Raw milk RULES. If harvested and stored hygienically, from healthy, well fed and well kept cows, it is perfectly safe. And when it comes raw, it comes with all the components for making every type of dairy product. When its sterilized, the good bacteria go with the bad, and it is no longer usable for anything but drinking (unless you add bacteria from another source).
Italy has among the most intense food hygiene regulations in the world -- the UK reacted to BSE after 20,000 or so infected beasts were confirmed. Germany and france reacted at around 4,000 or more. Italy was freaking out with a country wide beef on the bone ban
instantly without debate over just 2 infected cows. Angelo had to pay a fine of 2,000 euros because the sanitary ceramic tile in his kitchen was only 2m high up the wall instead of 2.12m. Food delivery is not the norm because the regulations for carrying food are so strict -- pizza guy on a motor scooter is not so easy here, so mostly people make do with take away. And yet raw milk is available in every community, large or small, from automatic dispensers that fulfill the sanitary requirments for safety. Raw milk is NOT illegal in Canada because it is hazardous -- in the 30s, without consistent refrigeration and with little public information on germs and hygiene, maybe. But not anymore.
So here is what I do once a week. I go to the raw milk dispenser just down the hill in Salo. Every morning at about 6am, after the morning milking, the farmer brings the milk -- he removes the leftover old milk, (which is then pasteurized, bottled and sold to the supermarkets -- yes, you pay more for the seconds) sanitizes the tank, and places the new milk. The new milk stays at perfect temperature, perfectly safe and sanitary.
I buy 20litres of milk from the distributor, and at 1 euro per litre instead of 1.60 from the supermarket, and the farmer gets all of that money. If I went all the way to Gavardo, closer to the farmer (5km away), the dispenser costs only 60c per litre.
5 litres of my milk goes into the fridge for fresh consumption. 5 litres goes into the pot for processing into yogurt and soft cheese, and 10 litres goes into the pot for processing "aging" cheese. I get 5l of milk to drink, 3l of yogurt to eat, 1 pot of cottage cheese and 1 pot of soft spreadable cheese, and 2 harder cheeses for slicing, grating, and eating just like that. Oh, and with no packaging to throw away.
Making yogurt and cheese with nothing but milk:
(ever wonder how they made cheese before all this wonderful and poisonous factory farming? )
With raw milk, you can use the bacteria in the milk itself for all of these processes, eliminating the need for adding yogurt bacterias or rennet or other assistants to the coagulation -- the bacteria does the work itself. To do this, you first need to make "latte inesto", or inocculated milk. Bring the milk to 61 degrees. This kills off the bacteria that you don't want, and leaves the bacteria that you do want -- the thermophyllics (or resistant to heat) stay, and these are the base of all italian cheeses. If you heat any more, you will start to pasteurize and lose the good bacteria as well.
Allow the milk to cool just to 40 degrees, then isolate it (wrap in a towel or blanket) to keep the warmth in and store in a warm place overnight -- I use the oven with the light on. 10 hours later you will have yogurt, with no other ingredients at all. The consistency is kind of custard-like. (and I prefer pudding like, so I usually make it with added bacterial culture after pasteurizing, as below). You can eat this like yogurt, put it in the fridge and it will solidify more, but the consistency is not what we are used too. If you take this yogurt and simply heat it until it separates, you get cheese. The hotter you heat it, the bigger and firmer the kibblets of cheese, so the more like cottage cheese. If you heat it just hot enough that it separates, you get a softer spreadable cheese. Once separated, spoon into a cheesecloth lined collander to drain, and hang for a few hours. The longer it hangs, the drier and harder the cheese product. lasts for about 2 weeks in the fridge.
Making yogurt and cheese with pasteurized milk and added bacteria
For the sad Canadian readers under the regime of the evil milk marketing board (doesn't it just make you think of big steely cavernous government buildings a la orwell or clockwork orange? but maybe with cows behind the clerks wickets...), alas the above is not possible.
But also, for yogurt in the pudding consistency that i like, the yogurt has to be pasteurized first, so you have a clean slate, and then you add only the bacteria you want to grow in the milk. I use greek yogurt with live bacteria. It makes nice thick and creamy yogurt. Then, of course, once you have the mother batch, you can use your own yogurt to make the next batch. It will eventually weaken (yogurt inbreeding...) and you will need to add fresh, but it will go for a few rounds.
To pasteurize raw milk, I bring it to 71 degrees C and there it stays for 30 seconds before removing from the fire. For yogurt, do the same as described above, let cool to 40 degrees, then add your live yogurt bacteria (for 5 litres, I add about 1l of greek yogurt), then isolate with a towel and keep warm overnight in the lighted closed oven.
With the resultant yogurt the next morning, again you can make cottage cheese and soft cheese just by heating it, as described for the raw milk process above.
Making hard(er) cheese with either raw or pasteurised milk
To make a cheese you can slice rather than spread, you really do need rennet. Without rennet, you can just up the heat for your overnight bucket of yogurt -- put the oven on at 55 degrees -- then next morning drain in a cheese mould basket for a day, and you will have a decent sliceable cheese without rennet, but its not ideal.
For traditional farmhouse italian cheese, heat the milk to 38 degrees, add the right portion of rennet (depends on the type of rennet and how much milk. leave 40 minutes. Cut the curd. heat to 45 degrees. let sit for 5 minutes. Spoon curd into cheese mould baskets and leave drain for about 5 hours. Turn out onto a cheese board, and leave to air dry, turning every day, for about a week to 10 days. you can rub salt into the outside of the cheese on the second day. Then just keep in a cool dry place, turning every few days, until you want to eat it. If mould forms outside, just brush/scrub it off.
The canadian controversy over raw milk
Thanks to my mom for the link to this article that got me out and defending raw milk. The comments after the article are all very interesting.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/01/24/MilkWarriors/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=240111,
Signing off because we are taking a roasted chicken up to the little farm for a picnic and some leaf raking and jumping. Gab's been up all week pruning and cutting paths in the woods and generally winter maintenance. next week we should get our load of shit to spread in the orchard, yahoo! Also next week the pick-up comes (its a three wheeled piaggio Ape Max...too cool! Ours is white) and the specialist will come up to see about hooking up the electricity and setting up a well and the water tanks.
And along comes Drilling Day...20 meters, still pulling up gravel, not even reached bedrock yet...30 meters...the guys have to go back to get more pipes...40 meters...the guys have to get bigger pipes because the gravel keeps caving...50 meters...and finally bedrock. How much bedrock before we hit the water table? 
Still, though -- 6 times what we expected to pay. If we had any idea it would be that expensive NO WAY would we have dug a well at the little farm -- the running spring is enough, and we could just use that to fill a tank for the few times we will spend the night there. But hey, now its done, so if ever we do want to live there, or have someone else live there, it will be ready!
