol.com
Subject: SC - Check out An Early History of cheese making

 <A HREF="http://www.efr.hw.ac.uk/SDA/cheese1.html">Click here: An Early 
History</A>
http://www.efr.hw.ac.uk/SDA/cheese1.html 

Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 00:27:36 -0500
From: harper at idt.net
Subject: SC - Flavored cheese

I was glancing through the "Obra de Agricultura" (Spanish 
agricultural manual, 1513), and I came across the chapter on 
cheese.  Herrera says that when making cheese, you can add 
flavors and spices to the milk, so that the cheese will have that 
flavor.  He specifically mentions ground pennyroyal, or savory, 
and adds that there are many who put in ground-up tender pine 
nuts, but this is only if you are going to eat the cheese fresh.

Sheep dung mixed with vinegar will remove blemishes from the 
body; mixed with oil and wax, it will cure burns.  (Just in case you 
were wondering.)

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 17:52:55 -0500
From: "Gaylin J. Walli" <gwalli at ptc.com>
Subject: Re: SC - cheese to begin was  desserts

Bonne asked:
>isn't the beginning of the feast still the wrong place, medievally 
>speaking, no matter the sort of cheese?

I think Platina would say so:

Aged cheese is difficult to digest, of little nutriment, not good for the stomach or belly, and produces bile, gout, pleurisy, sand grains, and stones. 
They say a small amount, whatever you want, taken after a meal, when is seals the opening of the stomach, both takes away the squeamishness of fatty dishes and benefits the digestion and head. (Milham translation, pg. 159)

Iasmin de Cordoba, gwalli at ptc.com or iasmin at home.com

Date: Sun, 05 Nov 2000 13:57:43 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - re cheddar

Ian Gourdon wrote:
> > > Cubed Cheese: swiss, cheddar, farmer
> >
<snip>
> > BTW, cheddar isn't period.  But you already knew that
> > didn't you. :-)
> >...
> > Huette
> 
> allow to quote a piece from the list a few whiles ago:
> "...I decided that I would put forth a best effort to
> come-up with something of
> interest, even if it was based upon secondary sources (like
> the internet).
> Therefore I present, for your entertainment, criticism,
> amusement and use the
> following chart of cheeses:
> 
> Type of Cheese          Date of Earliest
> Reference              Reference
<snip>
> Cheddar
> 1500AD

> which makes Cheddar OK, I'd say. It'd be Swiss that would be
> less clear to me as OK.

At this point I think Cheddar has somehow become reverse-grandfathered
in because people reely reely want it to be period. Yes, cheeses sold
from, and made near, the market town of Cheddar were made, sold, and
sales recorded around 1500 C.E. Whether they bear much resemblance to
modern cheddar is highly questionable. They appear not to be "cheddared"
in the modern sense of heating, cutting, and cooking the curds prior to
draining, and to be honest, after a fairish amount of research in this
field I believe I have yet to find a period English recipe for any kind
of cooked cheese, versus quite a few uncooked recipes.

Modern Gouda, a form of "Swiss" cheese, probably _is_ made according to
a period method, whether it's been listed as period or not, because it
is an uncooked cheese, IIRC. OTOH, cheeses like Brie are recorded as
existing in period, but it is mentioned elsewhere (I _think_ in Wilson's
"Food and Drink in Britain"; no doubt some helpful individual with the
book on the shelf in front of them will let me know if I'm wrong, so I
can speak freely) that the kind of white mold used to form and protect
the rind of such cheeses was not cultured or used in period
cheesemaking, and that Brie may have had a blue mold on the outer
surface. So, knowing that cheeses with such-and-such a name existed in
period is not necessarily a sure indication of whether the product you
may be contemplating purchasing for a feast or something is a really
accurate representation. This is probably an area where a lot of people
would rather simply not sweat the small stuff.

BTW, in the past year I've run across two different brands of Cheddar
advertised as uncooked farmhouse Cheddar, at least one of which was
claimed to have been made on the same family's premises, and according
to the same family's recipe, for the past 500 years or so. I think there
may have been two different brands because two different importers or
distributors were both handling Keen's Cheddar (Keen was, IIRC, the
family's name). The cheese itself was an uncolored deep natural yellow,
with a waxy (waxy, not waxed) rind, a nutty flavor, and resembling
something between aged Gouda and underaged Parmagianno.

Adamantius

Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 22:30:18 -0500
From: rcmann4 at earthlink.net
Subject: Re: SC - Cheesemaking question

And it came to pass on 5 Mar 01, , that Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
> Bartholomew Dowe wrote "A dairie Booke for good huswiues", [Very
> profitable and pleasaunt for the making and keeping of white meates.],
> pub. by Thomas Hacket, London, 1588. I found it in facsimile form as an
> addendum to a reprint of an English translation of a roughly
> contemporary Italian book on household management, whose title I have
> unfortunately lost. 

Having Dowe's first name made things much easier.  It is bound together 
with an English translation of "The housholders philosophie" by Torquato 
Tasso.  I have located a used book dealer who is listed as having a 
reasonably-priced copy, and am sending an email to see if it available.

The listing from the Library of Congress catalog is:
Personal Name: Tasso, Torquato, 1544-1595. 
Main Title: The householders philosophie ; anexed, A dairie booke / 
Torquato Tasso. 
Uniform Title: [Padre famiglia. English] Published/Created: Amsterdam : 
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum ; Norwood, N.J. : W. J. Johnson, 1975. 
Related Names: Dowe, Bartholomew. Dairie booke for good huswiues. 
1975. 
Related Titles: Householders philosophie. Description: 27 [i.e. 69], [20] 
p. ; 22 cm. ISBN: 9022107655 Notes: Translation of Il padre famiglia.
Photoreprint ed.
Includes original t.p.: The housholders philosophie : wherein is perfectly 
and profitably described, the true oeconomia and forme of housekeeping 
... First written in Italian by ... Torquato Tasso, and now translated by T. 
K. Whereunto is anexed A dairie booke for all good huswiues. At 
London, printed by F. C. for Thomas Hacket ... 1588.
The 2d work is by B. Dowe.

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 01:23:29 -0500
From: LYN M PARKINSON <allilyn at juno.com>
Subject: Re: SC - cheese

Hope you aren't completely buried under the snow, but you aren't going
anywhere, so try this great site I found today on how to make cheese!

http://www.tudocs.com/cheese.html

http://www.efr.hw.ac.uk/SDA/cheese2.html

The first one brought up a bunch of cheesy sites--didn't have time to
look at all of them.  One is a catalog where you can buy presses, cheese
boxes, etc.  Might try their 30 min. Mozzarella, myself, sometime.
The second one is directions and history, just the things you were
looking for.

Allison

Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 15:22:16 +0200
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: "Cindy M. Renfrow" <cindy at thousandeggs.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] pot cheeses?

In case you're interested

http://www.bigwig.net/mcbishop/concangis/photos/cheese.htm - photo of a
roman cheese press fragment

Cindy

Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 23:12:26 -0700
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: Anne-Marie Rousseau <acrouss at gte.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] clay fondue pot

hey from Anne-Marie

re: the original text for the la Varenne ramekins of cheese....the text is in
the CA I did, as well as the complete anachronist on French Food (basically we
reissued it without the constraints of the CA system).

here it is again....

Ramequins of Cheese [V#41, p221]
Take some cheese, melt it with some butter, an onion whole, or stamped, salt
and pepper in abundance, spread all upon bread, pass the fire shovel over it
red hot, and serve it warme.

"cheesy goodness" is now a fixture in my household....:)

--AM

From: "a5foil" <a5foil at ix.netcom.com>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cheese of Aragon?
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 23:26:13 -0400

> I am going to try some recipes of Libre del Coch for a Sca commons this 
> Friday. Does anyone know what Cheese of Aragon is?? It's in #50.

<NOTE - See the file: Guisados1-art>

> Andrea
> Ostgardr

Queso de Aragon is also known as Queso Tronchon. It definitely dates to the
Middle Ages. It was originally a goat cheese, but is now made from a blend
of cow and goat milk. It is served fresh or slightly aged, it comes from a
ring mold with a depression in the middle, sort of a like a gelatine mold or
bundt pan, but the center depression doesn't go all the way through. If you
can't get it locally, try mail-order from a Spanish food store like
www.tienda.com. If you want more info, let me know.

Thomas Longshanks

Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 16:45:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cheese color
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Drakey asked:
> ps.  anyone know where I can find some primary source cheese recipes
> outside of Gervase Markham?

Dowe, Bartholomew
  Dairie booke for good huswiues.  1588.

Huette

Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 02:41:26 +0200
From: tgl at mailer.uni-marburg.de
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] cheese: primary source recipes

<< anyone know where I can find some primary source cheese recipes
outside of Gervase Markham? >>

Jacob Bifrons [Jachiam Bifrun]: Epistola de caseis & operibus lactarijs
(letter about cheesemaking and working up of milk), 1556, printed as an
appendix in Jodocus Willich's 'Ars magirica', Zuerich 1556, p. 220-227.

Two types of cheese and cheesemaking are described: a 'traditional' one,
and another technique, imported from Italy "thirty years ago" (a
triginta annis).

Th.

Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 03:22:22 +0200
From: tgl at mailer.uni-marburg.de
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cheese: primary source recipes

<< Is the source in English? >>

It is in Latin. But someone could work on it. There is a German
translation, published in the "B=FCndner Monatsblatt", vol. 6, 1993, page
445-451. Might be of some help.

A correction on what I said: The letter is 1556; but the book (Jodocus
Willich's 'Ars magirica') was published in 1563. Sorry.

I have a transcription and JPEGs ready. Will make them available soon
(needs one further round of proofreading). Perhaps there is somebody who
wishes to tackle a translation project.

Th.

Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 22:14:52 -0400
From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cheese color

 Johnna the librarian sends greetings:

Bartholomew Dowe's Dairie booke for good huswives
is anexed to  The householders philosophie which
is that odd household manual by Torquato Tasso.
It was released as a facsimile in 1975 as part of the
English Experience series #765. The publisher was
Amsterdam : Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and in the USA by
Norwood, N.J. : W.J. Johnson. ISBN:90-221-0765-5.
A DAIRIE BOOKE FOR GOOD HUSWIVES is dated 1588 and
discusses the making and keeping of white meats
which is what dairy products were known as.
(I wrote a letter into T.I. urging that people
buy up volumes in this series back in 1970's...
now of course you can't find them except in
really good academic libraries and at $50 plus
on the antiquarian market.)

Johnnae llyn Lewis

Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 02:04:00 +0200
From: tgl at mailer.uni-marburg.de
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Jacobus Bifrons on cheesemaking in Switzerland 1556

> I have a transcription and JPEGs ready. Will make them available soon
> (needs one further round of proofreading).

http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~gloning/bifrun/bifrun.htm

Jacobus Bifrons [Jachiam Bifrun]:
Epistola de caseis et operibus lactariis et modo quo in Rh=E6ticis
regionibus et alpibus parantur, 1556
(A letter to Conrad Gesner about cheesemaking and dairy products in
Switzerland, 1556.)

Th.

Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 22:45:38 +0200
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: "Cindy M. Renfrow" <cindy at thousandeggs.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Slugs as rennet

Hello!  We're off tomorrow for our last jaunt in Europe before heading back
to the States.  I'll be back in about a week.

Just thought I'd leave you with this interesting note from a nice lady at
the Wensleydale Creamery in England. We went there last summer & hubby
claimed to have seen a sign saying they used to use slugs as rennet. But he
lost all our pictures of the cheese museum & had no proof of his assertion,
so of course I didn't believe him. It's been a running joke ever since.
Well, seems he was partially correct. According to the lady, the
Wensleydale Creamery didn't use slugs, but some farmer's wives may have:

>> Thank you for your enquiry about slugs being used as rennet.
>> The farmer's wife of the 17th and 18th centuries had to make her cheese
>> under much more difficult conditions than our modern dairymaid has to
>> face.  She had no thermometer to record the right temperature of her milk.
>> The heat of the milk had to be judged by placing the hand in the vat or
>> better still the elbow, or by tasting before she dare add the rennet.
>> Even rennet was not obtained with the ease it is today.  A couple of
>> centuries ago rennet as we know it, had not been thought of.  In those
>> days when the farmer killed a young calf, the stomach was taken out,
>> washed, salted, cured and hung on a nail in the kitchen rafters to dry.
>> The young calf's stomach contained the properties found in our modern
>> liquid rennet.
>>
>> When the farmer's wife required rennet to coagulate the milk she would cut
>> off a small piece of the dried stomach, boil it in a pan on the kitchen
>> fire, and strain off the liquid to cool.  This liquid would serve for the
>> next few days' cheese making, and when it was used up she repeated the
>> process.  The dried calf's stomach was known as "keslop" but the
>> cheesemaker of two centuries ago had no means of finding out the strength
>> of her home made rennet.  Sometimes she ran short of "keslop" and thereby
>> short of rennet.  When this happened the household had to resort to
>> hunting the black snail in some nearby swamp.  A black snail submerged in
>> a bowl of milk causes the same reaction as rennet and eventually cheese
>> curd will begin to form."

Cindy

Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 11:11:36 -0400
From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler at chesapeake.net>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Re: Brie Period?

