Curds, Cows, And Whey Whey Away.

I guess if you check TEdAMENU from time to time you'd have noticed that I've begun making soft style cheeses.  These are curdled using citric acid, lemon juice, or vinegar, each of which give their own flavour to the cheese, and which you'd know from the taste of soft cheeses like cottage cheese.

It makes for pretty small curds too, which leads to a crumblier and drier cheese.  So I'd love to source the enzyme rennet from some local stores.  What rennet does is to curdle the milk more slowly, leading to the whole milk setting into one large curd and a lot of liquid whey.  Then you can cut the curds into any size you want, controlling the smoothness and hardness of the finished cheese.

Wanting to be able to say I've sourced the rennet and the information locally, I went to Borello Cheese in Oakford and asked there if they obtained their rennet locally and if so, if their source sold hobbyist quantities.  The most unhelpful and frankly hostile shop assistant I've ever had to deal with, any thought I'd had of actually buying any of their product went out the window as she basically told me to rack off and she wouldn't pass my question on to anyone else who might be able to tell me, either.

I tried to phone the next day hoping to catch someone with slightly more manners and a damn sight more interpersonal skills and got the same cow again, so I've had zero luck so far.  I don't know what her problem is, but I tell you what, the company could do worse than sacking her with prejudice.  Did she think I'm going to start a rival creamery in a one bedroom cottage with an electric hotplate to cook on?  Pu-lleese!

This week I'll be asking a few of the friendlier local creameries, and Borello can basically go suck the whey off my curd knife.

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