THE CHEESE PROBLEM

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 76, 25 February 1930, Page 3

THE CHEESE PROBLEM

To the Editor. this is still a serious topic. Shall cheese be made of whole milk, or will it be possible to rob it of some of its butter-fat contents and diddle the buyers. Speaking as a one-time Staffordshire farmer—how we used to argue over this problem 40 years ago, when the housewives were too heavyhanded in skimming the night’s miik before it was put into the cheese vat, their object being to sell butter and provide themselves with readier money instead of letting the whole milk be made into a cheese which in those days was not marketable for four or five months from manufacture. AVe always said that putting the milk product into two baskets was never a financial success as the butter basket was always filled at the expense of the cheese. In spring when milk was plentiful and comparatively low in fat contents our cheese would only average about 45s per long cwb. (1201b5.), but in autumn, the milk being richer, the price would be up from 55s to 65s per long cwt, due solely to the quantity of fat in the cheese. J hope New Zealand farmers will never get the idea into their heads that skimmed milk will do the cheese trade any good. They will put an inferior article on the market and it will fetch just what it is worth, if lucky, but probably a bit less, and freight on good cheese is considerably less per cent in nett return than on cheap stuff. AA’hy is Stilton cheese worth from 2s 6d to 3s 6d per lb ? Simply because it is full of blitter fat made from equal parts cream and milk. And Stilton cheese makers have more sense than to think that skim milk will not be a detriment to quality. We used to make “Staffordshire Toaster” cheese and could always sell good fat cheese anywhere. The modified or skim-dick cheese will have to be eaten in New Zealand, unless the Home market is to be ruined. Perhaps it may be appreciated here as cheese as a food seems to be neglected in this country, and not many folks here know what good cheese is. I remember a big mercantile dairy company starting operations in Cheshire about 40 years ago. They used to buy milk and separate it; then mix their butter with colonial butter and sell it as English made. And the skim milk was loaded with foreign fats and then made into “filled cheese,” but more stringent laws put a stop to such dodgery. I hope New Zealand farmers will stick to unskimmed milk for cheese-making, and so sell a relinble article that will always do them credit and stand them iti good favour in any market.—l am, etc., EIGHTEEN NINETY. Shannon, February 21.