The following is a recipe I redacted for use at a feast I did some years ago.  You will note that this herbed cheese goes back to Roman times:

Cheese Round with Herbs

Recipe By Appendix Vergiliana, Moretum
Servings 104
Categories
Appetizers

65 each garlic clove
1/4 cup celery
1/4 cup rue
1/2 cup coriander
3/8 cup salt grains
6 1/2 pounds soft cheese (ricotta)
1/2 cup olive oil
7/8 cup balsamic vinegar

In a mortar grind the garlic, then the fresh soft cheese, and finally the herbs
(use celery leaf or parsley), so that these ingredients are thoroughly blended.
The mixture can be moistened with olive oil, followe by a small amount of strong
vinegar. Form the mixture into a round and chill.

Redacted by Minowara Kiritsubo from directions in "A Taste of Ancient Rome",
translated from the Latin.

Notes : Recipe is from a poem whose protagonist was a farmer, Moretum. From A
Taste of Ancient Rome.

Kiri

Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 11:41:30 -0800
From: "Laura C. Minnick" <lcm at efn.org>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Ember Day Tart

A F Murphy wrote:
> A couple of us are playing with this recipe. We're looking at the
> version with "grene cheese" in it, and looking for ideas. We are
> assuming this means an unripened cheese. What do people think the
> original author of the recipe might have been able to obtain, and so
> might have used? And what would be the closest thing we can get?

'Grene' has a number of meanings in the ME, from the color, to new,
unripe/untested, and pale. I would say they mean a light-colored, unripe
or fresh cheese. An you have a point that ricotta might not be
appropriate for England. Have you though about cottage cheese (farmer's
cheese)? You can get it in dry curd as well and the usual in little
tubs, so you can adjust the moisture levels. And if you 'press it
through a straynour' (or run through a blender) you won't have the funny
lumps.

'Lainie

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 13:42:32 -0400
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cutting the cheese
From: Elizabeth A Heckert <spynnere at juno.com>

On Wed, 24 Apr 2002 09:16:34 -0700 "Mercy Neumark" <mneumark at hotmail.com>
writes:
>I just don't know history of this stuff as well as I probably should.
>Does anyone have any suggestions on history books on cheese

*Sheep and Man*  M. L. Ryder, Duckworth, Ltd.  1985.

    There is a good discussion of the uses of sheep's milk and it's
importance as a food source in the Middle Ages.

     Elizabeth

From: "Dan Phelps" <phelpsd at gate.net>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Irish cheese?
Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 09:42:44 -0700

Cheese making in Scotland
http://www.efr.hw.ac.uk/SDA/book1.html

Scottish Cheese sites
http://www.scottish-store.co.uk/pages/cheese.htm
http://www.ayrshirefarmersmarket.co.uk/ayrshirestalls.cfm?ID=12
http://www.rerrick-cheese.co.uk/

may be Scottish is clearly Brit
http://www.mackenzieltd.com/cheeses.asp

To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 12:19:32 -0400
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period cooking and camping
From: Elizabeth A Heckert <spynnere at juno.com>

On Thu, 23 May 2002 08:46:26 -0600 "AnnaMarie" <wolfsong at ida.net> writes:
>Hmmmm....  wonder if you could coat *any* cheese in wax to keep it? As much
>as I like Gouda I prefer a variety and absolutely love goat cheese. I'm
>also making yogurt cheese alot lately but I could make that daily.

    I got to attend a cheese lecture recently, and waxing was touched on.
 The Cheesemaker said that she finds wax changes the taste of the cheese
when applied as part of the aging process.  She also indicated that it is
fairly easy to trap the 'wrong' molds between the cheese and the wax when
waxing.  This woman was an artisanal cheesemaker, and quality was
extremely important to her.

   When I worked at a natural foods co-op there was a week or so of
hoo-rah because some person disregarded the cheese handling techniques.
We lost several pounds because there was mold that (gosh!!) looked
*exactly* like a moldy fingerprint on the cut up pieces of cheese.  (I
*still* shake my head over that one!)

   Elizabeth

From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 00:22:59 -0400
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cheese of Aragon

On 20 Jun 2002, at 16:32, Susan Browning wrote:
> I am looking at a Catalan recipe for an eggplant casserole, and it
> specifies cheese of Aragon.  Any ideas as to which type of cheese
> would work for this recipe?
>
> Eleanor d'Aubrecicourt

This question has come up before on the list.  It was answered by Master
Thomas, who has done *extensive* research with the Catalan manuscripts.
His answer was:

Queso de Aragon is also known as Queso Tronchon. It definitely dates to
the Middle Ages. It was originally a goat cheese, but is now made from a
blend of cow and goat milk. It is served fresh or slightly aged, it comes from
a ring mold with a depression in the middle, sort of a like a gelatine mold or
bundt pan, but the center depression doesn't go all the way through. If you
can't get it locally, try mail-order from a Spanish food store like
www.tienda.com. If you want more info, let me know.
Thomas Longshanks
---------------------------
Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom

Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 13:06:49 -0500
From: Yana <yana at merr.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] RE: Cheese in the Domostroi
To: SCA Cooks List <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

> Does anyone know if the Domostroi has anything about cheese or cheesemaking,
> or should I point her to one of the secondary sources like "Bread and  
> Salt"?

Why, yes, the Domostroi does have info about cheese. Cheese was recommended
to be produced at home (Pouncy:150), in order that you [the homeowner]
would "celebrate your good fortune every day.  You will never have to go to
market."  So cheese was also commercially produced.

Cheese was kept in either the cellar, the icehouse, or in the small
storerooms (Pouncy:165).  The text lists many different foodstuffs, and
doesn't say which was stored where.

The above is from the SCA-period parts of the Domostroi.  There is no
mention of how the cheese was made in the Domostroi, in either the period,
or non-period sections.  I checked the original Russian, to see what was
being translated as "cheese," but it is just "syr", the generic word for
"cheese."  I was hoping that it might be "tvorog" (a certain type of
Russian cheese) or something more specific.

In "Bread and Salt" (I'm going to abbreviate it "BaS", and may I say that
boy, you are good. You actually made me move some computer equipment
around, just to get to my cooking files.), cheese is mentioned as one of
the items eaten on Easter Sunday, as well as placed on the altar (a common
practice even today, for parts of the Easter feast to be brought to church
to be blessed) [BaS:98-99].  Cheese was also used as a filling in breads or
rich breads (korovai) in the very early 17th century [BaS:116].  There is a
mention of caviar being pressed into cheese [BaS:125], but no date that I
could find (it's hot, gimme a break).

Now since I couldn't check the original Russian for the Easter references,
it might possibly, *possibly* be that the cheese in question eventually
became part of what is called today (don't know about then, but likely the
same) "paskha," a sweetened cheese mixture that was molded into a pyramid
and marked with the Cyrillic initials "XB", which stand for Khristos
Voskres (Christ is Risen).  Think of it as a slightly grainy, crustless
cheesecake.  Very yum.  It is traditionally made with tvorog, a dry cottage
cheese.  Tvorog can also be pressed and drained, so that it is much more
firm and can actually be sliced (kinda crumbly, like feta).  This is  what I
would keep in mind when thinking about period Russian cheeses, that they
may have been very similar to the modern tvorog.  Easily made at home,
could be pressed and dried, which would keep much longer than in the  
more liquid-y form.

To sum up, yes, the Russians ate cheese (at least the upper-middle classes
did, and perhaps their servants), but no, we don't know what type of
cheese, or how it was made.  Hope this saves some research!

--Yana (Geez, I just rejoined the list yesterday!)
<http://medievalrussia.freeservers.com>

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 12:30:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robin Carroll-Mann <rcmann4 at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period Cheese... again?
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

-------Original Message-------
The GodeCookery website has a page devoted to suitable cheese for 
Medieval and Renaissance recipes
http://www.godecookery.com/how2cook/howto02.htm

I am a bit skeptical, perhaps unfairly. Anyone have a good idea of what types of cheese are really period, please critic the list below, copied from the link above...

Anahita
---------------

Parmesan - first recorded use is in 1579.

I think it may be older than that.  The 1520 Libre de Coch mentions "formatge de parma".  Of course, I don't know if this is the same kind of cheese as the Parmasan we know.

I'm not at home and can't access the Italian cookbooks.  Anyone know if Platina mentions Parmesan?

Brighid ni Chiarain

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 16:00:58 -0400
From: "a5foil" <a5foil at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period Cheese... again?
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Brighid ni Chiarain asked:
>>> I'm not at home and can't access the Italian cookbooks.  Anyone know if
Platina mentions Parmesan? <<<

Yes.

From 2.17 On cheese: "... Today there are two kinds of cheese in Italy which
vie for first place, like the "rotten," as the country people call it, which
is made in Tuscany in the month of March, and the Parmesan, which is made on
this side of the Alps and can be called maialis from the month of May. ..."
(Milham's translation)

Platina distinguishes between fresh cheese and aged cheese, and indicates
that cheese  is pressed, salted and smoked. Ricotta from whey is described
in the next section.

Cynara

Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 20:38:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: Louise Smithson <helewyse at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Period Cheese... again? 
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

>>>>
I am a bit skeptical, perhaps unfairly. Anyone have a good idea of 
what types of cheese are really period, please critic the list below, 
copied from the link above...

Anahita

---------------

Cheese

This list includes cheeses that were known during the Middle Ages & 
Renaissance, along with some 17th century varieties and a few modern 
cheeses that are acceptable period substitutes.
<<<<

I can only comment on the Italian ones. This excerpt
is taken from Scappi and lists several cheese
varieties.  Those that are fresh (i.e. soft cheeses)
and are given as to the area they come from or the
hard cheeses. 

First book page 6.  To understand the goodness of all
the cheeses, many fresh, some salted and how to
conserve them Chapter 8
Look for fresh cheeses, you want those made with fat
(creamy) milk, and those that do not have an aspect of
being salted for more than a day, because they will
become too strong.  I affirm that my experience is
true, that those that are made in Tuscany, that one
demands for the ravioli, should be made of the richest
milk, and are always the most tender and moderately
salted.  But that cheese, which in Milan, is called
fat cheese, and that is carried to German lands in the
rind of trees (tree bark), its goodness is when it is
moderately salted, and many times it will have an
erratic odor.  Many of the other salted cheese, like
Parmiggiano, and that of the Riviera and marzolini,
one finds they are the best when they are made
originally in March and all of June, and when one cuts
them they yield a perfect odor with some tears; but
other cheeses that are carried to Rome from the
Kingdom of Naples are made in a different fashion, one
calls these horse cheese (cacio cavallo is still a
Southern Italian cheese), and they are not as good as
Parmiggiano.  It is true that when they are fresh they
are fat, and they are in their goodness, that the
fresh provatura*, especially the provatura Marzoline
is much better when fresh than salted.  But these
cheese by us called "Sardesco" (sardinian), should be
hard, and white on the inside, even though by nature
they are black, and if you want to save (keep, store)
these said cheeses, you need to oil them, and look at
them frequently, excepting the "Sardesco". 
* Provatura is actually buffalo milk cheese aka
mozzarella 
Taken from: Scappi, B. (1570). Opera dell'arte del
cucinare. Bologna, Arnaldo Forni 

Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 11:07:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kathleen Madsen <kmadsen12000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cheese pudding
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Greetings, all.  ...Coming out of lurk-mode...

I have done a fair amount of research into cheese and
cheesemaking, and don't recall seeing recipes for
cheese pudding - however, they could be out there!  I
have found a *ton* of recipes for cheese tarts, both
sweet and savory, that have a similar pudding type
consistency within a baked shell.  One of my favorites
is Lese Fryes, which I took from Renfrow's Take a
Thousand Eggs unredacted book (I believe it's printed
from Two Fifteenth Century cookbooks?).  Here's the
recipe:

Lese Fryes
Take fresh cheese, and pare it clene, and grinde hit
in a morter small, and draw yolkes and white of egges
through a streynour, and cast there-to, and grinde hem
togeterh; then cast thereto sugur, butter and salt,
and put all together in a coffin of faire paste, and
lete bake enough, and then serve it forthe.

My redaction:
16 oz. Ricotta
3 eggs
1/4 Cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablspoons soft butter

I used a basic flaky crust, but here's the recipe:
3/4 Cup white flour
1/4 Cup whole wheat flour
1/3 Cup chilled butter
2 1/2 Tablespoons cold water

Make the pie crust first: mix flours, cut butter
finely into flour with two knives, then mix the water
into the flour-butter mixture without crushing the
flour and butter together. Roll into a ball and wrap
in parchment paper or saran wrap, let rest in the
refrigerator for at least one hour.  Makes one 9" pie
crust. Pre-bake crust for 10 minutes. Mix filling and
pour into crust. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.

This is *really* yummy.  We're serving it at an
upcoming Baronial feast.  Other recipes can be found
in a variety of sources, or check out Stephan's
Florilegium http://www.florilegium.org/  and look
under Food.

Eibhlin
West Kingdom, Cheesemaker's Guild

Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:59:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kathleen Madsen <kmadsen12000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] What to do with goat cheese...
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Their products look fabulous.  :)  We have a local
producer here that makes incredible farmstead goat
cheeses, where the milk and the cheese are all
produced on the same farm.

Goat milk is a bit stronger in flavor than cow's milk.
  Goat cheese is very delicate when it's in curd form,
so you'll see a lot of artisanal or farmstead
cheesemakers referencing hand-ladeling.  Ladeling by
hand treats the curd very gently and prevents a lot of
that goaty "tang" from developing.  I couldn't bear
the taste of commercially available goat cheese until
I had my first bite of the hand made, hand-ladelled
variety.  Now, I actively search it out.

