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Adventures in Not Making Mozzarella Cheese
Lacking in other things to do besides applying to jobs and being ridiculous, I have done a lot of cooking this summer. I have also been gardening, by which I really mean, tending to the volunteer tomatoes that grew out of the compost (they are marvelous! I have a bunch of cherry tomatoes, and some that I'm pretty sure are Brandywines, and some Giant Belgiums (unless those are just more Brandywines), some that are probably Moonglow, and some that are pretty definitely Zapotec Pink Ribbed). And the neighbor has lots of basil, so we've been eating a great deal of variations on basil, tomatoes, and mozzarella. And it recently came to my attention that making mozzarella does not appear to be especially difficult, and wouldn't it be wonderful to have basil grown in the neighbor's yard with heirloom tomatoes I grew myself and mozzarella I made myself? So I consulted half a dozen pages on the internet and concluded that mozzarella is a little more involved than paneer, and that I would need to acquire rennet and citric acid. Also that a candy thermometer would be nice to have.
The adventure began when I called my mother to determine if we had anything like a candy thermometer. We do have a meat thermometer, but that starts at 130*F, and 88*F is an important temperature for mozzarella, apparently. I did not, in fact, find a candy thermometer, but we had all sorts of exciting adventures along the lines of, "Have you looked in the front room? Look in that drawer in the front room. Nothing? Okay, go to my closet. Start describing the boxes on the shelf in my closet. Yes, that one. Not there? You're sure there's not another box like that in my closet? Okay, um, top left dresser drawer. Anything in there? No? Well, have you tried these three locations in the kitchen? What about the shelves in the basement, or if you're feeling really brave, you could go look at your brother's room . . ." Which was an interesting tour of Places We Store Random Stuff, but did not result in a candy thermometer, or even a normal thermometer that could be persuaded that it was secretly a candy thermometer.
Undaunted, I biked to the grocery store. The internet had given me advice for where to find rennet and citric acid, and also the information that citric acid shouldn't be too hard to find in summer because it was used in canning. I did not obviously see any. I did find meat thermometers and similar cooking items, but no candy thermometers, so I decided they didn't have any. Surprisingly, I managed to find a free-floating store person to ask. I figured I would start with the easy one.
"I'm looking for citric acid. It might be with canning supplies?"
"Cleaning supplies?"
"No, canning supplies."
Blank look.
"Um, like putting stuff in glass jars?"
No obvious sign of recognition, but he took me to Bernard With the Inventory List, who declared that it was in First Aid, Aisle 2; ask Margaret.
"Margaret, do you have citric acid?"
"Citric Acid? No, I have boric acid--borax. Would that work?"
I shook my head, refrained from saying, "No, that stuff's poisonous," and thanked them, then went back to Bernard With the Inventory List to ask for liquid rennet or rennet tablets. He shook his head. I'm not sure he knew what I was talking about. I decided that there wasn't any point in buying a bottle of water (there is some oddly snobbish part of me that wants to know what's wrong with our good city water. I mean, besides the fact that it's chlorinated, and trace amounts of all sorts of pharmaceutical compounds, and probably heavy metals-- but bottled water has an expiration date. Ew.) if I didn't have any of the other supplies, so my bike and I progressed to the good coop grocery store. I didn't have much faith that this one would have either rennet or citric acid; while it is a good grocery store, it's also very small. But I knew that they at least sold fresh mozzarella. And the woman I asked told me that Chris didn't carry any rennet, and citric acid--"Oh, like for canning?"--well, they didn't have any right now; next year they would have some. Which is longer than I intend to wait. And I forgot to look for candy thermometers at all.
Now, I'm sure that there are places in the city that I could find rennet and citric acid-- Reading Terminal Market, for one ("If you can't buy it at Reading Terminal, you can't find it in Philadelphia," which may not be strictly true, particularly for canned/packaged foods, but it's never disappointed me yet), but I didn't particularly feel like tromping all over specialty grocery stores downtown. And
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rumorofrain pointed me to a cheesemaking supplies website, so mozzarella will be happening (hopefully), just not this week.I'm really puzzled by that interaction about canning supplies, though. The man (a bit older than me, African-American) had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. I know that there's some sense that preserving food by canning is a Good Mennonite Tradition, and mom and her friend can tomatoes partly to Keep The Heritage Alive, but it makes no sense to me that it should be exclusively a European tradition. I mean, before modern refrigerators and the global food economy, anyone who wanted vegetables in the winter had to can, right? Rita probably cans food, or did, when she was younger. And while I can go shop on the internet, I bet Rita buys anything she doesn't grow in her garden from my local supermarket.
Or is it a country-city thing, that everyone used to can stuff but it only remains alive in the country, mostly? And I, for all my city-girl ways, have a grandmother who lives across River Road from a cornfield, and I've bought sweetcorn from the farmers the day it was picked, and shucked it sitting on the back porch looking out over the fields, and eaten it that evening. I come from a place of enough privilege to retain those ties to the country. I wonder how many times that young man in the grocery store has seen food still attached to the plant it was grown on. Is that why he doesn't know what canning is?
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http://www.bigberkeywaterfilters.com/
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On the other hand, I recently read a "resilience quiz" that asked questions about having food preserving skills, and I felt relieved that I knew those things. I doubt we'll witness the breakdown of society in our lifetimes, but if we do, it doesn't hurt to know some of these skills, right?
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My house is small, but in the post-apocalypse, you're invited.
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In my experience, hardware stores are often more likely to have canning supplies than supermarkets. Little indie hardware stores (or Ace), not Home Depot types, though.
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That's a thought. My dad works at Kilian Hardware, of which people are fond of saying, 'If you can't get it at Kilian's, it's not worth having' (exceptions being complex electronics and food, at least in my book). I've already ordered the stuff, though.
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