138 a n i m a l , v e g e ta b l e , m i r ac l e populations that have little else in common other than cows: the tall, lean Fulani of West Africa; the Khoi pastoralists of southern Africa; and the fair-skinned Northern Europeans And then, to make a long story short, one of those populations proceeded to take over the world If that’s a debatable contention, let’s just say they’ve gotten their hands on most of the planet’s billboards and commercials And so, whether or not we were born with the La Leche for Life gene, we’re all hailed with a steady song and dance about how we ought to be drinking tall glasses of it every day And we believe it, we want those strong bones and teeth Oh, how we try to behave like baby cows Physicians will tell you, the great majority of lactose-intolerant Americans don’t even know it They just keep drinking milk, and having stomachaches White though we are, my redheaded elder daughter and me, some sturdy, swarthy gene has come down through the generations to remind us that “white” is relative We’re lactose intolerant But still, like most everyone else, we include some dairy products in our diet I can’t blame dairy-industry propaganda, purely, for our behavior The milk of mammals is a miraculously whole food for the babes it was meant to nourish; it’s the secret of success for the sheep, oxen, bison, kangaroos, seals, elephants, whales, and other mammals that have populated every corner of the bluegreen world with their kind and their suckling young For the rest of us it’s a tempting source of protein, calcium, minerals, and wholesome fats It’s no surprise that cultures the world over have found, through centuries of experimentation, countless ways to make it more digestible Yogurt, kefir, paneer, queso fresco, butter, mascarpone, montasio, parmesan, haloumi, manchego, bondon, emmental, chenna, ricotta, and quark: the forms of altered milk are without number Taste is probably not the main point They all keep longer than fresh milk, and their production involves reducing the lactose sugars The chemistry is pretty simple Milk is about 85 percent water; the rest is protein, minerals, butterfat, vitamins and trace elements, and sugars (lactose)—which are dissolved in the water When the whole caboodle is made more acidic, the protein solids coagulate into a jellylike curd When gently heated, this gel releases the liquid whey (lactose and water) Traditionally the milk is curdled by means of specific bacteria that eat— s i x i m p o s s i b l e t h i n g s b e f o r e b r e a k fa st 139 guess what?—lactose These selective bugs munch through the milk, turning the lactose into harmless lactic acid, which causes the curdling The sugars that still remain are dissolved in the whey As this liquid separates and is drained off from the curd, lactose goes with it Heating, pressing, and aging the curd will get rid of still more whey, making it harder and generally sharper-flavored As a rule, the harder the cheese, the lower the lactose content (Anything less than percent lactose is tolerable for just about everybody.) Also, higher fat content means less lactose—butter has none Conversely, sweet condensed milk is 12 percent lactose For other products, the amount of lactose removed depends on the bacterial cultures used for fermentation A good live-culture yogurt contains as many as five different sugar-eating bacteria A little biochemistry goes a long way, in safely navigating the dairy path At our house soft cheeses were the tricky terrain Factory-made cheeses can vary enormously in lactose content Fermentation and whey removal take time that mass production doesn’t always allow Some soft cheeses are not cultured at all, but curdled simply by adding an acid For whatever reason, store-bought cream cheese proved consistently inedible for us But I don’t like to give up If I could monitor the process myself, seeing personally to lactose removal, I wondered if I might get something edible Soft cheeses are ridiculously easy to make, it turns out The hardest part is ordering the cultures (by catalog or online) With these packets of cheesemaking bugs in your freezer and a gallon of good milk, plus a thermometer, colander, and some cheesecloth, soft cheeses are at your command: in a stainless steel pot, warm the milk to 85 degrees, open the culture packet, and stir the contents into the milk Take the pot off the stove, cover, let it stand overnight By the next morning it will have gelled into a soft white curd Spoon this into a cheesecloth-lined colander and let the whey run off Salt it, spread it on bread, smile Different bacterial cultures make different cheeses The bugs stay up all night doing the work, not you You just sleep Is that not cool? Our chevre and fromagina were so tasty, and digestible, we were inspired to try hard cheeses These are more work, but it’s basically the same process Most recipes call for both a bacterial culture and rennet (a 140 a n i m a l , v e g e ta b l e , m i r ac l e natural enzyme), which together cause the milk to set up into a very firm curd in just minutes, rather than overnight For mozzarella, this curd is kneaded like dough, heated until almost untouchably hot, then stretched like taffy, which is a lot of fun The whole process—from cold milk to a beautiful braided, impress-your-guests mozzarella on the plate—takes less than an hour For hard cheeses like cheddar, the firm curd is sliced into little cubes, stirred and heated gently, then pressed into a round