Traditional Cheese Making From India

Compiled by Mrs Muwanga – Vice Chariperson of CELAC Masaka District Network

Dr. Latha Sabikhi (Senior Scientist, Diary Technology, National Diary Research Institute, Karnal – 132 001, Haryana, India) illustrated the making of Paneer Cheese: –

1. Boil the milk until it is 90°. Stir it to avoid burning.

2. Remove from the fire and let it cool down to 75°

3. Squeeze the juice out of a lemon fruit, seive and pour into the milk. Stir the milk continously until it is coagulated.

4. Pour coagulatd milk into a cotton cloth so as to separate the whey from the coagulated milk

5. Get a dish with cold wated in it and place it on the mixture in the cloth after tightly wrapping it for about 10 minutes.

6. After, remove it and place in a tilted dry plastic container while still in wrapped cloth and place another dish of cold water over it for extra draining.

7. After draining, it is ready for eating.

8. You can eat it as is or make cheese fingers or use as gravy in soup

Information derived from Seminars on Cheese-making & Cheese-aging held and organised by CoRFiLaC, Ragusa, April 30 – May 11, 2007

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Traditional Cheese Making from Benin

Compiled by Mrs Muwanga – Vice Chariperson of CELAC Masaka District Network

Korga from Benin makes cheese in the following way: –

1. Get milk into a saucepan and bring to boil using very low fire

2. As the milk is being prepared, get fresh leaves from the calopus proceras plant (substituted for vegetable rennet), and pound them to obtain the juice.

3. When the milk has boiled, get some of it and mix it with the pounded plant in a plastic bowl and then seive. Pour the seived liquid into the milk. Note that the temperature of the milk should ne 35° before you put in the sieved liquid.

4. Place in stems of the calopus proceras to quicken the coagulation. Cover the milk and let it simmer over very low fire.

5. Sieve the coagulated milk into a basket and press to have cheese ready to eat.

6. You can use pawpaw leaves instead of the calopus proceras. The difference will be in the taste.

Information derived from Seminars on Cheese-making & Cheese-aging held and organised by CoRFiLaC, Ragusa, April 30 – May 11, 2007

Three biggest enemies for milk

By Karamagi Akiiki Ednah

It is important to have clean milk especially because this affects the quality of resulting cheese. The three biggest enemies for milk are bacteria, yeast and moulds… said Dr Lortal Sylvie of the Marseilles Industrial and Agricultural Bio-Technology Institute of the French Agricultural Science Institute

Water we use can contaminate milk. The same applies to the soil, ground and anything else we touch. Contamination mode can be as much as 10 billion bacteria per liter.

Air also contaminates milk, and dust as well.

When handling milk, it is important for us to take particular care with our hands, skin, armpits, feet, hair, saliva, ears, all being basic sources of bacteria.

To keep clean, fold up your shirt/blouse so as to avoid germs getting into the milk.

Also, avoid feeding the animals while milking them. This is because of the germ contents in the food, as well as the dust raised by the moving cow. If a cow has matitis, separate its milk from the rest.

A bacteria is so small that it cannot be seen with a naked eye and yet the damage it causes to milk can be vast. It is important to note that whereas some bacteris develop slowly, others do so much faster, all depepnding on the type of bacteria.
To protect milk from bacteria after milking, use it immediately. Process it is need be, depepnding on what you want to use it for, keep it in a clean container and cover it so as to protect it from dust.
Always wash all milk and milk product containers with alot of hot water and a brush.

GOOD MILK MAKES GOOD CHEESE

Information derived from Seminars on Cheese-making & Cheese-aging held and organised by CoRFiLaC, Ragusa, April 30 – May 11, 2007

Traditional Cheese Making? A solution to improving rural farmers income?

By Karamagi Akiiki Ednah

In Uganda Cheese is referred to as a food for the well to do in society. Even so, not many people in this catagory consider this as a supplement in their diet and yet it is very nutritious and better still, can be made at home locally. Probably this can be attributed to ignorance of the various creative ways in which cheese can be used.
Cheese can be used in baking, making soups, as a snack, salads, a plain meal supplement and even as a full meal. This is what i have got to learn during the women farmers traditional cheese making workshop under the hospice of iPWO, a project of CoRFiLac.

I may not state authoritatively that i know where cheese making began; but an interesting story to tell is that the birth of cheese dates back all the way to 6000 BC in Mesopotamia, which is today Iraq. According to a myth, it was an accidental discovery by a mysterious Arab. To prepare for his journey through the desert, this Arab stored milk into a saddlebag, which was made out of the stomach of an animal. Midway through his trip, the man noticed that the milk had formed into curds and whey. Although the man did not know this then, this was due to the rennin, a coagulating enzyme released from the saddlebag. The heat of the desert sun and the rocking movement of his horse had caused the milk to separate into curds and whey. The Arab found it quite suitable for eating, and the rest is ancient history.

Today, Cheese is produced in many developing and emerging countires as well. Among the cattle keepers, it forms an integral part of their diet and often surpluses sold of as additional household income. It is made from milk. That is as far as i can go … the rest, various traditions have dictated on what is added to make it into cheese. Still, basic other ingredients can all be got locally – rennet, salt and need for a cool place. These, to the advantage of the rural farmer, can be obtained locally. Also, the cost of just 100gms of cheese in the local supermarket can be obtained at 3500/=. This is too high for an average income earner and yet bumper profit fetching for the producer. It is important to note that the cost of production though does not justify this high cost; in my view, it is because of the presence of monopoly in the production market.
There is need for the farmers to realise the need to invest in this lucrative industry so as to reduce the prevailing monopoly status as well as improve on avenues to increase on our food nitrition at an affordable cost. If they place the price lower, ceterius peribus, they make the product more affordable thereby calling for more consumers.

Cheese is not time consuming and yet lucrative to the producer and nutritious to the consumer

… to read more

More Animals, Higher Risk, Less Animals, Less Risk… and better” … Dr.Giuseppe Licitra, President, CoRFiLaC

By Mrs Muwanga Harriet Jesca – Vice Chairperson of CELAC Masaka District Network

This afternoon Dr Giuseppe Licitra, who also happens to be the President of CoRFiLaC, the host organization of the Traditional Cheese Making Workshop for the IPWO program emphasized in his presentation that: “it is better for a farmer to have fewer cows that she can manage rather than have many cows in the name of wealth and yet she cannot manage to look after them”

This reminded me of a woman farmer in masaka district, Uganda that has 20 cows but in reality she only milks 5 cows. Out of each cow, she gets only one liter in the morning and another one liter in the evening. On my part, i have only one cow and i get 15 liters in the morning and another 15 liters in the evening.

Dr. Giuseppe said that it is even cheaper when it comes to costs flor the cow in terms of medicine, food and water. You will find that when you have many cows, you are even forced sometimes to give them poor care and yet when you have your focus on cow or a little more, provided they are manageable, you look after them better.

Information derived from Seminars on Cheese-making & Cheese-aging held and organised by CoRFiLaC, Ragusa, April 30 – May 11, 2007