Saturday was an amazing day in these here parts of the Northeast. Deep blue sky, cool, almost autumn-like temperatures, and the bounties of a full harvest. The Norwich (VT) Farmers Market was mobbed with people stocking up on beautifully ripe tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, zucchini, Swiss chard, and just about every other veggie you could want.

I also picked up some raw milk from Kathy and decided, what better day for trying that cheese-making kit I finally ordered, and which arrived just a few days ago. It promised I could make mozzarella in an hour.

Now, I’m not much of a cook. It took me a while, but I finally got kefir down. Cheese is a little more complicated, but this kit, from a place called Leeners, seems to be geared to uncoordinated cooks like me.

What I found intriguing was how its instructions hedge on the subject of raw milk versus pasteurized milk for the cheese. The introductory material says, “Cheese can be made from any dairy animal milk.” But then later, the instructions note, “Homogenizing and pasteurizing…alters the milk protein. Unless the cheese maker compensates for this, the milk will not make a satisfactory curd. To compensate for the processing of store-bought milk, we add calcium chloride prior to adding rennet to the milk mixture. The addition of calcium chloride will help restore the altered milk protein and aid in the development of a quality curd.”

Gee, I’m thinking, am I glad I have my raw milk. In fact, after that explanation, I’m doubly glad I don’t have anything to do with that pasteurized stuff. But then the instructions continue:

“For your first batch of mozzarella cheese, we recommend that you use store bought whole milk…After you have mastered the process used to make our mozzarella, you can experiment with other types of milk.” How’s that? They’re saying pasteurized milk is so overly processed it requires a special chemical to restore the milk’s protein for cheese making, yet they’re recommending I use that stuff? (Calcium chloride seems to be very widely used in cheese processing, from what I can tell, though Wikipedia has a note under “precautions”: “Although calcium chloride is relatively safe to handle, care should be taken that it is not ingested. Calcium chloride reacts exothermically with water and can burn the mouth and esophagus.”)

Anyway, I launched into making my first batch of cheese, heating the milk, adding in citric acid and lipase powder, and then rennet. I omitted the calcium chloride, figuring that the protein in my milk was okay as is.

Once the milk got up to about 100 degrees, it suddenly began the separation process of white curd from green whey, as if by magic. It reminded me of a high school chemistry class in so starkly illustrating the power of various combinations of seemingly ordinary foods or chemicals. The curd lifted out easily in two soft clumps, and I then completed the process of letting it sit and heating and kneading it, before finally refrigerating it.

A couple hours later, my wife Jean and I enjoyed slices of the delectable mozzarella with a couple of the beautiful tomatoes from the farmers market, sprinkled with fresh basil. Now, I’m a bit biased, but we both thought the mozzarella was richer and firmer than the store-bought stuff we’re accustomed to, almost like butter.

My only regret—I couldn’t use the leftover whey to complete a ricotta recipe—I didn’t have enough additional milk. That will be next time. I can now appreciate the experience of making cheese. And the integrity of raw milk.

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I sense in the comments on my previous posting a sadness that our country has strayed so far from its original ideals. The founders tried hard to distance ourselves from the monarchy, yet we seem to have wandered back toward the maternalism and paternalism it promises, as Dave Milano observes. There’s an interesting posting listing “America’s Seven Most Hated Substances” (raw milk is #4) that I think captures the point Dave and others were making about how our political system gets bogged down in the trees.

One additional aspect of the sadness: In many other countries, particularly in Europe and Israel, politics is much more a matter of serious debate, discussion, and even sport than in the U.S. These countries tend to have multiple parties that more accurately represent various groups.

Ron Paul is an intriguing individual. In addition to the positions pointed out in the comment, he’s also for restoring financial integrity to our system, such as by eliminating the federal reserve bank. He has come further than many anticipated by tapping into the sense of alienation so many people feel. It will get harder, though, as the monied interests take him more seriously.