Curds and Whey?
Anyone who speaks English can finish this phrase: “Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffit, …” but what are curds and whey? Students who participated in last night’s Cheese Workshop learned just that. The first part of the workshop was the nerdy, theoretical part: the chemical content of milk, why cheese made sense for early pastoralists, and how ageing cheese changes its flavor. The second part, however, was the delicious part! Students tried a number of cheeses – softstracchino, creamy chevre, mozzarella made from buffalo milk, aged pecorino, and parmesan’s cousin, grana padano, to name just a few – and learned about their use in Italian cooking. These workshops are part of Umbra’s effort to offer cultural enrichment both inside and outside of the classroom. The next workshop (about the history of coffee in Italy) is next Tuesday.