Recently, a friend brought me a bag of fresh cheddar cheese curds from Wisconsin.
Cheese curds are quite the thing in the northern Midwest and Canada. It is said that in Wisconsin, people take bags of cheese curds into the movies to munch like popcorn. They are fun, squeaky, salty little snacks.
In the cheddar cheese-making process, the milk is cultured with bacteria, colored with annatto if the cheese is going to be orange, and coagulated into curds with rennet. The curds are cut into small squares to permit the whey to separate, and the whole vat is heated slightly to help "cook" and firm the curds and expel more water from them. Finally, the whey is drained away and the remaining curds settle to the bottom of the vat, where they are salted and cut into blocks. This goes for most cheeses.
The process special to cheddar comes now, when the blocks of curds are stacked atop one another four high so the weight will press out a bit more water and the bacteria can continue to thrive and turn the milk sugars into tangy lactic acid. When the curds are dry and tangy enough, they are removed from the vats and milled into chunks. Then they're either pressed into molds and permitted to age into our familiar mild or sharp cheddar cheese, or they might be bagged up as is and sold as cheese curds
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Evansville Courier & Press
