Healths improvement: or, Rules comprizing and discovering the nature, method, and manner of preparing all sorts of food used in this nation. Written by that ever famous Thomas Muffett, Doctor in Physick: corrected and enlarged by Christopher Bennet, Doctor in Physick, and fellow of the Colledg of Physitians in London.

CHAP. XV.

Of Butter, Cream, Curds, Cheess, and Whey.

THe milks of horned beasts (as Cows, Ewes and Goats) do consist of three substances; Cream, Curds and Whey.

Of Cream.

The first (being compared to the rest) is hot and unctu∣ous; the second flegmatick and viscous; The third of a middle nature. Again there be two sorts of Cream; one natural called the flour of raw milk, gathered of the milk without fire, after it hath stood in a cold place: the other called the flour or cream of sodden milk, or clouted Cream; gathered from it after it hath been thickned upon a soft fire. Raw cream how sweet soever it seemeth to wanton stomacks, yet it weakneth con∣coction, hindereth retention, and is more hard of di∣gestion then any milk. Sodden and boild cream (such as we use in Tarts, Fools and Custards) is less offensive to the stomach, and of better nourishment; yet we do ill in eating it last, when the lightness and unctuosity of it sheweth that it ought to be eaten first.

Butter.

Butter (not undeservedly termed the Flemmins Tri∣acle) is by labouring and churming made of both sorts of cream; so that as milk is nothing but blood twise

concocted, so Butter is nothing but Cream twice laboured. Pliny sheweth the true making of it, which I need not to repeat, because it nothing, or very little differeth from ours: Only I wonder with him, that Africa, and other Barbarous Countreys esteem it a Gentlemans dish, when here and in Holland, and in all the Northern Regions, it is the chief food of the poor∣er sort. For go from the elevation of 52 to 8•• of the North pole, you shall every where find such store of good butter, as no where the like, no not in Parma nor Placentia, nor Holland it self, whence so much Butter and Cheese is dispersed through the whole world. In Iceland they make such a quantity, that having neither earthen Vessels nor Cask enough to keep it in, they make Chests of Firr, thirty or forty foot long, and five foot square, filling them yearly with salt butter, which they bury in the ground till they have occasion to use it.

Butter is hot and moist, of gross nourishment, soft∣ning rather then corroborating the stomack, hastning meat into the belly before it be concocted, rhumatick, and easily converted into oily fumes, which greatly an∣noy both throat and head. It is ill for the stomack∣rhume▪ and all fluxes either of bloud-humors or seed; and in truth it is rather to be used as Sawce and Phy∣sick, then as meat to feed upon. It is best at break∣fast, tollerable in the beginning of dinner; but at sup∣per no way good, because it hindreth sleep, and send∣eth up unpleasant vapours to anoy the brain, according to the old Proverb, Butter is Gold in the morning, Sil∣ver at noon, and Lead at night. It is also best for chil∣dren whilst they are growing, and for old men when they are declining; but very unwholsom betwixt those two ages, because through the heat of young sto∣macks,

it is forthwith converted into choler. Weak stomacks are to eschue all fat, oily, and buttered meats, especially when they swim in butter; for naturally but∣ter swimeth aloft, and consequently hindreth the sto∣macks closing, whereby concoction is foreslowed, and many ill accidents produced to the whole body. The Dutchmen have a by-Verse amongst them to this effect:

Eat Butter first, and eat it last, And live till a hundred years be past.

And Paracelsus in his Book de Tartaro, thinketh the Netherlanders to be more free of the stone then other Nations, because their chiefest food is butter; wherein the silly Alchymist was not a little mistaken, for no people in the world are more subject to that disease, as the number and excellency of stone-cutters in that Country may plainly prove. And if butter be less of∣fensive, and more nourishing to them then better meat, it is to be imputed either to a natural affection unto it, infused (as it were) with their parents seed, or else to a long custom, which is (as before I noted) another na∣ture. And verily their natural love unto that meat of all others, appeareth in this: for that as English people, when the Bride comes from Church, are wont to cast wheat upon her head, and the Grecians to anoint the doore posts with fat la••d; so when their Brides and Bridegrooms return homeward from Church, one pre∣sents them (as presaging plenty and abundance of all good things) with a pot of butter, which they esteem the foundation (though a slippery foundation) of their lives. The fattest butter is made of sheeps milk, the

strongest of goats milk, but the best and most of Cows milk, which caused it of the Grecians to be called Bu∣tyros. It were tedious and impertinent to shew how many and necessary uses it hath in Surgery and Physick, considering that here we are only to describe (as we have done) what nourishment it giveth, not what it worketh against diseases.

