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Part
2
As the pig was being salted and
laid down in one corner, milk from the farm's cows, collected
in a milk-kit, was being coaxed into butter in another, while
fruit was cut and mashed for jam on one of the stone slabs.
Everyone in the family had a job in the pantry, if it was only
washing and stacking the eggs.
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every farm made cheese in the pantry before Dinsdales (now Dent
Stores) started making it commercially in 1926. Milk collected
at the evening milking was poured into a 'kettle' or pan beside
the kitchen fire. Next morning, more milk, fresh and warm from
the cows, was added, along with a little rennet. Then it was left
to set for an hour or two before being lifted and cut into strips
or lumps. These were hung up in a cloth to let the whey drain
out. What was left was the curd, which was broken up, salted,
placed into a mould and pressed. When Fred Taylor was asked why
today's cheese doesn't taste like it used to, he replied 'The
cow hasn't had its foot in bucket. And the sweat from the cheese-maker's
nose-end no longer drops into the curd'.
'With a dead pig
and a wick [lively] wife, you'd be all right for the winter'
- old Dent saying
*from Fred Taylor,
Yorkshire Cheesemaker by WR Mitchell (Castleberg Books)
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The
Dentdale Story
