Cottage Cheese Rethought

Cottage cheese  has always been considered just a diet food, gracing plates with a minimum of veggies or fruit on the side. That's all changing thanks to a new generation seeing it in a different light. They're discovering the rich curds cloaked in creaminess as well as appreciating its' protein richness.It's not just for dieters anymore.

 Kim Severson wrote about it in today's New York Times Food section. Cottage cheese has been around since our Colonial days, when housewives had to find a use for leftover milk from after skimming off the cream. Unfortunately modern Americans go crazy over its'cousin, yogurt ,despite the fact that this milk byproduct has double the amount of protein which makes it the ideal lunch or even quick dinner.(although it does have double the sodium). Most pair the food with the the drudgery of dieting.It's not yogurt with its' variety of cute and fancy packaging nor does it come with yummy add ins. This was not always the case. It stood in for meat during the two world wars along with filling in for ricotta and was the highlight of many a diet plate. It gave gravity to salad bars and was even on President Nixon's daily lunch plate, served with a side of fruit. The 1970's was the heyday of cottage cheese with producers pumping out more than a billion pounds per year. Yogurt was still considered strange, belonging to the diets of Europeans and health fanatics. The Eighties changed all that. Yogurt became sweetened and frozen. In the 2000's Greek yogurt came and knocked cottage cheese off the table.

Serious cheese makers are trying to get it back on the country's plates again. Another reason it fell out of favor was the taste.It became flt tasting thanks to it being massed produced along with being filled with preservative gums and starches. The problem is that cottage cheese cannot be mass produced.It has to be made in small batches. Cheese makers, Sue Conley and Peggy Smith, the founders of Cowgirl Creamery, in Marin County, California have created an artisanal cottage cheese, using fresh skim milk from a local dairy. Next comes a simple starter culture  (home chefs can use vinegar when making it at home) that feeds on milk sugar to create lactic acid.Curds form overnight.In the morning cheese makers cut them into pea size bites. The curds are them cooked for about an hour and a half to release their acidity. The whey is then drained from it and the curds are washed three times.The last step is the dressing, responsible for that creamy mouth feel.This determines both the fat content and flavor. The Cowgirl Creamery uses creme fraiche, ideal for the curds. This new  breed of cottage cheese is even winning awards.At a 2017 competition, cottage cheeses from Spain and Luxembourg took home silver awards while two others from Spain and Austria took home the bronze.

Cottage cheese is not just for dieters anymore. It's becoming trendy again thanks to artesanal creameries creating it. It may even knock yogurt off the table