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of the cauldron, to cool it enough for handling the curd ; then he bends himfelf intothe veffel in a formidable manner to view it, refting his feet againft the tub of whey*and with his hands loofens the curd at bottom, and works it into one rnafs, Ihould itnot be fo already, that it may lie conveniently for him to Hide the cloth under it, whichhe does with much apparent dexterity, fo as to inclofe the whole in one inafs; to enablehimfelf to hoift it out the eafier, he returns in the whey, and taking out the curd, reftsit for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour in a tub to drain. The vat,, in the meantime, is prepared in a broad hoop of willow, with a cord round to tighten it, and widensor contra&s at pleafure, according to the fize of the cheefe'. Into this vat the curd isfixed, and the cloth folded over it at top, and tucked in around. This is placed on atable, (lightly inclining, to carry oft' the whey that drains from the cheefe; a roundplank, three inches thick, (hod with iron like the block-wheel of a barrow, is laid.on thecheefe, and a (tone about thrice the fize of a man's head on that, which is all the prefsufed, and there ends the operation. The cheefe of the preceding day was in a hoopwithout any cloth, and many others faking in different hoops, for thirty or forty days,,according to the feafon,—thirty in fummer, and forty in winter. When done, they arefcraped clean, and after that rubbed and turned in the magazine every day, and rubbedwith a little lintfeed oil on the coats, to be preferved from infects of all forts. They arenever fold till fix months old, and the price 90 livres the one hundred pounds of twenty-eight ounces.
The morning’s butter-milk is then added to the whey, and heated, and a ftronger acidufed, for a frefh coagulation to make whey-cheefe, called here mafco-pino. Little onesare kept in wooden cafes, in the fmoke of the chimney.
Upon this detail, I am to remark, that the rules that govern the operation of making,cheefe in the Miianefe leem to be very different from ttiofe which are attended to in.England. Thefe are marked diftinctions.
I. Starving the cows during fo large a portion of the day.
II. Breaking and fealding the curd.
III. Light preffing.
The mode ot feeding which thefe farmers purfue, they think effentia! to good cheefe yand that if the cows were allowed to pafture all day long, it would be difficult, perhapsimpollible, to make cheefe of equal goodnefs. It would be idle to reafon upon a pro-portion, which demands in other countries experiment alone.
The breaking of the curd and fealding is absolutely different from ours, and appa-rently a method infinitely fuperior; our breaking by the hand, and cutting into cubesand other ways, are grofs, and render it difficult for the fealding whey to operate equally;but in the Italian method it is broken minutely, and by keeping the heating whey con-ftantly ftirring, the feald is equal throughout, and operating on the minutely dividedcurd, muff take a more regular and a greater eflett. I deferibed to the cazaro themethod ufed in England, and afked his opinion, on which he replied— II vojlro formag-gio in quel modo mn pouPeffere troppo buona.: come e la gratia ? By referring to thegrain of the cheefe, it is plain he thought that the texture of it demanded this way ofoperating.
In regard to preffing, all with whom I converfed were much againft any very heavyweights, and feemed of opinion, that a good cheefe might be prefled into a bad one.Eirmneis, weight, and folidity, they contended, ftioulu arife from ihe right fabric of thecheefe, and from adapting the fabric to the land and to the feafon, but never from muchpreffing, which would be a bad way of remedying either evils or miftakes. Hovedcheefes are very rare with them, which may poiiibly proceed not only from the granu-
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