wheel and, ideally, aged for weeks or months We have to hide our cheeses from ourselves to keep them around this long Over time, we’ve converted a number of our friends to the coven of cheesemaking At Ricki’s workshop we really did make six impossible things, but only half of them by noon Lunch included our queso blanco stir-fried with vegetables, sliced tomatoes with our mozzarella, and mascarpone-filled dates We tasted, congratulated ourselves, and headed back for the next round We put our cheddar into a mechanical press to squeeze extra moisture out of the curd, while Ricki talked about aging and waxing as if these really lay ahead of us—as if we were all going home to make cheeses I’d be willing to bet we all did At the workshop’s end, everyone gathered in Ricki’s office to order the cultures and supplies we’d need for our next efforts A few dollars’ worth of packaged bacteria will curdle many gallons of milk A cheese thermometer costs ten dollars, and the rest of the basics— stainless steel bowls and pots—already reside in the kitchen of any earnest cook We left with the confidence to strike out on our own Our friends who’d shared the workshop went back to their homes in Virginia, New York, and Boston They all called me within the week with exciting cheese updates Why we this? It’s hard to say Some are refining exquisite products, while others of us are just shooting for edible, but we’re all dazzled by the moment of alchemy when the milk divides into clear whey and white curd, or the mozzarella stretches in our hands to a glossy golden skein We’re connecting across geography and time with the artisans of Camembert, the Greek shepherds, the Mongols on the steppes who live by milking their horses—everybody who ever looked at a full-moon pot of white milk and imagined cheese We’re recalling our best memories infused with scents, parental love, and some kind of food magically coming s i x i m p o s s i b l e t h i n g s b e f o r e b r e a k fa st 141 together in the routines of childhood We’re hoping our kids will remember us somewhere other than in the driver’s seat of the car Later in the summer when this workshop and trip were behind us, Steven’s mother came for a long visit She served grandma duty on many fronts, but seemed happiest in the kitchen She told us stories I hadn’t heard before, mostly about her mother, who at age fifteen was sent out from her hardscrabble village in the mountains of Italy to seek her fortune in America In the dusty town of Denver she married a handsome Sicilian vegetable farmer and raised five daughters with a good working knowledge of gardening, pasta, and other fundamentals She made ricotta routinely, to the end of her life Laura was her name, ultimately known as Nonnie, and I suppose she’d have loved to see us on a summer Saturday making mozzarella together: daughter, grandson, great-granddaughters, and me, all of us laughing, stretching the golden rope as far as we could pull it Three more generations answering hunger with the oldest art we know, and carrying on Growing Up in the Kitchen by camille / In our house, the kitchen is the place to be The time we spend making dinner is hugely important because it gets us together after all our separate agendas, and when we sit down to eat we have a sense that the food in front of us is special Growing vegetables from seed and raising poultry from hatchlings obviously makes us especially grateful for our food But just making dinner from scratch gives us a little time to anticipate its flavor, so we’ll notice every bite Cooking in our family helped me cultivate certain food habits that I later found out are a little unusual for my generation—for example, I can’t stand to eat anything while I’m standing up I sit down, even if it’s just a quick snack, to make sure this will be a thoughtful munching instead of a passive grab I’ll probably carry that habit through my whole life, and nag my kids about it I know plenty of families that have dinner together, and some that cook, but very few that take “cooking from scratch” to the level mine does I’ve never had any illusions about how unique it is to have one parent who makes cheese and another who bakes bread almost daily The friends I’ve brought home over the years have usually been impressed and intrigued by the wacky productions taking place in our kitchen They definitely enjoyed eating fresh, warm bread at dinner and homemade cream cheese at lunch It was a little awkward, though, when one of my vegetarian friends and I arrived at my house one Saturday when my parents were in the middle of making turkey sausage “What are they doing?” she whispered, as she stared at the tube of encased raw meat that was steadily growing longer on our countertop “Oh, that’s just sausage Don’t worry about it.” I nudged her past the kitchen toward my room The scenario was a little embarrassing, but it probably ... contains as many as five different sugar-eating bacteria A little biochemistry goes a long way, in safely navigating the dairy path At our house soft cheeses were the tricky terrain Factory-made... knowledge of gardening, pasta, and other fundamentals She made ricotta routinely, to the end of her life Laura was her name, ultimately known as Nonnie, and I suppose she’d have loved to see us on a. .. eating fresh, warm bread at dinner and homemade cream cheese at lunch It was a little awkward, though, when one of my vegetarian friends and I arrived at my house one Saturday when my parents were