Parmesan cheese. It is supposed this was formerly made at
Parma, and took its name thence; but none is made there now. It is made
through all the country extending from Milan, for one hundred and fifty
miles. The most is made about Lodi. The making of butter being connected
with that of making cheese, both must be described together. There are,
in the stables I saw, eighty-five cows, fed on hay and grass, not on
grain. They are milked twice in twenty-four hours, ten cows yielding
at the two milkings a _brenta_ of milk, which is twenty-four of our
gallons. The night's milk is scummed in the morning at daybreak, when
the cows are milked again, and the new milk mixed with the old. In three
hours, the whole mass is scummed a second time, the milk remaining in
a kettle for cheese, and the cream being put into a cylindrical churn,
shaped like a grind-stone, eighteen inches radius, and fourteen inches
thick. In this churn, there are three staves pointing inwardly, endwise,
to break the current of the milk. Through its centre passes an iron
axis, with a handle at each end. It is turned, about an hour and an
half, by two men, till the butter is produced. Then they pour off the
butter-milk, and put in some water which they agitate backwards and
forwards about a minute, and pour it off. They take out the butter,
press it with their hands into loaves, and stamp it. It has no other
washing. Sixteen American gallons of milk yield fifteen pounds of
butter, which sell at twenty-four sous the pound.

The milk, which, after being scummed as before, had been put into
a copper kettle, receives its due quantity of rennet, and is gently
warmed, if the season requires it. In about four hours, it becomes a
slip. Then the whey begins to separate. A little, of it is taken out.
The curd is then thoroughly broken by a machine like a chocolate-mill. A
quarter of an ounce of saffron is put to seven brentas of milk, to
give color to the cheese. The kettle is then moved over the hearth, and
heated by a quick fire till the curd is hard enough, being broken into
small lumps by continued stirring. It is moved off the fire, most of the
whey taken out, the curd compressed into a globe by the hand, a linen
cloth slipped under it, and it is drawn out in that. A loose hoop is
then laid on a bench, and the curd, as wrapped in the linen, is put into
the hoop: it is a little pressed by the hand, the hoop drawn tight,
and made fast. A board, two inches thick, is l