WOMEN AND CHEESE.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 270, 10 January 1929, Page 3

WOMEN AND CHEESE.

Women have never been regarded as connoisseurs of cheese ; indeed, there

was a delicate section of Victorian so- ' ciety winch regarded cheese as “not quite nice for ladies.’’ Dike the wine, I th e cheese was in the ordering hands . of the mistress but the master of the J household, who responded with alacrity to the confidentia. note from his own particular cheesemonger that something peculiarly rich and full j flavoured had just been secured and. ; was awaiting the privilege of being J tasted. Cheesemongers went long ago and now cheese—real cheese—is going j too. Women have always cultivated I cheeses made from a recipe of meekloss and niiidness. and after deriding their taste men are at last sharing it. Even at bachelor suppers Stilton is no longer called for. Feminine little morsels in silver paper are sufficiently adequate for the cheese course—which can be dispensed with altogether without much regret. What would Brihatbavarin think of our modern decadent taste? To him a meal without cheese was like a beautiful woman who lacked an eye. But women love custom, and it is difficult to believe that housewives will give up buying at least a quarter of a Stilton when Christmas comes round. Even in its palmiest days no on e suggested that a monument should be erected to the inventor of Stilton, as one has recently been dedicated in Normandy to the honour of th e dairymaid to whom Gruyere owes its originIf such a statue were raised, it would be at hangar, m Leicestershire, and not at Stilton, in Huntingdon, from which the cheese takes its name. Stilton has been honoured only because it was at its inn, where the stage-coaches stopped for lunch, that the landlady, a Leicestershire woman, first introduced to the general public the cheese made in her native vale of Belvoir. Its popularity spread fast. Early Victorian literature has frequent allusions to it as the last relish of a luxurious and convival meal, and in later d&ys it has stood as something symbolic of sound English food against doubtful foreign dainties and concocted kickshaws '

A modern novelist gives us the soliloquy of a jaded sybarite at a London dinner: “I’ve had some turtle soup and a bit of tongue smothered in jam, and now I’m hungry. That waiter looks kind. I’m going to ask him to bring me a piece of Stilton hidden between two biscuits.” A hungry woman would probably have begged for a triangle of mild Cheddar. Stilton chee e originated in days in which labour was created rather than saved. It requires infinite care and toil at the hands of the dairymaid if, in its making and maturing, it is to reach the proper standard of excellence, The preparation of the mild compositions which are supposed to be pushing Stilton out of the market is a comparatively easy and simple process.

Woman’s chees c may bo made at home in an odd hour- It is quite otherwise with the masculine Stilton. Great judgment and exactitude are required in s i h matters as the proportion of the binding rennet to be added to the milk and the degree of the acidity which the milk must have attained. Th e cheeseroom must be kept at something like a constant temperature, and

as much as six months’ maturing is needed before the Stiltons are ready for market. “Defects will creep in.” says an agricultural expert, “and it is a difficult matter to trace their causes. Sometimes, intrusive bacteria enter with th e water. Sometimes an excess of one of the necessary materials, rennet or salt, for example, disturbs tho due equilibrium existing between the normal organisms and the milk.’*