Every now
and then I hear of a dedicated food producer with a new, painstakingly
researched and developed, locally-produced delicacy; every now and then I read
of a once-upon-a-time local specialty which is no more. I don’t know how the
balance sits overall, but I sincerely hope that it is tipping in favour of
increasing numbers of small specialty products. Some time ago I read of
Corstophine cream – a Scottish cultured cream cheese, and thought you might be
interested.
The
earliest reference given in the online Dictionary
of the Scots Language dates to 1742:
Sc. 1742 Ramsay
Poems (S.T.S.) III. 253: Th'yellow Pound & Cauller egs and sweet
Corsterphine Ream [‘ream’ being an old word for cream, according to the same
dictionary.]
The second
reference given in the same dictionary is a little more enlightening. It is
from Agricultural Surveys: Mid-Lothian
(1795.)
Corstorphine
Cream:- The following is extracted from the Statistical Account of
the Parish of Corstophine, in this county: “They still prepare for market a considerable quantity of what is
well known over the kingdom by the name of Costorphine Cream. I have not been
able to receive any account of the time it was first introduced. I have no
doubt but it hath a just claim to a very great antiquity, nor do I know if the
same mode of preparation hath been always in use. At present, there is some
simple variation observed. I believe the most approved process is very simple
and is as follows: They put the milk, when fresh drawn, into a barrel or wooden
vessel, which is submitted to a certain degree of heat, generally by immersion
in warm water. This accelerates the stage of fermentation. The serous is separated
from the other parts of the milk, the oleaginous and coagulable; the serum is
drawn off by a hole in the lower part of the vessel; what remains is put into
the plunge-churn, and after being agitated for some time, is sent to market as
Costorphine cream.
Another
account appeared a few years later in A
Practical Treatise on Diet: And on the Most Salutary and Agreeable Means of
Supporting Life and Health by Aliment and Regimen ... and Including the
Application of Modern Chemistry to the Culinary Preparation of Food (1801)
by William Nisbet, M.D. Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh.
Corstorphine Cream.
Besides cheese, another form in
which the curd is used in one part of Scotland, is in what is termed
Corstorphine cream. This is made by filling a vessel with skimmed milk, which
has a hole in its bottom stopped with a peg; this vessel is placed within
another filled with boiling water; and when this is done, it is allowed to
remain in this situation for a day or two, according to the state of the
weather; at the end of this period a coagulation of the milk has taken place,
and the watery part of it subsided to the bottom. This watery part is then
drawn off by opening the peg at the bottom of the vessel, and being again
stopped up, the same operation iscontinued for 24 hours longer, when an
additional water is again drawn off, and the consistence of the curd is thus
rendered pretty thick; it is then agitated briskly with a wooden stick, and
made fit for use. This form of curd is much used in the neighbourhood of
Edinburgh; it forms an aliment tolerably nourishing, and in summer, from its
proportion of acidity, is gratefully acid and cooling.
By 1821, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine referred
to it as “a species of delicacy at one time greatly in vogue,” suggesting that
it was already becoming uncommon.
In 1951,
the Scotsman described it as a
beverage: “Corstophine cream was an old-fashioned cooling drink. It is made by
mixing equal quantities of milk obtained on two succeeding days, letting it
stand 12 hours, then adding a little new milk, and beating all well together
with sugar.”
I wonder
what happened to Corstophine cream? It could hardly have been the development
of commercial production on a large scale at that time, surely?
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