Raw Cream & Hard Cheese...

[Guest guest]

Donna,I did forget to mention that about the refrigeration.  I know you are right about that, but I hadn't thought about the distinction between the Brits and the Scots-Irish as to whether they clabbered the whole milk or not.  I grew up in the southern Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,  but right now I live near the Chesapeake Bay where more English and Scots settled, ( most of them different from the Presbyterian Scots-Irish who had been living in Ireland for 100 years before coming to America.  I'm also near town and burg, so where I live still has more of the British traditions than where I grew up.  It makes perfect sense as to why the older folks still living here who grew up on dairies tell me that they scooped off the cream to make butter, and that they never drank the buttermilk, but fed it to the hogs, when in the Blue Ridge it was our daily staple, even in the late 50's, early 60's.  Of course here they have always had access to a lot of water.   Some tell me they used long troughs to put jars of milk and crocks of butter in, running the cool spring water through those long troughs at the dairy.  I have also heard very little about hard cheese making in the south before refrigeration.  Have you found that to be true?  I have a quilter friend in her 80's, originally from West Virginia.  Her mother made hard cheese, keeping the wheels in flour sacks on wooden planks hanging from a back porch ceiling.  It was my friend's job as a young girl to turn those cheeses daily...no refrigeration, but then they probably lived in a 'holler'.I love hearing that bit of history on the differences in livestock keeping.  And you are so right about the fencing.  I now understand why my husband has always wanted to fence in the house and gardens!Great Stuff,Rona  Rona Myers SullivanBonnyclabber Country Cheese1754 Mill Creek RoadWake, VA   23176http://www.bonnyclabbercheese.comhttp://www.southerncheese.comMAKE CHEESE..NOT WAR...RonaWhen the government fears the people, you have LIBERTY.When the people fear the government, you have TYRANNY. Jefferson