Eibhlin

--- Jane Boyko <jboyko at magma.ca> wrote:
> In regards to the taste of goat's cheese being
> stronger - I only noticed it
> in the white goat cheddar and it was very strong.  I
> have not noticed a taste
> difference in the cheeses at all.  I also find
> goat's milk to taste like
> cow's milk (to me very little flavour).  The
> problems I do have is in the
> melting factor and I do have to make adjustments -
> still working on a nice
> white cheese sauce.
>
> I have only had Sheep cheese in the form of feta.  I
> have never seen it made
> as anything else.  The grocery stores are getting
> better about carrying
> different types of goat cheeses but I really prefer
> to go to the Farmer's
> Market in Hamilton, Ontario (I now live in Ottawa
> and can't get there unless
> I visit the inlaws).
>
> The url I was referring to is:
> http://www.natricia.com/english/aboutus.html
>
> I have spoken with Virginia Saputo - the owner - and
> she is very well
> informed.
>
> I have tried Natricia's products - not the milk -
> and have found them to be
> very good and of a better quality than what I buy in
> the stores.
>
> Marina

Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2004 13:38:06 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cheese
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Being something of research freak myself,
You should also get hold of a copy of

Bartholomew Dowe's Dairie booke for good huswives
is anexed to  The householders philosophie which
is that odd household manul by Torquato Tasso.

A DAIRIE BOOKE FOR GOOD HUSWIVES is dated 1588 and
discusses the making and keeping of white meats
which is what dairy products were known as.

It was released as a facsimile in 1975 as part of the
English Experience series #765. he publisher was
Amsterdam : Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and in the USA by
Norwood, N.J. : W.J. Johnson. ISBN:90-221-0765-5.

Johnnae llyn Lewis

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 18:07:45 +0000
From: nickiandme at att.net
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Pinto cheese?
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org (Group-SCACooks)

I haven't been able to find a mention of this cheese anywhere.  Could  
it perhaps be a mispronunciation/misspelling for a Catalan cheese named  
Picón?

Picón, a close relative of Cabrales is made in the Cantabrian villages  
of Bejes and Tresviso. The cheeses are soft inside, some spreadably and  
others crumbly, and when cut reveal little galleries and caverns  
inhabited by the greenish-blue mold which gives them their  
characteristic strong big complex flavor.

Kateryn de Develyn
Barony of Coeur d'Ennui
Kingdom of Calontir

Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 15:18:17 -0800 (PST)
From: Huette von Ahrens <hrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] pinto cheese
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

--- ranvaig at columbus.rr.com wrote:
> Orange cheese is artificially colored, usually with annatto which is
> new world. Is there any evidence for bright orange cheese in period?
> Safflower or other dyes could be used for this, but is there any
> evidence that it was?

According to the Oxford Companion to Food,
annatto was being imported to Europe in the
17th century.  It also states that annatto
replaced marigolds and carrots as a food
colorant in cheese, but didn't say anything about
saffron.  It also states that cows that eat
fresh summer grass give milk that can be turned
into yellow cheese.  Cows that eat winter fodder
give milk that makes white cheese.

> The mixed cheese is made by mixing dyed and undyed curds.   I believe
> that cutting the curds in that manner is part of the cheddaring
> process, which I don't believe is period.  But I suppose Pinto cheese
> could be speckled in some other way.

I was thinking, just a guess on my part, that
it could be spotted with molds.  A French tomme
cheese is dotted with red, grey an yellow molds.
Sounds like a pinto to me.

Huette

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 23:44:19 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] buffalos in Italy?
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

> Didn't they originally make mozzarella from Buffalo milk?
> Micaylah

According to several sources mozzarella was originally produced near Naples
from buffalo milk.  Modernly, most mozzarella is made from cows milk
although it is possible to buy mozzarella di bufala.  Provatura seems to
denote cheese made strictly from buffalo milk.  Both mozzarella and
provatura are soft cheese which are delivered packed in their whey.  The
rubbery mozzarella common to the US would be considered very poor quality in
Italy.

I haven't found a description of the manufacture of provatura, so I don't
have a feel for how similar the cheeses are in production.

Bear

Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 13:35:04 +1030
From: "Craig Jones" <drakey at webone.com.au>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Sicilian Cheese article by Charls Perry
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Has anyone read this article?  Worth paying $US12 to look at?  Does it
contain an primary cheese articles or not?

Drakey.

------------------------------------------
Citation
Gastronomica
Winter 2001, Vol. 1, No. 1, Pages 76-77
Posted online on December 2, 2003.
(doi:10.1525/gfc.2001.1.1.76)

Sicilian Cheese in Medieval Arab Recipes
Charles Perry

Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:07:48 -0500
From: Jadwiga Zajaczkowa / Jenne Heise <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] cheese sites from LIIWEEK:
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

from lii.org:

10. The Cheese Board
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Guide to the rinds found on cheeses when they ripen and mature.
    Discusses types of rinds (such as bloomy, washed, and natural),
    which ones are edible, and differences between mass-produced and
    naturally formed cheeses. From an Indiana natural foods store.

   http://www.bloomingfoods.org/newsletters/jun00/cheese.shtml

----------------------------------------------------------------------
11. Cheese Counter
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Collection of articles and tidbits by Steve Jenkins, "author,
    frequent magazine contributor, and cheese consultant." Topics
    include bargain cheeses, alternatives to Brie, Paris cheese shops,
    preparation of cheese plates, storage tips, and specific types of
    cheeses. Also includes lists of cheese makers and cheese picks.
    From the online companion to the "This Splendid Table" radio
    program. Note: Most articles are from the late 1990s, so some
    specific sources may be dated.

   http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/souptonuts/cheese.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------
16. Fankhauser's Cheese Page
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Illustrated recipes and instructions for making hard cheeses,
    buttermilk, feta, mozzarella, mascarpone, yogurt, ice cream, and
    other cheese and dairy products. Also includes instructional
    videos, lab exercises, instructions for making a cheese press, a
    discussion of rennet, and recipes for ginger ale, root beer,
    bread, and sweet rolls. From a biology and chemistry professor.

   http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/Cheese.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------
40. Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board: Cheese Information
----------------------------------------------------------------------
    This promotional site for the Wisconsin dairy industry presents
    profiles of specific types of cheeses made in Wisconsin, a food
    and wine pairing guide, serving suggestions, a history of cheese
    making in Wisconsin, a virtual tour of a cheese factory,
    production statistics, and a glossary.

   http://www.wisdairy.com/cheeseinfo/

-----------------

The Great Cheeses of New England
This promotional Web site features a collection of recipes from New
England chefs, including fondues, tarts, Welsh rarebit, salads, and
appetizers. Also includes descriptions of New England cheeses, a list of
New England cheese companies, cheese trivia, and related information.
> From the New England Dairy Promotion Board.
http://www.newenglandcheese.com

------------------------

Camembert: Un Village, Un Fromage/Camembert: A Village, A Cheese
Illustrated information about this small village in the province of
Normandy (northwestern France) and the cheese that bears the village
name. Discusses the village church and graveyard, the House of Camembert
building ("resembles an open Camembert cheesebox"), and the
manufacturing process for the cheese, which is made from the milk of
Norman cows. In English and French.
http://www.camembert-france.com

----------------------------

Making Soft Cheeses
"Soft cheeses can be made at home without specialized equipment." This
site provides instructions for making cream cheese, pizza cheese,
Neufchatel, and other soft cheeses. Includes an equipment list,
illustration, and references. From Colorado State University Cooperative
Extension.
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09337.html

---------------------------------

Mexican Cheese: The Whole Enchilada
Describes traditional Mexican creams (cremas) and cheeses (such as queso
blanco and queso cojita). Includes recipes using these ingredients. From
a food columnist and cookbook author.
http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/kgk/2000/0500/kgk051300.html

-------------------------

Rennet
Description of rennet, which is the "enzyme used for the coagulation of
milk in the process of making cheese." Includes definitions of types of
coagulating enzymes used to make cheese (such as animal rennet
"harvested from the stomachs of calves," vegetable "rennet," and
genetically-engineered rennet) and a discussion of concerns about animal
rennet among animal rights activists, vegetarians, and some orthodox
religions. From Whole Foods Market.
http://www.wholefoods.com/healthinfo/rennet.html

-----------------------------
-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net 

Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 12:08:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Cacciocavallo with pasta?
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

There was some wondering of what kind of cheese to use with the  
Lombardy ravioli recipe. This got me to thinking of a quote from a  
letter to Isabella d'Este Gonzaga from one of her courtiers, telling  
her that if she visited Sicily, she would have to have one of their  
pasta dishes, dripping with cheese and butter and sugar and cinnamon.  
In Sicily, the cheese to grate and melt on pasta is cacciocavallo; this  
type of cheese has been made at least since the Middle Ages.

Typically I don't think you can find this cheese in American  
supermarkets; so has anyone here ever used this cheese? How goes it  
compare with grana padano or parmesan or romano?

Gianotta

Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 15:51:05 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cacciocavallo with pasta?
To: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>,	Cooks within the SCA
	<sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Also sprach Christiane:
> There was some wondering of what kind of cheese to use with the
> Lombardy ravioli recipe. This got me to thinking of a quote from a
> letter to Isabella d'Este Gonzaga from one of her courtiers, telling
> her that if she visited Sicily, she would have to have one of their
> pasta dishes, dripping with cheese and butter and sugar and
> cinnamon. In Sicily, the cheese to grate and melt on pasta is
> cacciocavallo; this type of cheese has been made at least since the
> Middle Ages.
>
> Typically I don't think you can find this cheese in American
> supermarkets; so has anyone here ever used this cheese? How goes it
> compare with grana padano or parmesan or romano?
>
> Gianotta

I gather it's a lot softer than the three you mention above; the
process of making it seems to suggest it's more like mozzarella, but
aged somewhat; if I had to guess I'd say it was probably something
like a cow's milk provolone. I believe I've seen it in markets in New
York, but never tried it.

But just out of curiosity, why would you think first about what seems
to be a Southern Italian cheese to use in a recipe from Lombardy,
which is about as far north in Italy as you can get?

Adamantius

Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 13:02:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cacciocavallo with pasta?
To: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>,	Cooks within the SCA
	<sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Cacciocavallo

An ancient cheese, certainly made in Roman times as its recipe was  
described by Columella in De
Rustica in AD35 - 45. It is known thoughout the Balkan states as  
Kashkaval, in Turkey as Kasar
Peynir and even as far as Syria and Lebanon as Kashkawan. The  
transalation in all languages is
"cheese on horseback" and stems from the cheeses being traditionally  
hung in pairs over poles for
maturing. Like many Italian cheeses this one is eaten young but also  
matured for up to two years
and used like Parmesan. It is a plastic curd cheese, pear shaped and  
the cheeses weigh about 2kg
each.

It seems to be very expensive from this e-merchant:

http://amos.shop.com/amos/cc/main/ccn_search/st/cacciocavallo/sy/ 
productsx/ccsyn/260/prd/13930134/ccsid/369742562-32189/adtg/04190541

These e-merchants seem a touch cheaper:

http://www.gourmetfoodstore.com/cheese/cheese-details-6832.asp

http://caviarmore.com/Category.aspx?CategoryID=1286

Huette

Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 13:21:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cacciocavallo with pasta?
To: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>,	Cooks within the SCA
	<sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Adamantius says:
But just out of curiosity, why would you think first about what seems
to be a Southern Italian cheese to use in a recipe from Lombardy,
which is about as far north in Italy as you can get?

=================================================

The lady who made the ravioli recipe was experimenting with cheeses.  
That got me to thinking about the regional nature of cheeses in Italy,  
and if I were to make pasta in the Sicilian style the Gonzaga courtier  
was slavering over, I'd have to use cacciocavallo, which is very  
specific to Sicily. So that got me wondering what it's like to cook  
with. No, I will not be making that chard ravioli recipe with  
cacciocavallo!

Gianotta

Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2005 22:27:31 -0500
From: "Mike C. Baker / Kihe Blackeagle" <kihebard at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cacciocavallo with pasta?
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Cacciocavallo is available in the USA in semi-rural southeastern Oklahoma --
admittedly, in an Italian grocery that has been there ever since Italian
miners were brought in to work the mines, but that is where I have  
found it.

You can also check outlets such as Whole Foods, and I *think* that I spotted
something very similar in the deli / international section of supermarkets
while I was recently on contract in the Pittsburgh, PA region and
luxuriating in aged, smoked provolone in abundant quantity.  <f/x:
hand-waving furiously at Odrianna, with continuing good memories of the
excellent, cozy-comfortable, Cook's Collegium I attended while in the
Debatable Lands>

If you can't find Cacciocavallo itself, in my opinion a good aged NON-smoked
provolone -- particularly one that has been "hung" so it looks physically a
bit like a birdhouse gourd -- should make a reasonable substitute both for
the palate and for the texture(s).  No, it will not be the same, but I'm
talking reasonable facsimile here.

  Adieu, Amra / ttfn - Mike / Pax ... Kihe

Mike C. Baker
SCA: al-Sayyid Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri al-Amra
"Other": Reverend Kihe Blackeagle PULC (the DreamSinger Bard)

Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 22:55:05 -0400
From: Ariane Helou <Ariane_Helou at brown.edu>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Junket
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

So, I was reading this account of feasts in medieval Italy, and there's a
description of a wedding banquet that took place on June 15, 1368  (Petrarch
was among the luminaries attending).  There were 18 (!!) courses,
consisting of gilded roasts and feathered peacocks and so forth...nothing
I'd attempt to make, but I'm interested in this account for menu-planning
purposes, to get a sense of the order in which foods were served and
eaten.  In that respect, it's been pretty useful.

