The Relation Of Bacteria To The Flavors Of Cheddar Cheese

Excerpt from The Relation of Bacteria to the Flavors of Cheddar Cheese Before going into a discussion of the experimental work it will be well to mention briefly the changes taking place in ripening cheese, and to review our present knowledge of the causes which produce these changes. By the ripening we do not mean Simply the development of certain desirable flavors. While these are essential, they are only the final result of a long series of complex changes which must take place before the tough, indigestible curd becomes edible; all of these changes are a part of the ripening and must be understood before we can hope to explain or control the production of flavors. In studying the ripening of cheese we have to do with one group of compounds only. The sugar, while it is rapidly broken up and may under cer tain circumstances be connected with certain abnormal fermentations, breaks down most rapidly into comparatively simple acids which have little direct influence on the flavor. On the other hand, many of the decomposition products of fat (which is an important constituent of Cheddar cheese) have an especially pungent odor and taste. How ever, it is well established that the change in the fat is, at most, very slight It is in the nitrogenous constituents - the casein, or, more properly, the paracasein - that we find the important changes. In carrying on the work recorded in this paper the writer has received many valuable suggestions from Mr. Edwin B. Hart, asso ciate chemist at the New York Agricultural Experiment Station. In the manufacture and initial bacteriological examinations of Cheeses IV and V, the bacteriological laboratory and the dairy of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva were used. The many courtesies in this connection are acknowledged. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.