Mary Jane Toth teaches people how to make cheese
A Coleman woman who has picked up lots of tips and tricks during 30 years of cheese making has published a book aimed at taking readers along the same journey she has followed.
Mary Jane Toth’s book is titled “A Cheesemaker’s Journey” and is her third. It costs $19.95. Her odyssey began in 1982 when she and her husband Ed moved their family into Ed’s family farm. She moved from “in town,” Mount Pleasant, to the “boonies,” she said. Her uncle had bought a goat for his daughter and was annoyed that it didn’t mow the lawn, drink water or eat. He called Toth because he wanted to find a home for the animal.
“I took pity on it, so we took it in,” Toth said. “I called somebody who’d put an ad in the paper, selling goats. I said ‘I don’t want to buy one, but could you tell me what they eat?’ That woman (Toni Krause) ended up being my friend and mentor for life.”
Toth, 61, said making cheese doesn’t require a gigantic kitchen, lots of specialized equipment or even dairy animals. The type of cheese depends on the processes, the herbs and flavors she adds and the type of cheese culture, which may be purchased in the form of a powder.
After years of teaching classes around the country and having her hosts pay her flights, Toth decided to have a local class and rent a township hall. She chose Midland County’s Geneva Township and scheduled an all-day class for April 28, charging $100 per participant.
“This is the closest to home that I’ve ever had one,” she said. She might try this format in other places.
Toth said cheese making is a bit like a science experiment. It all depends on the type of culture used, the temperature to which the ingredients are warmed and how the curds are handled. She loves to see the amazing transformation of the milk and other ingredients from a liquid into a rich, smooth solid.
Over the years, she met other cheese makers, began teaching classes around the country and, most recently, began working for a major provider of cheese-making equipment and supplies. Four or five years ago, when she took a full-time job – not the job she has now – her goats went to live with Krause because Toth traveled too much to care for them.
Krause encouraged Toth to write a book. But before that part of the journey began, Toth honed her craft. She bought a cheese-making book but found the book wasn’t very helpful.
“If you knew anything about cheese making, there were a lot of things missing from the book,” she said. Already a good cook, she decided to investigate and study, and eventually wrote her own recipes. They worked, and people liked the food she made.
Her first book, which she termed “ugly” because she produced it at a quick-printing shop, was titled “Goats Produce, Too: the Udder Real Thing.” The idea was that cows’ milk wasn’t the only kind of milk that can yield good foods. Then came “Caprine Cooking.” Caprine refers to goats, the way “equine” refers to horses. The book was about 485 pages of recipes using goat meat, goat cheese – “everything,” she said.
Toth now works as the cheese specialist for Hoegger Supply (pronounced Hay-ger) in Fayetteville, Ga., just outside Atlanta. She can continue to live in Coleman and do much of her work virtually. The company has published her latest book and gave her $50,000 to create a work of professional quality. She’s not ashamed to call the illustrations “gorgeous” and said the book, which came out in January, is selling well. Altogether, she has sold 100,000 copies of her books so far.
Key pieces of equipment for the cheese-maker’s kitchen are stainless-steel pots. The average person makes a gallon or two of cheese at a time, but Toth has a five-gallon pot so she can make a bigger batch. Toth said cheese makers don’t have to spend a lot of money on fancy gadgets. There’s no need for a curd knife to reach down to the bottom of the pot to cut the curds. A long spoon or knife work, too. When it’s time to hang up the curds to drain, Toth makes a square piece of cloth from a pillowcase with the sides cut open. She ties the “curd bag” up with a shoelace, sets a dish under the bag and lets the whey – the liquid part of the milk – drain into the dish. Cheese cloth works well for the bag, but a pillow case is something easily available at home.
“It’s not like you have to have a specially built kitchen,” she said. “A lot of cheese-making books make is sound like cheese making is complicated. It’s not as complicated as it seems.
“I think it’s important to start out with a really good book that has good recipes and that gives you some basic information so you understand why you do what you do.”
The process starts with milk that has been warmed to a temperature of 80 to 90 degrees. Whether the cheese becomes cheddar, Parmesan or Gorgonzola depends on the type of culture, a freeze-dried powder, that is added.
The next step is to add rennet, a coagulating agent. “Vegetarian” rennet is produced in a lab, and might come from plants, Toth said. Before such products existed, rennet was made from the lining of a calf’s or a kid’s stomach. Making animal rennet requires killing the animal, saving its stomach and a few other processes that make it a project Toth isn’t willing to take on. The milk is allowed to set for 15 to 40 minutes, depending on the recipe. The result is a solid curd that can be cut with a knife.
But the curd hasn’t released its whey, and that needs to happen in order to make the cheese firm. So, the curd is cooked at a low temperature.
“The whey and the curds separate from each other. Otherwise, you’d have very watery cheese,” Toth said. “When the whey is removed, that causes the curds to harden and join together.
“When you get done, the cheese has shrunk to about one-fourth the size you started out with.”
Some cheeses, such as cheddar, are firm enough that they need to be pressed. A cheese press has a crank and a gauge so the cheese maker knows how much pressure to apply. The whey comes out at the bottom of the press. Mozzarella, on the other hand, is stretchy. Toth likes to stretch the cheese during the classes, the way someone might pull taffy.
“The people are usually impressed with that,” she said.
For the future, Toth might put together a book of recipes specifically using goat meat. People who raise boar goats, used for meat, probably would appreciate goat stew, roasted goat and goat fajitas.
Toth’s face, hands and voice are being preserved for the future on video. A month ago, she spent four days in Georgia making cheese videos for Hoegger. The company hired a videographer and a makeup artist. She also got a new hairdo.
“I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself,” she joked.
A talkative person since kindergarten, when her teachers noted that fact on her report cards, Toth said she is a little nervous to see how she looks and sounds on video. She asked not to see herself during the shooting process. With all that gesturing and moving of her hands, “all I’d be thinking about was how I didn’t want to look like that.”
Hoegger plans to produce DVDs and aps so people can see the cheese-making process. The company probably will make links to free Youtube videos, too.
“Sometimes you pinch yourself and say, ‘Is this real? Am I really making money doing stuff I love?’ Isn’t this the ultimate job?” she said.
Toth can be reached at (989) 465-1982; people can order the book through Toth or at hoeggerfarmyard.com
Cheese with Bill & Sheila
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