Here are the basics, for others who are curious about such things: each
course seems to consist of fish and either meat or poultry (occasionally
both).  The contents of the accompanying dishes are not always named, but
include cabbage, beans, salted tongue, and some pastries.  ("Side dishes"
are not that hard to figure out, since several of the vegetable or legume
recipes instruct the cook to "serve with roast _____")  And lots of wine.

But the part that interests me at the moment is that the seventeenth course
is "junket and cheese," and the eighteenth is "fruits, with cherries."  My
cookbook has a recipe:

"Junket.
Take pure milk, clear, strained, and add kid or lamb rennet; and when it is
curdled, wash it well, and put it between reeds, and give it to your Lord;
or put it in cold water instead until it is time to eat."

I like to end my modern meals with fruit and cheese, so it's rather
delightful to find that the same was done in the fourteenth century.  While
I could probably substitute any kind of fresh, soft, sweetish cheese, I'm
interested in trying to make the junket itself.

It sounds a little like cottage cheese to me.  I'm not sure what "put it
between reeds" means -- pressing it, I suppose?  Which would mean it's much
more solid than cottage cheese -- maybe more like farmer's cheese or
something.  The alternate instructions to put it in cold water make me
think that the curds can either be pressed and served later, or kept  
cool and served fresh the same day.

Since the meal I'm planning this for is at a camping event, I'd need to
make the junket anywhere from a week to a day in advance, so the pressed
version seems more appropriate.  On the other hand, if it's going to be
very time-consuming or difficult, perhaps I ought to just buy more cheeses
and devote my energies to the more substantial and central parts of the
meal... which brings me back to the question of what a finished junket
looks like, anyway. :-)

Vittoria

Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 10:45:22 +0200
From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] question about breads
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Am Samstag, 4. Juni 2005 22:26 schrieb Huette von Ahrens:
>>>>
> I know that I grew up with something we called "cinnamon toast", which was
> white bread toasted and, while still hot, spread with butter and then had
> cinnamon and white sugar strewn on it.
>
> Many years ago, I was talking with another Laurel here in Caid.  She is
> Hispanic and had found a reproduction of a period Spanish cookbook
> somewhere.  I don't remember which one.  She told an amusing story of
> picking a recipe to translate, struggling with the differences between
> modern and Renaissance Spanish, and, after spending several hours on this
> one recipe, discovered that the recipe was for cinnamon toast.  I wish I
> could ask her which cookbook she translated, but she has dropped out of the
> SCA and I don't have any contact information for her.
><<<
>
> My point is that, in Spain, cinnamon toast was pre-1600.  It would not be
> unthinkable that other cultures had cinnamon toast also.
>
> I cannot remember.  Did you post the recipe for flavored butter from the
> Wolfenbüttel MS on this list?

I think I did, but here it is again, anyway.

Men schal nemen garophesneghele unde musschaten, cardemomen,
peper, ingever, alle lickwol gheweghen, unde make daraff botteren
edder kese

You shall take cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, pepper and ginger, in equal
weight, and make butter or cheese of it (or: add butter or cheese)
(Wolfenbüttel MS, c. 1500, northern Germany)

A redaction is unnecessary. I find the mixture very pleasant in butter,
less so in cream cheese. A generous pinch of salt improves it, but as
period butter was often salted for preservation that probably just comes
closer to the original flavour. A generous teaspoonful, with a little less
salt, is enough for a stick of butter.

The recipes intent in mentioning ‘cheese’ might be to have the spice blend
used during cheesemaking, which could give a very nice aroma indeed. I have
never been able to try this myself, though. Any feedback on the matter from
a cheesemaker will be much appreciated.

Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 11:47:39 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] question about breads
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

> Men schal nemen garophesneghele unde musschaten, cardemomen,
> peper, ingever, alle lickwol gheweghen, unde make daraff botteren
> edder kese
>
> You shall take cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, pepper and ginger, in equal
> weight, and make butter or cheese of it (or: add butter or cheese)
> (Wolfenbüttel MS, c. 1500, northern Germany)

The relationship of "mach" with "darauf" (literally "make upon it") suggests
to me that this may be a spice blend to dredge butter or cheese in before
serving.  Something on the order of a Renaissance cheeseball.

Bear

Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 13:19:03 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] question about breads
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

On Jun 5, 2005, at 12:47 PM, Terry Decker wrote:
> The relationship of "mach" with "darauf" (literally "make upon it")
> suggests to me that this may be a spice blend to dredge butter or
> cheese in before serving.  Something on the order of a Renaissance
> cheeseball.
>
> Bear

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. It may be a small point in the end, but
to me, "mach darauf" is more like "make thereupon" than "make
thereof". The combination sounds right on a humoral level, too, since
spices provide the heat needed for digestion and dairy products tend
to be seen as closing up the chest and stomach, rather like filling
the fuel tank of the automobile and remembering to put the plug back
in the gas tank.

Adamantius

Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 21:21:12 +0200
From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] question about breads
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Am Sonntag, 5. Juni 2005 18:47 schrieb Terry Decker:
> The relationship of "mach" with "darauf" (literally "make upon it")
> suggests to me that this may be a spice blend to dredge butter or cheese in
> before serving.  Something on the order of a Renaissance cheeseball.

Good point. They still make cheeses like that in Denmark, though not  
with the same spice mix.

Giano

Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 21:27:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] question about breads
To: mooncat at in-tch.com, Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

--- Sue Clemenger <mooncat at in-tch.com> wrote:
> What's quark?
> --maire

I found this definition online.

Huette

Quark

A favorite in Germany and Austria, where it appears at breakfast, in 
salads and in desserts, quark
is what cheesemakers call an acid-coagulated cheese. Instead of using 
the animal coagulant rennet
to create curds quickly, in 30 minutes or so, traditional cheesemakers 
make quark slowly by adding
a culture to pasteurized milk -- whole or skimmed -- and waiting 
patiently for the culture to
convert the lactose (milk sugar) into lactic acid.

When the pH drops sufficiently, a process that can take about 18 hours, 
curds form. Cheesemakers
may add a few drops of rennet to enhance the curd's structure, but the 
culture does most of the
work. Acid-coagulated cheeses (fresh chevre is another) have a more 
delicate texture than cheeses
coagulated primarily with rennet.

Quark, the cheese, has nothing to do with quark the subatomic particle. 
The word has been used to
describe this kind of cheese probably for centuries.

Commercial quark varies considerably from one manufacturer to the next. 
The texture can be as
soft, smooth and spoonable as thick crème fraîche, or dense and 
spreadable like a whipped cream
cheese. Its flavor is mild, not tangy, with a faint cultured taste.

"In Europe, we use quark a lot in desserts," says Campton Place chef 
Daniel Humm, who is Swiss.
The San Francisco restaurant sells 900 quark souffles a month, with 
seasonal fruit accompaniments
like balsamic cherries or oranges in spiced syrup. Humm uses the 
luscious, light quark produced by
Vermont Butter & Cheese, which is made by adding crème fraîche to 
skim-milk curd.

At 11 percent fat, the Vermont Butter & Cheese quark is less rich than 
crème fraîche, which can
top 40 percent. Allison Hooper of Vermont Butter & Cheese says chefs 
like her quark because it can
tolerate heat and because it gives frozen desserts and mousses a light, 
frothy texture..

[ Quark ] Fine as a breakfast spread on toast or bagels, as a topping 
for borscht or pureed
vegetable soups, as an ingredient in cheesecake, mousses, Bavarians and 
frozen desserts. .

Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 14:26:17 +0200
From: Volker Bach <carlton_bach at yahoo.de>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cinnamon cheese/butter balls
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansterra.org>

Am Montag, 6. Juni 2005 11:13 schrieb Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius:
> On Jun 5, 2005, at 11:57 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:
>> Okay, if the question here is whether the spice mixture is used to
>> coat just the outside or whether it is mixed throughout the cheese
>> or butter, how do the humoral theories affect that? If you are
>> balancing the humoral effects of the different items it would seem
>> that mixing the spices throughout the cheese or butter would be
>> superior to just coating the outside since the spice would be
>> better dispersed.
>
> All true. I just don't know which it is, and there may be some reason
> of which we're unaware hat what seems like a common-sense approach
> is not the approach taken by people in this position in period. The
> only info I've got is that phrase which, to me, says to put spices
> "on the cheese" rather than "in the cheese". Maybe some spices don't
>react well to the fats and acids in the cheese over time...

I thought the German said rather to put the butter or cheese 'on' the spices.
Maybe rolling in it or something similar is intended, but I am also not 100%
sure whether 'af' in Low German at his point does not mean 'of'. The spices
certainly don't have a problem with butter.

Giano

Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 10:54:02 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Digby Help Needed
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

On Jun 10, 2005, at 9:25 AM, Mairi Ceilidh wrote:
> I do not own a copy of Digby yet, and I need a recipe from it.
> What I need is Slipcote Cheese.  

http://www.ostgardr.org/cooking/ppb.html#cheese

Adamantius

Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 14:58:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kathleen Madsen <kmadsen12000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Digby Slipcoat Cheese
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

There are three recipes in Digby, I have included them
below.  Let me know how your's come out as I've been
experimenting with them myself.  :)

"To Make Slipp Coat Cheese" Digby, page 223

According to the bigness of your moulds proportion
your stroakings for your Cheese-curds.  To six quarts
of stroakings, take a pint of Springwater: if the
weather be hot, then let the water be cold, and before
you put it into the stroakings, let them stand a while
to cool after they are milked, and then put in the
water with a little Salt first stirred in it: and
having stirred it well together, let it stand a little
while, and then put in about two good spoonfuls of
Runnet, stir it well together, and cover it with a
fair linnen-cloth, and when it is become hard like a
thick jelly, with a skimming-dish lay it gently into
the moulds, and as it sinks down into the moulds, fill
it still up again, till all be in, which will require
some three or four hours time.  Then lay a clean fine
cloth into antoher mould of the same cise, and turn it
into it, and then turn the skirts of the cloth over
it, and lay upon that a thin board, and upon that as
much weight, as with the board may make two pounds or
thereabouts.  And about an hour after, lay another
clean cloth into the other mould, and turn the Cheese
into that; then lay upon the board so much, as will
make it six or seven pound weight; and thus continue
turning of it till night: then take away the weight,
and lay it no more on it; then take a very small
quantity of Salt finely beaten, and sprinkle the
Cheese all over with it as lightly as can be imagined.
  Next morning turn it into another dry cloth, and let
it lye out of the mould upon a plain board, and change
it as often as it wets the cloth, which must be three
or four times a day: when it is so dry, that it wets
the cloth no more, lay it upon a bed of green-rushes,
and lay a row upon it; but be sure to pick the bents
clean off, and lay them even all one way: if you
cannot get good rushes, take nettles or grass.  If the
weather is cold, cover them with a linnen and woollen
cloth; in case you cannot get stroakings, take five
quarts of new Milk, and one of Cream.  If the weather
be cold, heat the water that you put to the
stroakings.  Turn the Cheese every day, and put to it
fresh of whatsoever you keep it in.  They are usually
ripe in ten days.

"To Make Slipp-Coat-Cheese" Digby, page 224

Master Phillips his Method and proportions in making
slippe-coat Cheese, are these.  Take six wine quarts
of stroakings, and two quarts of Cream; mingle these
well together, and let them stand in a bowl, till they
are cold.  Then power upon them three pints of boiling
fair water, and mingle them well together; then let
them stand, till they are almost cold, colder then
milk-warm.  Then put to it a moderate quantity of
Runnet, made with fair water (not whey, or any other
thing then water; this is an important point), and let
it stand till it come.  Have a care not to break the
Curds, nor ever to touch them with your hands, but
only with your skimming dish.  In due time lade the
Curds with the dish, into a thin fine Napkin, held up
by two persons, that the whey may run from them
through the bunt of the Napkin, which you rowl gently
about, that the Curds may dry without breaking.  When
the whey is well drained out, put the Curds as whole
as you can into the Cheese-fat, upon a napkin, in the
fat.  Change the Napkin, and turn the Cheese every
quarter of an hour, and less, for ten, twelve or
fourteen times; that is, still as soon as you perceive
the Napkin wet with the whay running from the Curds.
Then press it with a half pound weight for two or
three hours.  Then add half a pound more for as long
time, then another half pound for as long, and lastly
another half pound, which is two pounds in all; which
weight must never be exceeded.  The next day, (when
about twenty four hours are past in all) salt your
Cheese moderately with white Salt, and then turn it
but three or four times a day, and keep it in a cotton
cloth, which will make it mellow and sweet, not rank,
and will preserve the coat smooth.  It may be ready to
eat in about twelve days.  Some lay it to ripen in
dock-leaves, and it is not amiss; but that in rain
they will be wet, which moulds the Cheese.  Others in
flat fit boxes of wood, turning them, as is said,
three or four times a day.  But a cotton cloth is
best.  This quantity is for a round large Cheese, of
about the bigness of a sale ten peny Cheese, a good
fingers-breadth thick.  Long broad grass ripeneth them
well, and sucketh out the moisture.  Rushes are good
also.  They are hot, but dry not the moisture so well.
   My Lady of Middlesex makes excellent slipp-coat
Cheese of good morning milk, putting Cream to it.  A
quart of Cream is the proportion she useth to as much
milk, as both together make a large round Cheese of
the bigness of an ordinary Tartplate, or Cheese-plate;
as big as an ordinary soft cheese, that the
Market-women sell for ten pence.  Thus for want of
stroakings at London you may take one part of Cream to
five or six of morning milk, and for the rest proceed
as with stroakings; and these will prove as good.