Of Curds and Cheese.

As there hath mention been made of two sorts of Cream, so now also I must write of two sorts of Curds, the one fresh, without salt or runnet, the other mingled with the one or both: Now if the Butter be at Market when the Curds or Cheese is prest at home, then are they both utterly unwholsom, clamming the stomack, stopping the veins and passages, speedily breeding the stone, and many mischiefs; but if they be equally ming∣led with the butterish part, then the Cheese made there∣of is wholsom, unless age or ill-housewifery hath made it bad: For new, sweet, and fresh Cheese, nourisheth plentifully; middle-aged Cheese nourisheth strongly, but old and dry Cheese hurteth dangerously: for it stayeth siege, stoppeth the Liver, engendereth choler, melancholy, and the stone, lieth long in the stomack undigested, procureth thirst, maketh a stinking breath, and a scurvy skin: Whereupon Galen and Isaac have very well noted, That as we may feed liberally of ruin Cheese, and more liberally of fresh Cheese, so we are not to taste any further of old and hard Cheese, then to close up the mouth of our stomacks after meat.

Concerning the differences of Cheese in sub∣stance: Good Cheese is neither too soft nor too hard, too close, nor yet spongy, too clammy, nor yet crumb∣ling, too salt, nor yet unsavory, too dry, nor yet weeping, pleasantly, not strongly smelling, easily melting in the

mouth, and never burning as it is tosted at the fire. Like∣wise Cheese made of Ews milk is soonest digested, that of Cowes milk is more nourishing, but Cheese made of Goats milk is most nourishing of all, being eaten whilst it is new and soft, for it quickly waxeth dry, earthly, and crumbling. The Western Goths, to pre∣vent the dryness of Cheese, make them so big, that two strong men with leavers can scarce move one of them; which also causeth the Parmisans to be so big, and also them of Placentia, which Bernardinus Scaccus in his Annals of Trent, preferreth before the Parmisans: But was not that a great Cheese think you, wherewith Zo∣roaster lived in the Wilderness twenty years together, without any other meat? or rather was it not most cunningly made or preserved, when at twenty years end it did eat as soft as at the first day? Which though some do think impossible, yet the Parmisan of Italy will prove it true, by age waxing mellower and softer, and more pleasant of taste, digesting whatsoever went before it, yet it self not heavy of digestion. Our Essex Cheese being well handled, would in my judgement come next unto it, especially if Goats were as plentifull there as sheep, that there might be a proportion betwixt the three milks, without which it is folly to attempt the like. Now whereas the Placentians and Parmians add Asses milk, and Mares milk, and also Camels milk (when they can get it) to the making of their Cheese, it is not for the Curds sake (because they yield no hard Curd) but for the butterish part that is taken out of them: for indeed the butter made of them is most thin, liquid, moist and penetrating, whereby such a sup∣pleing is procured, that their Cheeses do rather ripen then dry with long lying.

The Irish men, like to Plinies Barbarians, have not

yet so much wit as to make Cheese of Milk; and our Welshmen want cunnning to make it well. French Cheese in Plinies time tasted like a medicine; but now the Angelots of Normandy are counted restora∣tive; which many of our Gentlewomen (and especi∣ally a Niece of mine own) have so well counterfeited, that they excell their first pattern. Spain hath for∣gotten the art of Cheese making; and Portugal makes them but indifferently well, though sometimes the best in the world were made at Cuna, near to Cape Vincent, where they also made Cheeses of 1000 l. weight apiece.

As for our Country Cheeses, Banbury and Cheshire yields the most, and are best; to which the Holland Cheeses might be justly compared, if their makers could but soberly put in salt.

As for Butter milk and Whey, I leave them to my Treatise of drinks, because they are of a thinner sub∣stance, than that conveniently and properly they may be numbred and accounted amongst Meats. Now a word or two of Eggs, and then to our variable and no less profitable Discourse of Fishes.

Notes

• Lib. 28. c. 9.
• Olausl. 13. sept. gent.
• Plut. l. 28▪ c 9.
• 6 de alim fac. Isa. de diaet. pt.
• L. 3 Trid. hist.
• Plin. l. 11. c. 42
• Plin. l 11. c 41
• Plin. l. 11. c. 42
• Plin. loco cita∣to.
• Strab. l. 3▪ Plin. l. 11. c. 42▪