QUALITY OF CHEESE

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 258, 9 October 1931, Page 8

QUALITY OF CHEESE

AN INTERESTING COMPARISON THAMES, Wednesday. The Hauraki Plains Dairy Company, Ltd., Turua, recently sent to England for sample cheeses of English, Scotch and Canadian make, for the purpose of comparing them with locally-manu-factured cheese. The samples arrived last week, and in the presence of officers of the Dairy Division and the directors of the company they were cut and sampled at the company s office, Turua, yesterday morning. Mr. M. 0. Stevenson, cheese instructor of Waikato, cut the cheeses, which were as follows, the remarks made by the graders also being given: Canadian. —Coloured; Invoice-weight 841 b; weight at Turua, 84 j. Mottled, close, colour not true, mealy body, sour taste. White: Invoice weight, 861 b.; weight at Turua, 84jib. Fairly close, very dry, poor bodied cheese; better flavour and more matured than the coloured; very mealy but nice eating.

Scotch—White, farm-made: Invoice weight, 771 b; weight at Turua, i Hb. Open; very moist, probably 40 per cent, moisture; pasty, not bad flavour; not as good as Canadian white, but with better aroma; a poor cheese pf same openness as typical New Zealand. English Cheddar, farm-made. —Invoice weight, 701 b; weight at Turua, 70jib. Very close and firm, dry oody; nice flavour; well matured; no bite; a bit mealy but the pick of the lot, and one that local cheesemakers should take as an example. Although the cheeses were weighed in an endeavour to estimate shrinkage there was a negative result, as two of them weighed more than the English invoice, one was the same weight, the other being l|lb lighter. The company submitted two local cheeses, white and coloured. The graders’ remarks on the white were: Close, dry, mealy, good body, smooth and clean; better body than the English white, but compares very nearly with it. The coloured cheese was mottled, with wild flavour, open, but of smooth texture. Mr. Stevenson considered that the local cheese was the nearest to the English one, and if kept for 12 months would be evenetetrb would be even better than it. It compared well in flavour, was better in body and not so dry. It cut just as close. It must be remembered, he said, that the Scotch and English cheeses were each the product of one Individual herd, and the milk used was, not pasteurised. On the other hand New Zealand cheese was made from the milk of several herds, and was therefore more difficult to keep to standard.

Samples of the cheese are to be forwarded to Auckland for an analysis to determine moisture and fat content.