MILK INTO CHEESE
The Foundations of Natural Cheesemaking Using Traditional Concepts, Tools, and Techniques
A more in depth exploration of the magic of milk, Milk Into Cheese examines the concept of cheese as milk’s destiny. David Asher’s newest tome aims to establish a new narrative for milk, and provides a more global perspective on cheesemaking and dairy fermentation practice. Milk is made for cheesemaking; and all of us are capable of transforming it into its best cheese, naturally.
496 pages, 8x10, hardcover
Published by Chelsea Green, 2025
The Art of Natural Cheesemaking
Using Traditional, Non-Industrial Methods and Raw Ingredients to Make the World’s Best Cheeses
320 pages, 8x10, softcover
Published by Chelsea Green, 2015
Forward by Sandor Katz
More often than not, something is missing in cheese these days—even when it tastes good, when it is made artisanally or just off the ship from some foreign country. A mysterious element sets some cheeses apart as “the best.” David Asher assures us that this missing ingredient is nothing more than a foundational connection to, and cooperation with, nature: the seasons and the elements, the fauna and the flora and, especially, the microbes. The methods detailed in this book suggest a traditional yet radical approach to cheesemaking that reflects Asher’s “fermentationism,” and his belief that all bacterial and fungal cultures needed to make good cheese are native to good raw milk. No expensive fancy equipment or weary lab-grown cultures needed. If you want to make the best cheese, prepare to smell the milk and and trust your clabber, harvest and process your own rennet, keep your own Penicillium roqueforti on homemade sourdough bread, backslop your whey for a starter culture, leave your milk bucket unwashed, respect your kefir, improvise your own cheese forms and just say no to Big Dairy. Both a manifesto and a framework. And, yes, you’ll find 35 recipes with beautifully lit photographs to guide the way. Hats off to Asher.
Review from the Fedco Seed Catalogue, 2016 edition.
Translation available in Russian, German, Bulgarian, French and Spanish