Book Review: David Asher’s Milk Into Cheese

If you think you have read every kind of book about cheese, think again. David Asher’s new work, Milk Into Cheese (July 11, 2024, Chelsea Green) is both a guide to a more natural method of cheesemaking and a unique perspective on some of the more difficult questions and subjects in the ongoing conversation about artisan cheese. This includes a frank discussion about the use of rennet, advocating for honesty and transparency about the relationship between cheesemakers and the animals they utilize for milk. In addition, the book contains a fascinating description of some of the oldest cheesemaking techniques and tools, and an easy-to-grasp explanation of how the conversion of milk into cheese takes place. Taken in total, these discussions make Milk Into Cheese a worthwhile read for cheesemakers, and for anyone substantially interested in cheese. In addition to the theoretical discussion of natural approaches and techniques, there are more than 80 cheese recipes, each for a specific style. 

 

Starter Cultures and Coagulants

Milk Into Cheese picks up where Asher’s The Art of Natural Cheesemaking (2016) left off in eschewing conventional modern approaches to making cheese—those used by most North American commercial cheesemakers. Most notably, the widespread use of isolated freeze-dried starter cultures, and commercial coagulants. This makes Asher’s work thought-provoking at least, though a bit controversial, even among those who practice and/or champion natural, raw-milk cheesemaking. He is the first to point out that the lessons taught by his Black Sheep School of Cheesemaking may not be embraced by most commercial cheesemakers. 

“It’s very rare for cheese to be made naturally,” Asher says. “In Canada and the U.S., only a handful of cheesemakers are working this way. I feel that these methods are appropriate for all cheesemakers. I think many commercial cheesemakers would be interested in learning more about it, and in implementing a more natural approach.”

Among Asher’s mantras is the notion that milk is meant to be made into cheese, in the digestive system of infant mammals. He writes and speaks eloquently of that process and how it indicates that cheese is milk’s destiny, and that natural cheesemaking requires less intervention than modern cheesemaking. He also reminds the reader that cheese is best made with milk that is “warm from the udder” a contention that enjoys wide agreement among all who have some knowledge of cheesemaking, but a practice that is only feasible for farmstead cheesemakers, and one that is contrary to the efficiencies developed by large-scale modern cheesemaking.

 

If you ask him, Asher will offer a list of reasons for cheesemakers to not use commercial starters, ranging from the cost of the products, the corporate footprint of the companies that supply them and their actual efficacy. Indeed, looking back just a couple of centuries in the multi-millennium timeline of cheesemaking, all cheeses were made without the conveniences of isolated cultures. Asher advocates for using whey, clabber, or kefir starters that have been allowed to begin fermentation under their own inherent microbes. He also discusses the option of using wooden fermentation vessels (which support and maintain fermentation-producing microbes from batch to batch) as natural alternatives to commercial cultures. Most, if not all, of these approaches have been employed historically by cheesemakers working before industrialization. Those familiar with more commonly used modern methods employed by the majority of North American cheesemakers (whether they are making pedestrian mass-market cheese or award-winning artisan creations) will undoubtedly be skeptical of using methods that might be termed primitive. Ask a winemaker about natural wines, or a brewer of lager about spontaneously fermented farmhouse ale and you might find the same skepticism. That said, Asher says the Black Sheep School’s programs have been popular with start-ups and home cheesemakers around the world. The school’s website includes beautiful video recordings of lessons, including a recent visit to Colombia. 

 

The Destiny of Milk: Cheese

Skepticism aside, Asher’s new book is fascinating on several levels. The author describes how a ruminant animal’s digestive tract converts liquid milk into solid cheese to slow digestion and improve the absorption of nutrients. “This is milk’s destiny,” he says, and cheesemakers have simply learned how to harness that process. This is done by using the abomasum, (the fourth stomach of slaughtered animals), or the extracted enzyme called rennet. Asher argues that using the traditional rennet from a slaughtered animal should be the preferred method for coagulating milk in the cheesemaking process, as opposed to using substitutes including genetically modified microbial rennet. He does not shy away from philosophical discussion about the fact that humans take milk intended for young animals and use it for themselves and that in connection with that practice, the young animals are sacrificed for the milk and the rennet (and until recently for veal). 

 

The introduction and marketing of the book both signal that it involves ethical philosophy. Indeed, Asher suggests that slaughter should be thought of as a sacrifice, and he advocates for (and describes) traditional methods for killing the animal with minimal suffering. 

Another potentially controversial subject touched upon in the book is the question of protective designations for traditional cheeses. Asher argues that any traditional cheese style can be replicated anywhere, and therefore, that protective designations may have outlived their usefulness. The 496-page hardcover book includes numerous beautiful photo illustrations. 

Controversial, provocative, and enlightening, whether you agree with Asher or not, the book is well worth a spot on your bookshelf.