"Slipp-Coat Cheese" Digby, page 226

Take three quarts of the last of the stroakings of as
many Cows as you have; keep it covered, that it may
continue warm; put to it a skimming dishful of
Spring-water; then putin two spoonfulls of Runnet, so
let it stand until it be hard come: when it is hard
come, set your fat on the bottome of a hairseive, take
it up by degrees, but break it not; when you have laid
it all in the fat, take a fine cloth, and lay it over
the Cheese, and work it in about the sides, with the
back of a Knife; then lay a board on it, for half an
hour: after half an hour, set on the board an half
pound stone, so let it stand two hours; then turn it
on that board, and let the cloth be both under and
over it, then pour it into the fat again; Then lay a
pound and half weight on it; Two hours after turn it
again on a dry cloth, and salt it, then set on it two
pound weight, and let it stand until the next morning.
  Then turn it out of the Cheese-fat, on a dry board,
and so keep it with turning on dry boards three days.
In case it run abroad, you must set it up with wedges;
when it begins to stiffen, lay green grass or rushes
upon it: when it is stiff enough, let rushes be laid
both under and over it.  If this Cheese be rightly
made, and the weather good to dry it, it will be ready
in eight days: but in case it doth not dry well, you
must lay it on linnen-cloth, and woollen upon it, to
hasten the ripening of it.

***************************
All three of these recipes are quite different from
each other.  The first recipe will make a smaller
cheese that has a springy, somewhat moist paste -
kinda like a very young brie - and is the easiest of
the three to make.  The second one is a large, flat
cheese that will have a harder paste from the hot
water.  This will be more chewy and cut in wedges with
a thicker rind.  The last one (that I haven't tried
yet) looks more difficult to manage as it seems like
the curd and paste is much sofer and more liquid.
Tell me which you make and how they turn out.

Eibhlin the cheese-geek

Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 21:06:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kathleen Madsen <kmadsen12000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Food on Plates
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Both cheeses have the traditional shape and rind of a
gouda, however the one on the right has what looks
like  cumin and caraway seeds - which would make that
Leyden.  The left one is definitely an aged gouda
which is probably about 2-3 years old.  We have a 4
year version that we carry that is darker and
grainier, it no longer crumbles like this image,
rather it breaks into shards.

Both dutch cheeses, and both made in late-period,
which fits what you've got painted on the canvas and
the area the artist is from.

Hope this has helped,
Eibhlin, who is a cheesemonger and corp. buyer of
cheese and charcut. in real life.  ;)

>>>>>
Ok folks---

Picture One
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/2005/claesz/claesz_ss1.shtm

The question has arisen on another list as to the
cheeses?

The fruits in question I think are mainly currants.

Any ideas on the cheese?

Johnnae
<<<<<

Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 20:43:34 -0800 (PST)
From: Kathleen Madsen <kmadsen12000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Neufchatel Cheese
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

It's a lower-fat version of cream cheese, basically.
Actually neufchatel is a basic cream cheese,
frequently referred to as a "French Cream Cheese".
The cream cheese as we know it today was created back
at the turn of the 20th century by American Dairymen
trying to recreate Neufchatel.  Back then it was
difficult to move perishable product very far, so many
of these wonderful foods couldn't be found outside of
a certain area or season.  Neufchatel is very
perishable, lasting only about 4-5 days outside of
refrigeration.  Once you get a little spot of mold
anywhere on the product you have to toss it, because
about 8 hours later it's going to be present
throughout the product.

The recipe for it is very simple, basically just
rennet and culture a batch of cream and let it sit
overnight.  In the morning when it's curded drain it
through a cheesecloth.  When it has finished draining
put it (still in the cheesecloth) into a colander
inside a larger bowl, place a plate on top and weigh
it down with two bricks.  The next morning take the
cheese out of the cloth and either flavor with salt
and herbs or just serve as is.  I have always gotten
rave reviews over this simple little cheese.  It's
easy to make and it's really, really yummy.  I've not
found any similar recipes in period texts, but we do
know that they have fermented and renneted cream - I
just have no evidence to show that they would have
then pressed the clotted/curded cream after it had
drained.

Neufchatel that you see on the grocery store shelves
today is using the traditional french cream cheese
recipe and it creates a very flavorful product.  It's
definitely not a light cream cheese product unless the
box specifically says "light" on it.

Hope this helps clarify the differences,

Eibhlin

Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2005 10:02:23 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Seeking More Cheese info
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

On Dec 5, 2005, at 9:25 AM, wildecelery at aol.com wrote:
> I've been told that it's in Menagier...there's a poem on buying
> cheese....
>
> Does anyone have a good  idea where i can find it in both French
> and English.  Still working on my own period cookbook
> collection......

Well, it's here in English with an accompanying bit of somewhat
similar text (but not a direct translation) in Latin:

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Menagier/Menagier.html

I found it by searching for the word "Magdalene", a word I know
appears in the verse and AFAIK, not too many other places in Le
Menagier.

> Also....
>
> I'm looking for a good, definitely period, main-dish recipe that
> incorporates cheese (specifically either using the generic term cheese, or 
> farmer's or fresh cheese ) as one of the main ingredients....

The mushroom pasties, also in Le Menagier, call for cheese, and some
(myself included) have interpreted this as a fair amount of cheese,
rather than as a seasoning.

Adamantius

Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 23:25:26 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Seeking leaves and crust
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

On Jan 11, 2006, at 7:43 PM, Terry Decker wrote:
> The modern recipe is using soft cheese to simulate fresh cheese.
> When the whey is drained, the cheese forms a soft but solid mass
> that would need to be broken apart for the recipe.  A mortar can be
> the heavy stone or metal mortar we are familiar with or it may be a
> bowl.  The instruction to grind may actually be a direction to
> break up the cheese rather than to pulverize it.  Unfortunately,
> the simple Latin dictionary I have available doesn't shed any light
> on the verb.
>
> We don't know precisely what cheeses the Romans used, but Mark
> Grant describes experimenting with cow's milk curdled with fig
> sap.  He also points out that Roman preservation techniques were to
> bottle cheese in brine or vinegar, dip it in salt, smoke it, or
> pack it with crushed pulses.
>
> It is an interesting question, which I may pursue later.
>
> Bear

I seem to recall Pliny the Elder talking a bit about cheeses in the
Roman world, Cato giving one or two recipes, and Columella (author of
De Re Agricultura, not to be confused with Cato's De Agricultura)
giving us a pretty fair amount of information. I vaguely recall
something about sage leaves being crushed for their juice, used as a
vegetable rennet substitute. Somewhere I have a smudgy little
photocopy of some sections from Columella, but at the moment not even
a prayer of getting at it.

Adamantius

>> I do not understand, how can you grind ricotta or soft cheese?
>> This sounds like a hard cheese.
>>
>> Lyse

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 10:59:17 -0500
From: Barbara Benson <voxeight at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Seeking leaves and crust
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

> and Columella (author of
> De Re Agricultura, not to be confused with Cato's De Agricultura)
> giving us a pretty fair amount of information. I vaguely recall
> something about sage leaves being crushed for their juice, used as a
> vegetable rennet substitute. Somewhere I have a smudgy little
> photocopy of some sections from Columella, but at the moment not even
> a prayer of getting at it.
>
> Adamantius

I just so happen to have one of the volumes (I am working on getting
them all) and it is the one with the cheese section. Keep in mind that
his discourse on cheese occurs during his discussion on keeping and
managing Goats - so he is not talking about cow cheese:

excerpt from De Re Rustica by Columella:
		VIII. It will be necessary too not to neglect the task of
cheese-making, especially in distant parts of the country, where it is
not convenient to take milk to the market in pails. Further, if the
cheese is made of a think consistency, it must be sold as quickly as
possible while it is still fresh and retains its moisture if, however,
it is of a rich and thick consistency, it bears being kept for a
longer period. Cheese should be made of pure milk which is as fresh as
possible, for if it is left to stand or mixed with water, it quickly
turns sour, It should usually be curdled with rennet obtained from a
lamb or a kid, though it can also be coagulated with the flower of
the wild thistle or the seeds of the safflower, and equally well with
the liquid which flows from a fig-tree if you make an incision in the
bark while it is still green (Forster 285).

Serena da Riva

Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 11:31:12 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
	<adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Seeking leaves and crust
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

He goes on to say:

"The best cheese, however, is that which contains only a very small
quantity of any drug. The least amount of rennet that a pail of milk
requires weighs a silver denarius; and there is no doubt that cheese
which has been solidified by means of small shoots from a fig-tree
has a very pleasant flavor. A pail which has been filled with milk
should always be kept at some degree of heat; it should not, however,
be brought into contact with the flames, as some people think it
proper to do, but should be put to stand not far from the fire, and,
when the liquid has thickened, it should immediately be transferred
to wicker vessels or baskets or moulds; for it is of the utmost
importance that the whey should percolate as quickly as possible and
become separated from the solid matter. For this reason the country-
folk do not even allow the whey to drain away slowly of its own
accord, but, as soon as the cheese has become somewhat more solid,
they place weights on the top of it, so that the whey may be pressed
out; then, when the cheese has been taken out of the moulds or
baskets, it is placed in a cool, shady place, that it may not go bad,
and, although it is placed on very clean boards, it is sprinkled with
pounded salt, so that it may exude the acid liquid; and, when it has
hardened, it is still more violently compressed, so that it may
become more compact; and then it is again treated with parched salt
and again compressed by means of weights. When this has been done for
nine days it is washed with fresh water. Then the cheeses are set in
rows on wickerwork trays made for the purpose under the shade in such
a manner that one does not touch another, and that they become
moderately dry; then, that the cheese may remain the more tender, it
is closely packed on several shelves in an enclosed place which is
not exposed to the winds. Under these conditions it does not become
full of holes or salty or dry, the first of these bad conditions
being generally due to too little pressure, the second to its being
over-salted, and the third to its being scorched by the sun. This
kind of cheese can even be exported beyond the sea. Cheese which is
to be eaten within a few days while still fresh, is prepared with
less trouble; for it is taken out of the wicker-baskets and dipped
into salt and brine and then dried a little in the sun. Some people,
before they put the shackles on the she-goats, drop green pine-nuts
into the pail and then milk the she-goats over them and only remove
them when they have transferred the curdled milk into the moulds.
Some crush the green pine-kernels by themselves and mix them with the
milk and curdle it in this way. Others allow thyme which has been
crushed and pounded through a sieve to coagulate with the milk;
similarly, you can give the cheese any flavor you like by adding any
seasoning which you choose. The method of making what we call "hand-
presses" cheese is the best-known of all: when the milk is slightly
congealed in the pail and still warm, it is broken up and hot water
is poured over it, and then it is either shaped by hand or else
pressed into box-wood molds. Cheese also which is hardened in brine
and then coloured with the smoke of apple-tree wood or stubble has a
not unpleasant flavour. But let us now return to the point from which
we digressed."

I'd say something like a young sheep's milk manchego or one of the
pecorinos would come pretty close (but not aged romano), and for the
fresher cheeses, chevre or Bulgarian feta, soaked free of some of its
salt, would make good libum cheeses.

Adamantius

Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 09:57:53 -0800 (PST)
From: Kathleen Madsen <kmadsen12000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 34, Issue 65
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

During the month of March you begin to see fresh goat
cheeses hit the market, as kidding season is Jan to
Feb.  These days most farmers only give the colostrum
(produced the first 10 days or so) and early milk to
the kids for the first two weeks and then begin
collecting the milk to use for spring cheeses shortly
after.

Sheep begin milking around April/May for market, and
are lambing right about now.

Cows were not used for milk as much until very late in
period, they were primarily work and meat animals
prior to that.  Cows were not cultivated for dairy
purposes until closer to the sixteenth century as
their population expanded.  They require *by far* more
land and resources per pound of milk than do goats or
sheep.

Two of the most famous cheeses from period were aged
for a minimum of two years before being released -
Sbrinz from Switzerland (precurser to parmigiano
reggiano) and Parmigiano Reggiano from Italy (produced
in late period).  There are several cheeses that were
aged up to a year and more, but they are by far fewer
than those that were aged for a lesser amount of time.
 It is very difficult to make a cheese exactly right
every time so that it will survive the long aging
time.  Granted, in period they were extremely good at
sanitation but even today the conditions have to be
exactly right for it to be able to age-on.  Plus, you
need a *lot* more milk because you need to make a much
larger cheese.  The bigger the cheese, the dryer you
can make the paste, the more impervious the rind you
create, the longer it will last.  Typically these
cheeses that are aged to a year or more are only good
for cooking.  There is so little moisture left and the
flavor is so intense that you only need to use a small
amount at a time grated into or over your food.

Eibhlin, the cheese-geek

Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:35:39 -0700
From: Susan Fox <selene at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dayboard...
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>,
	lilinah at earthlink.net

lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:
> I'm making the fresh cheese. I'd like to make a couple different
> flavors, and i am pretty sure there is evidence for flavored cheese
> (i.e., with herbs or spices or something else), but i don't recall
> where to find it.

Herbs in cheese no problem!  How about MORETUM, a food/lust poem by
Virgil, wherein the amorous rustic makes his lunch of cheese pounded
with garlic, rue, coriander seeds and salt.
<http://virgil.org/appendix/moretum.htm>

Selene

Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:29:47 -0400
From: Elaine Koogler <ekoogler1 at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dayboard...moretum
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

K C Francis wrote:
Herbs in cheese no problem!  How about MORETUM, a food/lust poem by
Virgil, wherein the amorous rustic makes his lunch of cheese pounded
with garlic, rue, coriander seeds and salt.
<http://virgil.org/appendix/moretum.htm>

Selene

Yes, we had this at a recent SCA feast here in the West.  I fell in 
love with it and have made it at home since then.  While I grow rue, I 
didn't use it.

