hat is ordinarily
obtainable, and its cookery is singularly neglected,--practically an
unknown art, especially in this country. We commonly eat it raw, although
in its raw state it is peculiarly indigestible, and in the only cooked
form familiarly known among us here, that of Welsh rabbit or rare-bit, it
is too often rendered still more indigestible, though this need not be the
case. Cream-cheese is the richest form, but keeps less well than that of
milk. Stilton, the finest English brand, is made partly of cream, partly
of milk, and so with various other foreign brands, Gruyere, &c. Parmesan
is delicately flavored with fine herbs, and retains this flavor almost
unaltered by age. Our American cheeses now rank with the best foreign
ones, and will grow more and more in favor as their value is understood,
this being their strongly nitrogenous character. A cheese of twenty
pounds weight contains as much food as a sheep weighing sixty pounds, as
it hangs in the butcher's shop. In Dutch and factory cheeses, where the
curd has been precipitated by hydrochloric acid, the food value is less
than where rennet is used; but even in this case, it is far beyond meat in
actual nutritive power."

BUTTER is a purely carbonaceous or heat-giving food, being the fatty part
of the milk, which rises in cream. It is mentioned in the very earliest
history, and the craving for it seems to be universal. Abroad it is eaten
without salt; but to keep it well, salt is a necessity, and its absence
soon allows the development of a rank and unpleasant odor. In other words,
butter without it becomes rancid; and if any particle of whey is allowed
to remain in it, the same effect takes place.

Perfect butter is golden in color, waxy in consistency, and with a
sweetness of odor quite indescribable, yet unmistakable to the trained
judge of butter. It possesses the property of absorption of odors in a
curious degree; and if shut in a tight closet or a refrigerator with fish,
meat, or vegetables of rank or even pronounced smell, exchanges its own
delicate aroma for theirs, and reaches us bereft once for all of what is
the real charm of perfect butter. For this reason absolute cleanliness and
daintiness of vessels containing milk or cream, or used in any way in the
manufacture of butter, is one of the first laws of the dairy.

_Ghee_, the East-Indian form of butter, is simply fresh butter clarified
by melting, and is used as a dressing for the meal of rice. B