Including more than 35 step-by-step recipes from the Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking
Most DIY cheesemaking books are hard to follow, complicated, and confusing, and call for the use of packaged freeze-dried cultures, chemical additives, and expensive cheesemaking equipment. For though bread baking has its sourdough, brewing its lambic ales, and pickling its wild fermentation, standard Western cheesemaking practice today is decidedly unnatural. In The Art of Natural Cheesemaking, David Asher practices and preaches a traditional, but increasingly countercultural, way of making cheese--one that is natural and intuitive, grounded in ecological principles and biological science.
This book encourages home and small-scale commercial cheesemakers to take a different approach by showing them:
- How to source good milk, including raw milk;
- How to keep their own bacterial starter cultures and fungal ripening cultures;
- How make their own rennet--and how to make good cheese without it;
- How to avoid the use of plastic equipment and chemical additives; and
- How to use appropriate technologies.
Introductory chapters explore and explain the basic elements of cheese: milk, cultures, rennet, salt, tools, and the cheese cave. The fourteen chapters that follow each examine a particular class of cheese, from kefir and paneer to washed-rind and alpine styles, offering specific recipes and handling advice. The techniques presented are direct and thorough, fully illustrated with hand-drawn diagrams and triptych photos that show the transformation of cheeses in a comparative and dynamic fashion.
The Art of Natural Cheesemaking is the first cheesemaking book to take a political stance against Big Dairy and to criticize both standard industrial and artisanal cheesemaking practices. It promotes the use of ethical animal rennet and protests the use of laboratory-grown freeze-dried cultures. It also explores how GMO technology is creeping into our cheese and the steps we can take to stop it.
This book sounds a clarion call to cheesemakers to adopt more natural, sustainable practices. It may well change the way we look at cheese, and how we make it ourselves.
Longlisted for the André Simon Award for Food Books for 2024
Essential reading for anyone wanting to learn all they can about the ways in which humans, and our domesticates, share this world with microbes.--David Zilber, chef and food scientist; coauthor of The Noma Guide to Fermentation
With recipes for over 80 natural cheeses and complimentary ferments, this groundbreaking, comprehensive book guarantees high-quality results and perfect flavors for every season.
Cheese is milk's destiny. In Milk Into Cheese, cheesemakers at every scale will learn to produce a broad range of traditional cheeses, entirely naturally. Experienced educator, activist, and celebrated natural cheesemaker David Asher introduces the reader to the cultures and practices of cheesemakers, the role our agricultural practices play in making cheese, the biological evolution of cheese, and the transformation of milk into cheese through fermentation.
A perfect companion to David's The Art of Natural Cheesemaking, Milk Into Cheese expands the cheesemaker's tool kit through an exploration of cheesemaking styles from around the world. These natural cheesemaking processes are made simple, in contrast to the complicated, controversial, and confusing world of industrial cheesemaking, with its reliance on freeze-dried cultures, chemical additives, and ever-expanding use of expensive technology.
Milk Into Cheese also celebrates the world's most delicious seasonal hand-made cheeses, including alpine, blue, and milled cheeses. Through gorgeous photography and detailed recipes, David prepares the reader for their own journey into traditional natural cheesemaking. He also shares simple recipes for fermented foods that complement and help us understand cheesemaking better, including pickles, sourdough bread, butter, and salami.
For home, small-scale, and larger-scale cheesemakers, Milk Into Cheese delivers a sophisticated look at the biological science that informs--and the ecological principles that guide--natural cheesemaking.
An inspired how-to guide for the greatest of culinary transformations.--Dan Barber, chef, Blue Hill
In detail and with great passion [Asher explains] the hows and whys of making cheese in traditional and simple ways, based on extensive and broad experience with the incredibly varied ways in which people have, do, and can work with milk.--Sandor Ellix Katz, fermentation revivalist; author of The Art of Fermentation and other fermentation bestsellers
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
David Asher gibt einen tiefgründigen Einblick in Goethes Faust und interpretiert den ersten Teil der Tragödie auf sehr persönliche Art. Ein unverzichtbarer Band für alle, die sich mit einem der grö ten Werke der deutschen Literatur beschäftigen.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
David Asher gibt einen tiefgründigen Einblick in Goethes Faust und interpretiert den ersten Teil der Tragödie auf sehr persönliche Art. Ein unverzichtbarer Band für alle, die sich mit einem der grö ten Werke der deutschen Literatur beschäftigen.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.