Katira

I also served it at a feast several years ago...it was very well 
received and was nummy!

Kiri

Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 16:30:27 -0700
From: lilinah at earthlink.net
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Dayboard...moretum
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

Katira wrote:
Herbs in cheese no problem!  How about MORETUM, a food/lust poem by
Virgil, wherein the amorous rustic makes his lunch of cheese pounded
with garlic, rue, coriander seeds and salt.
<http://virgil.org/appendix/moretum.htm>

Bon Appetit,
Selene

Yes, we had this at a recent SCA feast here in the West.  I fell in love
with it and have made it at home since then.  While I grow rue, I didn't use
it.

I served Moretum at the Greco-Roman Mists Bardic i did in 2002. 
Euriol of Lothien made it and she parboiled the garlic so it wouldn't 
be too harsh. While I like my garlic with more bite, her idea was 
"kind" to those who like their garlic to be gentler :-)

As for my cheese at the Dayboard, I ended up just serving it plain as 
a spread for the nice part-whole wheat bread that Anna Serre made. A 
lovely young Indian woman (truly South Asian, not a persona) said it 
reminded her of cheese her mother used to make.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita

Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2006 23:00:17 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] FW: spice and cheese question for my turnips
	recipe
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

There's not much that I've found on Elizabethean cheese markets, but I would
expect fontina not to be very common.  It is more likely you would see gouda
or edam from the Low Countries, where there were a number of major cheese
markets.  The trade relationship between England and the Low Countries was
strong during the 15th and 16th Centuries due to the number of refugees who
moved to England to escape the Spanish.  The only true Dutch cheese market
of this type remaining is at Woerden.

If fontina did show up in England, I would expect it to be old cheese traded
in Venice or Pisa, shipped directly to London or transferred through
Portugal and traded to the English there to ship to London then wholesaled
at the docks to local grocers .  By the 16th Cenbtury, England was getting
most of its spices from Lisbon.  Pisa was a Genoese satellite, the overland
Genoese cloth trade with Asia had shrunk, and Genoa had established
factories in Spain and Portugal to rebuild its trade with Asia.   So the
trade through Portugal would be a strong possibility.

I also don't count out Venice, since the English went where they could make
a bargain.

You state that you can date fontina to the 13th Century.  Documentation,
please.  I'm curious because most of the sources I've run across base this
date on some very shaky evidence (shapes of cheese in illustrations and an
unidentified document).  I've also seen the claim for a 12th Century origin,
again with no real references that can be verified.  There is an entry on
the area cheeses in the Summa Lacticinorum (1477).  I haven't located a
copy, but an abbreviated quote from the reference makes me think that it a
generalization and not a specific reference to fontina.  The first use of
the name fontina is stated to be in 1717.  If we don't have an accurate
description of the cheese and its properties prior to the 18th Century, then
there is no way we can be assured that the cheese we call fontina is related
to the cheese produced in the 12th or 13th Century or even manufactured in a
similar manner.

Bear

> I'm going to use fontina, and I'm pretty happy with that choice because I
> can date it back to the 1200s in the mountains northwest of Venice (unless
> one of you more learned folks thinks I'm whacked).  Of course, how Arwen
> would have gotten an Italian cheese like fontina in 1576 Ipswich is a
> question I need to answer..... Can anyone point me to resources for the
> cheese trade in Elizabethan England?  Was there one?  I'm assuming at this
> point that they might have brought cheeses with them along with whole
> spices on merchant ships from Italy?
>
> Dame Arwen Lioncourt OP

Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 07:18:03 -0800 (PST)
From: Kathleen Madsen <kmadsen12000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Spice and cheese question for armored turnips
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

Take every dated list of cheeses with a huge grain of
salt.  The research is quite poor and documentation
pretty much non-existant.  You'll see that many of
these lists are really just regurgitations of other
peoples lists - just recopied from other websites.
There is very little period documentation for cheese
or cheesemaking and what there is doesn't really refer
much to a "named" cheese (there are some exceptions) -
so it's really difficult to determine what cheese was
used.  Generally speaking you had regions that would
make a "style" of cheese - like a hard cheese or a
semi-soft and it was all based on tradition, the type
of pasture, what kinds of animals it was more economic
to raise in that area, and the climate (which would
affect the lactation cycle).  All of these things plus
what you do to the cheese in the cheesemaking and
aging process dictate what you'll end up with.  That's
why with only a handful of milk options (cow, goat,
sheep, camel, mare, reindeer, etc.) we have thousands
of different kinds and types.

Up in the mountains they would make large cooked-curd
cheeses in the summer because they would keep and
would transport well so that when the vendor would
make their trips up into the mountains every few weeks
to collect the cheeses for sale they would be easier
to transport down off the mountain.  They primarily
use helicopters now.  Fontina is (in my opinion) a
more modern cheese because, although it is made in the
mountains at high altitudes, it is pretty difficult to
transport.  The paste is rather springy and the rind
is wet and sticky and it has a tendency to dry out and
crack if it's not cared for and inspected regularly.
It also has a tendency to split down the middle if
it's not supported correctly underneath, darned
finicky to keep at times.  It's a wide, flat cheese
and is only about 5 inches thick.  A difficult wheel
to get out on the back of a donkey - but easy to
transport by cog train or other mechanized method.  It
may have been made down in the valleys as they were
drying up the cow's but late-lactation milk is
difficult to work with and I don't know that they
would risk such a large wheel on chancier milk.

In Elizabethan England trade was quite heavy with the
Dutch, and the dutch make great trading cheeses.  You
would see gouda's, emmental's, maybe an Edam or two,
and possibly some muenster coming off the boats.
There would be some cheeses coming in from Italy as
well, primarily a few parmeseans (which were designed
for local use and export) and maybe some aged
pecorino's - probably of Sardinian lineage.  No Fresh
cheeses would be making the trip, their life
expectancy is too short for anything outside of their
local area.  That means no mozzarella except for some
limited areas of Italy.

As far as local cheeses go you would have some hard
cheeses that would be transported into cities and
towns from the outlying countryside.  Things like a
gloucester or a caerphilly in texture and density.  I
characterize cheddars and cheeses that use the
cheddaring process as being post-period as I haven't
been able to document the specific milling and
cheddaring process back very far.  It's seen in the
victorian era but I haven't seen it earlier than that.

Generally speaking, when I shop for cheese I look for
"country where made" and "styles" - soft, semi-soft,
washed rind, blue, hard, etc.  I'm not looking for
names unless I'm doing a tasting on period cheeses.  I
will avoid pasta-filata's (stretched curd cheeses like
mozzarella and provolone) if I'm doing English or
German foods and instead try and find something that
is made in the UK or Germany.  Then I look for the
style that I need for my recipe; young/fat, hard/dry,
etc.

When I make my own cheese I go from period
documentation and period images to re-create what they
may have been doing.  I won't end up with exactly what
they would have made as the terroir, animal,
milk-type, etc., etc., can be way off.  I'll end up
with something that's flavored by the wild yeasts in
my region, milk that's affected by the days weather
conditions, what point the animal is in their
lactation cycle, what type of feed the animal at that
day, etc., etc.  It will be unique to my region but
the recreation itself and the techniques used are as
close to period methods as I can get.  Additionally,
the animals in period tended to be multi-use, raised
for milk and/or meat and/or fiber and/or work.  Today
they are very stratified.  You've got your good
milkers which don't always make good fiber animals or
good meat animals.  Plus, most of the milkers have
been bred to produce more milk and of a better quality
than they may have had in period.  We can only make an
approximation today.

So, as you can see there's really no hard and fast
rule or a shopping list that makes cheese selection
easy.  If you're using it for cooking and want a
representative cheese to use in a dish then look for
country and then style of cheese.  If you're doing a
platter or display of cheese then look for named
cheeses that can be documented.

I have found in the last couple of years that the more
I learn about cheese and dairying in period the less I
know.  ;)  I used to go into stores with a list of
cheeses that had been dated off of websites on the
internet thinking I was getting pretty darned close to
what they used back then.  Don't even get me started
on raw milk vs. pasteurized...

Mistress Eibhlin, cheesemaking

Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 14:26:17 +0100
From: Suey <lordhunt at gmail.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Ulloa and other denominations for specific
	medieval	cheeses
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

Ulloa, gallego or patela is semi-hard cheese made from cow's milk in the
Spanish provinces of La Coru?a, Lugo and Pontevedra. It is most as
likely that this cheese existed in the Middle Ages as did what we call
today Cabrales or Roquefort but is there available research connecting
names today and those of medieval cheeses as in the case of blue cheese?
I see Italian cheese made from buffalo milk is receiving modern names or
substitutes while Nola simply calls it buffalo cheese.

Susan

Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 18:28:14 -0400
From: "Daniel  Phelps" <phelpsd at gate.net>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Cheese History/Science
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Glad to be the one to post this one.

http://www.livescience.com/history/070528_cheese_science.html

Daniel

Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:12:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kathleen Madsen <kmadsen12000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cheese Perfume and Cheese Nutrition and Wax
	questions
To: sca-cooks <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

I apologize for the formatting.  I get the digest
version which doesn't make replying very easy at times.

**********From Sharon**********
3) On cheeses from the store, how can you tell if the cheese is coated in
beeswax or some other food grade wax?  Can the other waxes be used to make
molded or dipped candles?

**********My response**********
You usually can't tell if it's beeswax or paraffin
unless the wax is in it's natural color, these are the
two most common waxes used on cheeses.  Cheese wax is
typically made of paraffin and will sometimes have
additives blended in to control certain types of
growths.  Wax is also post-period.  You don't really
see much evidence that it's used until around the
victorian times when people began converting over to
gas lighting.

**********from Sharon**********
4) What are some of the traditional ways that cheeses are wrapped and
protected (cloth, herbs, leaves, wax, mats, baskets?)?  What are the best
historic household or cookbooks with cheesemaking info?  (I have looked at
the articles in the florlegium.)  I know the following have some info from
other people's suggestions and will request them on interlibrary loan.:
Columella
Digby
Markham

***********My response**********
There was little done to protect cheeses in period.
There is actually little done these days to wrap
cheeses, other than wax or some dried herbs, as most
options are going to cause unwanted mold to grow
against the cheese.  There is some evidence that
nettle leaves and grape leaves were used in Roman
times but these are secondary references so I don't
know how accurate they are.  Regardless, if you're
going to wrap your cheese in leaves you need to treat
the leaves first by macerating (boiling) them in a
high alcohol/water blend.  Bourbon and water with
grape leaves makes a yummy wrapper.  The only drawback
is that these wrapped cheeses don't have greatly
increased shelf lives, you may get an additional 2-3
weeks out of them.  Rather, they make it easier to
handle and get to market and they impart a different
flavor.

The primary method used on the cheese was to form a
protective rind that would create a flavor profile and
texture in the final product that a) was pleasing and
would sell, and b) that was reproducible.  Parmigiano
Reggiano is floated in a brine solution for two days,
is allowed to air dry, and then is rubbed several
times with olive oil to give it that hardened rind.
Munster uses a red smear, brevibacterium linens, that
is a strain of yeast designed to give a cheese a soft,
creamy interior that (while smelling rather strongly)
makes a pretty mild,yeasty flavor.  These munsters can
last up to two months.  Feta is aged in a brine
solution and as long as it stays completely submerged
will last a very long time.  The texture will get more
and more gluey as is ages though.  Another treatment,
which is very period, is to marinate the fresh cheeses
in olive oil.  They will react much like feta.

Here's my current working list of sources for cheese recipes:
Walter of Henley's Husbandrie - dates btw 1270 & 1300
Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry - c. 1543
A hundreth good points of husbandrie - 1557
The Householders Philosophie - 1588
A dairie Booke for good huswives, Dowe - 1588
Skene of Hallyard's Manuscript of Husbandrie - 1666
Wm. Harrison, Description of Elizabethan Eng. - 1577
A generall rule to teche euery man that is willynge, Seton
On the Making of Cheese
The nature of fresh non-salted cheese, Libro Settimo - 1593
About Cheese, Bifrons - 1556
Inventory of one of Charlemagne's Estates, c. 800
Charlemagne's Cheese, a study. (Heather Rose Jones)
1999

These, in addition to the ones you mentioned, are the
texts that I'm currently working with in regard to
cheese production.  I also have a number of livestock
and cattle documents that are from archeological finds
or period census data.

Eibhlin

Sharon

Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2007 08:26:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kathleen Madsen <kmadsen12000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period sources for cheese
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

I posted my current working list of sources at the
bottom of a rather lengthy post on August 22nd.  The
original question listed Platt, Digby and Plato as
well.  There are more out there but these are the ones
that are available online so they have easier access.
Hope it helps!

Eibhlin

Here's the snipped bit of message:

Here's my current working list of sources for cheese
recipes:
Walter of Henley's Husbandrie - dates btw 1270 & 1300
Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry - c. 1543
A hundreth good points of husbandrie - 1557
The Householders Philosophie - 1588
A dairie Booke for good huswives, Dowe - 1588
Skene of Hallyard's Manuscript of Husbandrie - 1666
Wm. Harrison, Description of Elizabethan Eng. - 1577
A generall rule to teche euery man that is willynge, Seton
On the Making of Cheese
The nature of fresh non-salted cheese, Libro Settimo - 1593
About Cheese, Bifrons - 1556
Inventory of one of Charlemagne's Estates, c. 800
Charlemagne's Cheese, a study. (Heather Rose Jones)
1999

These, in addition to the ones you mentioned, are the
texts that I'm currently working with in regard to
cheese production.  I also have a number of livestock
and cattle documents that are from archeological finds
or period census data.

Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2007 16:14:25 -0700
From: "K C Francis" <katiracook at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period sources for cheese - extract from
	West-Cooks	by Eibhlin
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

> Perhaps what some of us would like to see is a list of cheeses that
> were made in period and still available in a form like, or close to,
> that of the past.
> --
> Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)

This was put into the files section of the West-Cooks egroup about 4  
years ago.  Enjoy.

PERIOD CHEESES

     * Appenzeller, (Switzerland).  Noted as being one of Switzerland's
oldest cheeses, it dates back to Charlemagne.
     * Beaufort (AOC), (France, Savoie).  Mentioned in Roman times.
     * Bellelay, (Switzerland).  This cheese is now known as Tete-de- 
Moine.
It was renamed during the French Revolution, was originally named  
after a
monastery in the Jura mountains.
     * Brie de Meaux (AOC), (France, Ile-de-France).  Mentioned as  
early as
774 when it was served to Charlemagne.
     * Cantal (AOC), (France, Auvergne). This is one of the oldest of  
the
French cheeses, dating back to the 12th century.
     * Castlemagno, (Italy).  This cheese was mentioned in 1277 as a  
unit of
exchange.
     * Cheshire, (Great Britain).  54 BC - the method for making it was
brought to England by the Romans
     * Comte, (Switzerland).  1267 AD
     * Cottage Cheese, very common, early to late period.
     * Emmental, (Switzerland).  This cheese can be traced back to  
1293, but
was first mentioned by name in 1542, when it was given to the people of
Langethal whose lives had been devastated by fire.
     * Farmers Cheese, very common.  It's just unprocessed curds that  
have
been salted and packaged.
     * Feta, (Greece).  1184 AD
     * Fontina, (Italy).  13th cent.(haven't verified this one)
     * Fribourgeois, (Switzerland).  According to local documents, it  
was
served to the wife of Duke Sigismund of Austria in 1448.
     * Gorgonzola, (Italy).  879 AD (haven't verified this one)
     * Gouda, (Holland).  An ancient cheese, its history dates from  
the sixth
century, when it was made on small farms around the village of  
Gouda.  It
has been exported since the 13th Century.
     * Grana, (Italy).  1200 AD (parmesan and romano are of this family)
     * Gruyere, (Switzerland, Fribourg).  In 1115 a quantity of  
Gruyere was
recorded as the thithe paid by local farmers to the monks of Rougement
Abbey.
     * Mariolles (AOC), (France, Flanders).  Made as early as the 10th
Century at the Abbaye de Mariolles.
     * Münster, (Germany).  In the Middle Ages the cheese was made by  
the
monks at Munster Abbey in modern day Alsace.  When Alsace became part of
Germany, the name of the ceeses gained an umlaut, it became Münster,  
after
the Wesphalian town.  Ownership of Alsace switched from Germany to  
France
several times after that, but the cheese continued to be made on both  
sides
of the border.
     * Parmesan, (Italy).  1200-1300 AD
     * Quark, (Germany).  Simply means "curd" in German, and the  
cheese is
said to date from the Iron Age, when nomadic tribes discovered the  
means of
fermenting the milk without the use of Rennet.
     * Ricotta, known throughout period
     * Romano, (Italy).  1200-1300 AD
     * Roquefort, (France).  1070 AD - but is under debate!
     * Saint-Marcellin, (France).  Served to royalty as early as  
1461.  In
those days it would probably have been made with goat's milk.
     * Sapsago, (Italy).  16th cent.
     * Sbrinz, (Switzerland). Is thought to be the cheese referred to by
Pliny the Elder as Caseus Helveticus in his writings of the 1st  
Century AD.
     * Slipcoat cheese, (Great Britain).
     * Wensleydale, (Great Britain).  1150 AD
     * Yogurt, known througout period

NON-PERIOD CHEESES

     * Camembert, developed in 1791 by Marie Fontaine. The cheese  
Napoleon
ate was not what we know as Camembert.
     * Cheddar, because of the cheddaring process, which was created  
during
the Industrial Revolution, is late 18th century.  There is a cheese  
that was
known in period that was called Cheddar, but it was an *entirely*  
different
cheese from what we know today.
     * Edam, 18th cent.
     * Gloucester, 1697 AD
     * Port-Salut, 1865 AD
     * Stilton, 1750 AD

List compiled and researched by Lady Eibhlin nic'Raghailligh, mundanely
known as Kathleen Madsen.  Feel free to email with questions or  
comments.
kmadsen12000 at yahoo dot com.

Katira

Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:54:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Kathleen Madsen <kmadsen12000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cheese please!
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

***************************************************
Well, Gunther has inspired me to make cheese for my
upcoming feast:

I'm doing Late Period Italian in Mid April.

What I am currently planning is to do a cheese plate
as a prelude to the dessert.  Feast is for 100.

Here are my current possibilities with cure times:
Fontina (3 months)***
Mozzarella (10 days) - hand stretched
Provolone: (2-3 months)
Burrini ( a few weeks)
Caciovavallo (2 months) - hand stretched

I'm also considering making & serving mascarpone along
with the cheese and fresh bread.
Now I need to get some Rennet & other assorted chemicals...

thoughts?

Vitha
****************************************************                        

Hi, Vitha!

Hooray!  Let me know if you want any help making any
of these cheeses, you know how I love to get cheesy.
Your list looks very good (and period!) but the timing
needs a little tweaking.

1. Fontina.  The 3 month aging time is for an entire
wheel.  The standard wheel I would buy was 22 pounds.
I don't think you're going to need that much Fontina,
you'd be eating it on everything for weeks in order to
get rid of it all.  If you size it down to a 2 lb
wheel it's only going to need about 5 weeks to age,
probably less so that you don't lose that
springy/sticky texture that is so desirable in the
cheese.  Luckily, if you make the smaller wheel you
have time to perfect it before NOTT.

2. Mozzarella.  Most Italians will only eat fresh
mozz. if it's been made that day, they scoff at us
Americans every time we airlift out a batch of buffalo
mozzarella because by the time it gets into our shops
it's well past what they would consider it's prime.
The earliest you'd want to make this would be the
afternoon before feast.  You can also buy pre-made
curd in 5 and 20 pound blocks (I'm hearing the
Italians mocking me as I type) should you not have
enough time to make the curd and pull same-day.
Mozzarella is difficult to pull and get right, it
takes lots and lots of practice.  When I was making it
in the shop last summer it took about 2-3 days to get
the texture where I wanted it so I had the slightly
formed sack around the ball and the loose, easy to
break stretched curd in the middle.  You *have* to
spend time practicing so the frustration level during
production doesn't turn everything into a nightmare.
You want to go into it with confidence.  You don't
need all that much for 100 people, maybe an ounce a
person - probably less, but you're still probably
going to have to form 12-15 good sized balls and
you're going to want them pretty consistent.

3. Burrini.  This is just a small version of Burrata
but has a lump of butter in the middle rather than the
Burrata version of unpulled curd mixed with cream.
(Note: Burrata is a ball of fresh mozzarella
surrounding a soft, creamy center of unpulled curd
lumps mixed with cream.  Pure luxury)   Burrini is
going to be a <bleep> to form as the curd is quite hot
140-150 degrees F and the butter likes to melt.  You
have to be really, really good and really, really fast
at pulling mozzarella to get this one to turn out
right, it's also almost identical in taste and texture
to the fresh mozz.

4. Provolone.  The only concern with this one, other
than having a controlled aging environment, is to make
sure you have a smooth rind.  The aged pasta filata
cheeses can develop cracks in the rind as they age and
you have to check, wipe, and reposition them every day
to keep them supple and aging uniformly.  One crack
and mold starts to grow in the paste right away.  If
you're lucky you can cut it out when you serve, if
you're not then the whole thing goes into the trash.

5.  Cacciocavallo.  I love this cheese.  It has the
same issues as Provolone because it's very similar.
These guys are *great* smoked too.  Aging time can
vary as you can make them as small as 1/2 pound and as
large as you have the hands to hold it all together as
you pull it.

Let me know if you want to do any of these using raw
milk, I have a "source".  It's not legal to sell raw
milk in Maryland but I am a member of a buying club
that buys direct from a farmer in Pennsylvania and
delivers it down here.  The Provolone and
Cacciocavallo recipes get hot enough that they will
pasteurize the milk as the curd is cooked, so it's a
good choice for using raw milk if you want to try
working with it.  The others I would recommend using
store-bought pasteurized milk in consideration of
anyone with a compromise immune system or those who
are pregnant or nursing.  (I'm trying real hard to
keep my personal opinions about pasteurized milk and
the FDA out of this).

As for supplies: http://www.cheesemaking.com/ is the
best for home cheesemaking.  Ricki is the "Queen of
Cheese" and the folks there are great if you have any
questions about anything at all.  If you decide in the
future that you want more interesting cheese cultures
or supplies then Glengarry Cheese Supply in Canada is
your best bet, they're equally great with questions.
Margaret will package up all US orders, drive the 5
minutes across the border and ship it.  I can't
imagine how much money she's saved all of us by doing
it that way rather than just shipping it
international.

Let me know if you want me to bring any of my books to
choir practice tomorrow night, we can also talk on
Saturday at Midwinter's.

Eibhlin

Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:09:29 -0500
From: "Christine Seelye-King" <kingstaste at mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cheese and appetizers (was)Feast
	costs/budgets
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

<<< So this brings up a question....what KIND of cheeses are best, worst,
unacceptable at feasts.

Sabina >>>

I have this little list, but I would definitely check these dates.  I seem
to recall it being cobbled together from the Food Timeline or some such,
which is suspect at best for accuracy.  But, it gives you a starting place.
I thought I had more on this particular issue, but I can't find it  
just now, you should definitely check out the Florilegium.

Christianna

Cheese Variety          Year(AD)
--------------          --------
Gorgonzola              879
Roquefort               1070
Grana                   1200
Cheddar                 1500
Parmesan                1579
Gouda                   1697
Gloucester              1697
Stilton                 1785
Camembert               1791

Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:12:28 -0500
From: "Christine Seelye-King" <kingstaste at mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cheese and appetizers (was)Feast
	costs/budgets
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Here is another one with more detail and some references:
Type of Cheese          Date of Earliest Reference         Reference
Feta                    {1184BC}                                [1]
Sbrinz                  "...Roman times..."                     [6]
Romano                  "...since the time of Christ..."        [6]
Cantal                  "...to the time of the Gauls..."        [6]
Munster                 8th Century                             [6]
Gorgonzola              879AD/11th century                      [1], [6]
Roquefort               1070AD/"was the favorite cheese         [1], [6]
                         of Charlemagne and King Charles VI"
Wensleydale             {1150AD}                                [4]
Grana                   1200AD/13th Century                     [1], [6]
Fontina                 13th Century; "favorite of the          [6]
                                 Duke of Savoy"
Beaufort                {1267AD}                                [2]
Emmental(aka "Swiss")   {1267AD}                                [2]
Comte                   {1267AD}                                [2]
Cheddar                 1500AD                                  [1]
Parmesan                1579AD/{1200AD-1300AD}                  [1], [3]
Gouda                   1697AD                                  [1]
Gloucester              1697AD                                  [1]
Stilton                 1785AD                                  [1]
Camembert               1791AD                                  [1], [5]

{} signifies I consider that the date is dubious.
/  two dates reported

Sources:
[1] http://www.efr.hw.ac.uk/SDA/book1.html
[2] http://www.franceway.com/cheese/history.htm
[3] http://www.parmigiano-reggiano.it/estoria.htm
[4] http://www.wensleydale-creamery.co.uk/history.htm
[5] http://www.camembert-country.com/cwp/cam_hise.htm and
http://www.cheese-gourmet.com/
[6] http://wgx.com/cheesenet/wci/

Compiled by
Brian of Trollfen
Bxs3829 at usl.edu

Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:15:13 -0500
From: "Christine Seelye-King" <kingstaste at mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cheese and appetizers (was)Feast
	costs/budgets
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

Cheshire           54BC  "Julius Caesar discovers the Britons making..."
Gruyere            1722   "introduced into France"

Referenced in Trager, James, The Food Chronology.

Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:10:30 -0600
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Cheese and appetizers (was)Feast
	costs/budgets
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

> Cheshire           54BC  "Julius Caesar discovers the Britons  
> making..."
> Gruyere            1722   "introduced into France"
>
> Referenced in Trager, James, The Food Chronology.

Trager is unreliable.  He mixes fact, apochrypha, and fantasy with no
reference to source or limitations.

Bear

Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:10:11 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Speaking about Cheese
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

The Dutch Cheese Museum
situated in the centre of the cheese town Alkmaar in the historical 
Weighhouse.

ttp://www.kaasmuseum.nl/welcome.asp?lang=0   for the English website

Check out the 16th century costumes (ladies holding items of food)
http://www.kaasmuseum.nl/content/content.asp?lang=0&menu=3&submenu=

Dutch website here
http://www.kaasmuseum.nl/welcome.asp?lang=1

Johnnae

Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 10:02:32 -0800 (PST)
From: Kathleen Madsen <kmadsen12000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] "Sharp" Cheddar
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

Responding to Stefan's somewhat flippant question:

Your question could actually be answered in two ways.

1) If it's a traditional cheddar that's been clothbound and aged then yes, the aging is what makes it sharper.  There are also good quality, brick style cheddars that are aged for years to develop the sharpness and a more complex flavor.  Carr Valley cheese, some of Cabot's cheddars, and Widmer's are all good examples of the latter.

