Page:The story of milk.djvu/154

 often mixed with chopped peppers, olives or nuts and make excellent sandwiches.

Cured Soft Cheese.—For Cream or Neufchatel cheese, made for curing, the curd is salted more than for fresh cheese, or the molded cheese is rolled in salt. For a week or two it is placed in a curing room on straw mats or the like where it ferments slightly before being wrapped and packed for shipment.

French Soft Cheese.—The many forms of French soft cheese as represented by the Brie, the Camembert, etc., are subjected to special fermentations which give to each its peculiar flavor. Attempts have been made to use pure cultures of the bacteria active in such fermentations and so reduce the art of cheesemaking to a more scientific process. But it has been found that any desired kind of cheese cannot be made simply by adding a culture of this or that bacterium to pasteurized milk. Of vastly greater importance for the development of the proper bacteria and flavor is the handling of the milk and the curd by the experienced cheesemaker. Inoculation with a pure culture alone does not make the special cheese wanted.