Cheese Book in the making

               CHEESE INFORMATION TO BE FOUND IN-

"CHEESE MAKING IN THE SUBURBS OF SOUTH AFRICA THE RAINBOW NATION BY NONA ROSS   A Penguin publication due out MID OCTOBER 2014 in Ebook and soft cover.

Cheddar and Edam cheese drying                  Rockford cheese ripening in mini Humidors  

               

                         Yes! 

 YOU can make cheese in the suburban environment of your home. You do not have to own a farm or small holding, or even a cow!   I have been making cheeses for a number years and have only had a tiny kitchen in my cottage on the property of my landlord.   Cheese making is an exciting hobby which can soon become addictive.   When you take that first mouthful of your first cheese no matter what type, it will fill your chest with pride and you will wonder why you had not tried making cheese years ago.



                             FETA BEING DRIED AND SALTED                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

                         What I would like to achieve with this book is to enable the city girl or guy a chance to live a little bit of country life in their own suburban home.   I do not want to overload you with too much information, but give you enough to get started and to think out of the box, so that pretty soon you will adlib and invent your own cheeses.   For example if you do not have blue mold, keep some bread in a plastic bag and watch the mold grow,  scrape it off and dry it out. Voila!   Your own blue mold.

                          As referred to   previously, I have used Wiki Articles to give you a little more information about this fascinating subject which is the process of changing milk, (whether it be goat's, Cow's, sheep's or buffalo milk) into cheese by set of controlled additives (acid, starter cultures, enzymes,) applied temperatures, heating and cooling), and applied physical movement (stirring, cutting, molding, pressing) the result is a defined chemical change to a certain cheese.   The combination of additives, temperature, and physical process applied and this resultant cheese is infinite as evidenced by a trip to a grocery store.

     Cottage Cheese Curds.                                             

Over the last couple of a thousand of years certain cheeses have become more popular and their recipes available.   But calling this interplay a recipe is an injustice as cheese making is not as simple as following a cooking type recipe  as milk ( and are ingredients)  is an extremely complex material subject to seasonal and regional changes and preprocessing  (raw, pasteurized and homogenized).   Thus cheese makers and lovers need to understand the interplay of the process and components to obtain the kind of cheese they want.

Visualize cheese making as a giant tree, starting at the base with raw cow's or goat's milk, cream or whey, then you decide a fresh or aged cheese, then how you want a fresh or aged cheese, then how you want to coagulate the milk, then what process to apply, and what other ingredients to add.

But let me warn you that as soon as you think you have it taped and understand this organized “cheese tree” (sheep's milk and dry powdered non-fat cow's milk Gorgonzola using white and blue molds).    the whole tree suddenly springs new branches!   Everything affects cheese making, seasons, weather, milk, your mood, patience, and product quality such as rennet culture and so forth and last but not least, interruptions. 

Freshly made             Camemberts                                                                                         

  Make friends with your local grocery store and organize a good price for your pasteurized full cream milk, which may be homogenized or not, and you are sorted.

For the rest dig into your kitchen cupboard, husbands garage and kids toy box, you will find nearly everything you will need to make unique molds and shapes.   

                                    Herbed Halloumi

This is just the introduction to my book!       Hope you find it promising.  
 Can't wait for the book to be published in October!