2) If it's a bulk, automated technology that churns out brick after brick of cheddar than no, the aging does not make it sharper.  They typically in these cases add more of the enzyme (rennet) to give it a sharper characteristic on the tongue.  Sometimes with the really sharp ones you get a "sparkle" or bubbly feeling on the tongue, this is caused by the extra enzyme mixing with the moisture on your tongue.  Our tastebuds interpret this as being sharp, when really what it is is a kind of bubbly/drying reaction.  It's cheaper to just add more enzyme than it is to allocate storage space to actually age the cheese on for 2, 3, 5 or 10 years.  Think Tillamook and Lucerne for these.

This would make an interesting side-by-side comparison - and cheddar just loves beer. There you go, instant party!

Eibhlin

****************************************************

But this doesn't answer my, somewhat flippant, question. Does aging  
itself make a cheese "sharper"? Is aging required to get a "sharp"  
cheese, whether a cheddar or some other cheese? Does aging a cheese  
always make it sharper?

Stefan

Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:32:22 +0000 (GMT)
From: emilio szabo <emilio_szabo at yahoo.it>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] cheese 1538
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

One of those regimens of health, published after the authors death in 1538, about cheese:

Doch ain wenig Kae? genossen / auff oder nach andren speysen / beschle??t den magen / vnd hilfft jm dewen 

However, a small amount of cheese eaten after other dishes, closes the stomach and helps the stomach in digesting.

http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0002/bsb00025446/images/index.html?id=00025446&fip=79.247.70.31&no=21&seite=23

Before that, the authors warns the addressee, Duke Eberhard of Wuerttemberg, of the dangers of cheese. 

I guess, all that is ancient medicinal lore.

E.

Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:36:53 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Labneh as a substitute for "cream cheese"

The talk about cream cheeses made me go look up the ingredients for the package of Ulker brand labneh (Turkish yogurt cheese) I have in the refrigerator now:

Pasteurized whole milk, milk fat, starter, salt.

I took a package of this yesterday and mixed it with garlic pepper, dried dill, and vegetable flakes into a dip for a party; the texture, dare I say it, is virtually identical to good old Philadelphia cream cheese, and the flavor is fresher and better; not quite the tang of plain sour cream or yogurt, but close.

When you first open the package, there is a little whey at the top; but this is easily mixed back in.

If you have a Turkish grocery or a store that sells Turkish foods near you, it's worth picking up (at about $3.29 a 16 ounce or so package), especially if you don't have the time to make your own by straining Greek plain yogurt. I would imagine labneh would make a good, guar-gum-free substitute for cream cheeses in your redactions.

Adelisa (who is now going to eat some leftover labneh dip with some baby carrots)

Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:46:24 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
From: Christiane <christianetrue at earthlink.net>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Period pasta sauce (was Re: A couple of
	questions)

On Dec 13, 2009, at 1:21 PM, I wrote:
<<< The "fresh cheeses dripping with butter and milk on all sides," what kind of cheese do you think he was referring to? It certainly doesn't sound like Parmesan. Taking a look at the Florilegium and the cheese entries there, could Landi have been referring to a mascarpone? >>>

Adamantius replied:
<<< I would think it's something in a cohesive mass, but barely. Buffalo-milk mozzarella? >>>

You know, I think you have something there. Reading about the history of water buffalo in Italy, there are theories that the animal was introduced to the mainland by the Norman Sicilians, where they had been introduced to the island by the Arabs.

More about that at http://www.mozzarelladop.it/

Adelisa 

Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2010 03:10:36 -0400
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Goat Cheese

On Jun 4, 2010, at 1:16 AM, Linda Larson wrote:
<<< I own dairy goats, and have made cheese for the past few years.  So far, I have used purchased cultures, but I'd like to try using my raw milk and wild cultures.  Any advice?  Also, where could I find documentaton for period cheesemaking?  The sources I've found, like Gervase Markham are just beyond the SCA time frame.  Anything earlier that would help?

I have one lactating ewe, and plan to try milking her.  I'll let you all know how it goes!  

Lidia Allen >>>

IIRC, Columella's De Re Agri Cultura (the one that is not by Cato The Elder, but somewhat similarly titled), maybe 3rd or 4th century CE, has some goat's milk cheese recipes.

As for Markham, I believe the 1615 edition of The English Housewife contains a lot of material previously published as far back as the 1580's, so one could make a strong case for being within the scope of the SCA.

Adamantius

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2011 14:15:27 -0800 (PST)
From: V O <voztemp at yahoo.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] The cheese in 1500's dutch painings.

As an update, I just found what looks like a blog or forum for how to make this 
polish cheese, oscypek. This is a cheese still made today, that is not made in 
a normal cheese form of round wood, and documentable to 1416.

In this site it shows how to make it, smoke it, and the wooden forms they are 
made in. Of course I can't read a thing on it, but the pictures give you a very 
good idea.

http://www.wedlinydomowe.pl/forum/printview.php?t=1196&start=405

Very cool.

Mirianna

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 12:01:06 -0800 (PST)
From: wheezul at canby.com
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Recipes please

<<< I am in search of recipes for cheeses, from 1400's up through our
time periods.  Mostly Dutch, German, Finnish, Polish and so forth. >>>

I've only run across a few German ones so far.  There are the instructions
for sheep's milk cheese making that I blogged about here:
http://jillwheezul.livejournal.com/192506.html

Rontzier's recipe for 'Flot Kesen' or cheese made from cream (it's nom!)
http://jillwheezul.livejournal.com/194990.html

Anna Wecker has instructions for ricotta cheese (this needs more work on
my end!):
http://jillwheezul.livejournal.com/155417.html

I do keep my eye open for cheesy goodness.  If I find more I'll let you
know.  I think there are earlier versions for preparation of
zuger/ziger/zyger but I haven't worked on them.  Sometimes they are for
the almond substitutions...

Katherine

Date: Mon, 7 May 2012 08:45:10 -0500
From: Jennifer Carlson <talana1 at hotmail.com>
To: Cooks list <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Quark

A German deli here in Tulsa carries quark.  You might check out like establishments in your area.

Talana 	

Date: Tue, 8 May 2012 14:47:48 -0700
From: K C Francis <katiracook at hotmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Quark

Spring Hill makes quark, including plain, garlic and lemon.  The lemon is incredible smeared on fresh strawberries.  It is located in Petalumn, Ca. West Kingdom/Principality of the Mists.  I buy the quark and strawberries at my local summer farmer's market.

http://springhillcheese.com/

Katira

Date: Fri, 18 May 2012 19:56:29 -0400
From: Suey <lordhunt at gmail.com>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Caciocavallo - Saddlebag cheese!

I just became a member of I don't what but I received this answer:

Ellie Rose Elliott 
<http://www.linkedin.com/groups?viewMemberFeed=&gid=1956186&memberID=159529861>.'Saddlebags' 
- two round, flask-shaped cheeses hanging side by side and dried over a 
sturdy branch. Made traditionally from sheep or cow's milk, it's 
everywhere in the Greek south of Italy, once Magna Graecia, and indeed 
is first mentioned in Hippocrates, I believe, around 500BC. Looks good, 
very decorative, Tastes of nothing much and has a poor texture, sorry.

There is a whole class of cheeses made in the Mezzogiorno which are just 
totally on another planet to anybody brought up on French, English, 
Dutch, Swiss, Norwegian etc cheeses. The local range is in fact very 
narrow: a lot of apparent variety but very little difference between 
them. Cacioricotta, again, looks very pretty, all white, delicate and 
inoffensive, you would think. The salt levels are normally so high 
nobody not born to it can get past the first nibble.

I'm not sure if the problem is connected to the almost complete 
disappearance of sheep farming across the region in the last 75 years. 
The great sheep runs, a form of transhumance introduced by the Hapsburgs 
in the middle ages, came to an end under Mussolini, I think, and the 
land reverted to olive production. So the sheep's milk cheeses have been 
replaced by cow's milk equivalents with a massive loss of character. And 
there's no local tradition of sheep's yoghurt, sadly.

Anybody who can discuss the cheeses of the Mezzogiorno, feel free to 
correct me or make recommendations. I shall be home in the south of 
Puglia next week and welcome suggestions!

My additions:

Washington Irving, when the US ambassador to Spain, rode to Granada with 
cheese in his saddlebags in the latter part of the 19th C where he wrote 
Tales of the Alhambra. Henry IV (1425-1474), older brother of Isabel the 
Catholic of Castile rode with cheese and sausage in his saddle bags 
along with everyone else in the Middle Ages. This cheese beginning to 
make sense. . .

Suey

Date: Sun, 20 May 2012 15:44:21 -0400
From: Christiane Truelove <christianetrue at earthlink.net>
To: "sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Caciocavallo cheese

<<<
===========
(snip)
<- two round, flask-shaped cheeses hanging side by side and dried over a
sturdy branch. Made traditionally from sheep or cow's milk, it's
everywhere in the Greek south of Italy, once Magna Graecia, and indeed
is first mentioned in Hippocrates, I believe, around 500BC. Looks good,
very decorative, Tastes of nothing much and has a poor texture, sorry.

(more snip_

My additions:

Washington Irving, when the US ambassador to Spain, rode to Granada 
with cheese in his saddlebags in the latter part of the 19th C where 
he >wrote Tales of the Alhambra. Henry IV (1425-1474), older brother of 
Isabel the Catholic of Castile rode with cheese and sausage in his 
saddle bags along with everyone else in the Middle Ages. This cheese 
beginning to make sense. . .
Suey
==========

I am confused.  Are you saying that Washington Irving specifically 
carried this Italian cheese in his saddlebags?  Or is there just a 
mention somewhere of him carrying some type of cheese (for his lunch?) 
on his horse?

Was this caciocavallo cheese imported into Spain in the mid-1400s? 
Would it have survived the trip?  Weren't there any Spanish cheeses that 
Henry IV would have taken on horseback?

I'm missing something here.  Taking cheese along on horseback, wrapped 
up in one's saddlebags, would seem to be fairly commonplace for a 
traveler.  But does that mean that it would have to be caciocavallo from 
Italy?

Alys K. >>>

The cheese wasn't called Caciocavallo because it was carried in saddlebags; it got that name because it was hung up to dry by tying it in the middle. The shape the cheese took on looked like saddlebags slung over a horse's back. 

The cheese today is typically made from cow's milk, but probably originally was a sheep's milk cheese. When it's aged, it resembles provolone. In Sicily, well-aged Caciocavallo is grated over pasta like Romano.

There are Caciocavallo- type cheeses in Spain, but I don't think the Spanish imported much cheese from their Southern Italian kingdom. Aged Caciocavallo does keep well, though, so it would make a good journey cheese.

Adelisa

Date: Sun, 20 May 2012 16:57:23 -0400
From: Suey <lordhunt at gmail.com>
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Caciocavallo - Saddlebag cheese!

Elise Fleming  wrote: " I am confused. Are you saying that Washington 
Irving specifically carried this Italian cheese in his saddlebags? Or is 
there just a mention somewhere of him carrying some type of cheese (for 
his lunch?) on his horse? Was this caciocavallo cheese imported into 
Spain in the mid-1400s? Would it have survived the trip? Weren't there 
any Spanish cheeses that Henry IV would have taken on horseback? I'm 
missing something here. Taking cheese along on horseback, wrapped up in 
one's saddlebags, would seem to be fairly commonplace for a traveler. 
But does that mean that it would have to be caciocavallo from Italy? 
Alys K. "

The recipe for Caciocavallo cheese could have been imported to the 
Iberian Peninsula. I don't think the cheese itself was. An example of 
possible cheese recipe exchanges this is blue cheese. The French say 
their pilgrims took the recipe to Cabrales, in Picos de Europe on the 
Way of St. James, while the Spaniards maintain that the French took 
their recipe to Roquefort.

Henry IV liked cheeses. Certainly there were plenty of Spanish cheeses 
but with the expansion of his uncle's Kingdom of Aragon into Italy, we 
have more international exchanges of foods and recipes from Catalonia to 
Italy and visa versa as seen in Nola particularly. The fact that he does 
call for this and other Italian cheeses makes one think that they were 
available in Catalonia at least.

Perhaps neither Henry IV nor Washington Irving were not curing cheese 
but they certainly had cheese in their saddlebags!

Suey

Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2013 10:43:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: JIMCHEVAL at aol.com
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] What's the right cheese for an interrogation?

While the Romans liked certain cheeses from Gaul and Brie cheese was  
already famous in the late medieval period, "cheese" in the early medieval  
period typically is just "cheese" - no region, type, qualification, etc.

But here - from the Carolingian period - is one slightly more precise  
reference. This is one of a number of texts describing the curious "trial by  
bread and cheese", in which the accused was given bread (here, unleavened 
barley  bread) and cheese and considered guilty if he or she could not keep it 
down. In this case, the cheese to be used is a "formaticus Maiensis de 
ovibus" of 9  denarii weight - that is, a May sheep's cheese.

http://www.dmgh.de/de/fs1/object/goToPage/bsb00000838.html?pageNo=631&sortI
ndex=020%3A060%3A0001%3A010%3A00%3A00&sort=score&order=desc&context=formatic
um&hl=false&fulltext=formaticum

May cheese is mentioned in later texts like the Enseignemens - it  
essentially means spring cheese and one such cheese (very much like a soft  Gouda) can sometimes be found at Trader Joe's. So, if there's someone you want  to interrogate....

Jim  Chevallier

<the end>