Homemade cheese (and yogurt, and butter)

I think it's worth it to stop for a moment and re-define dairy products we eat without thinking about, and terms that are traditional but have lost their meaning. The reason we call milk "skim" if all the fat has been taken out is because normally the fat floats to the top, and you skim it off with a spoon--then it's "skimmed milk."

You know how we say milk that has gone bad has "soured"? Pasteurized milk just turns bad, but raw milk actually sours thanks to the bacteria still alive inside of if. If I skimmed off the cream from my milk and let it sit out at room temperature, in a couple days it would be totally edible sour cream. The sour cream we buy in stores is from pasteurized cream that is re-introduced to its bacterial friends, then re-pasteurized once the bacteria have done their work. Yogurt is milk that has slightly soured under heat.

The buttermilk you can buy in the store is not anything like the milk left over after you make butter. (To make butter at home, just buy 100% cream, put it in a jar, and shake it around for about 15 minutes. The fat separates from the liquid and you get butter and butter milk--see picture). Buttermilk from a store is actually slightly fermented milk, which they make by adding lactic acid to pasteurized milk.

Believe it or not, cheese, like milk, does not spontaneously appear on grocery store shelves, nor is its creation dependent upon a factory. I've actually experimented with cheese making at home for a couple years, so my experience here pre-dates all awareness of raw milk. The simplest way to make cheese is to heat milk to just under boiling point, then add in acid of some kind (vinegar, or lemon or lime juice work well) to make the milk curdle. After that you pour the curds and whey through cheese cloth (remember Little Miss Muffet?), letting the whey drain off and holding onto the curds. Press the curds together, and presto! Home made soft cheese!

What I find so amazing is that raw milk manages to preserve itself naturally, which explains how it was used so extensively by many cultures without any method of pasteurization. Cheese keeps longer than milk, as do fermented and soured milk products. The acid in fermented milk products keeps harmful bacteria from growing, making it safe to eat for a longer period of time. People have been finding ways for thousands of years to get the health benefits of dairy without constantly consuming fresh milk. What's more, they had to make the products on their own, without fancy machines or labels. Home made mozzarella is within your grasp!