Of milk and cheese and wool

XI.  “And now that we have fulfilled our promise, let us go,” said Cossinius.

“Not until you have added some thing,” I cried, “concerning that supplemental profit from cattle which was promised; namely, of milk and cheese and the shearing of wool.”

So Cossinius resumed: 

“Ewes’ milk, and, after it, goats’ milk, is the most nourishing of all liquids which we drink.  As a purgative, mares’ milk ranks first, and, after it, in order, asses’ milk, cows’ milk and goats’ milk, but the quality depends upon what has been fed to the cattle, upon the condition of the cattle, and upon when it is milked.

“So far as concerns the food of the cattle, milk is nourishing which is made from barley and stover and other such kinds of dry and hard cattle food.

“So far as concerns its purgative qualities, milk is good when made from green stuff, especially if it is grass containing plants which, taken by themselves, have a purgative effect upon the human body.

“So far as concerns the condition of the cattle, that milk is best which comes from cattle in vigorous health and from those still young.

“So far as concerns the time of milking, that milk is best which comes neither from a ‘stripper’ nor from a recently fresh dam.

“The cheese made of cows’ milk is the most agreeable to the taste but the most difficult to digest:  next, that of ewes’ milk, while the least agreeable in taste, but the most easily digested, is that of goats’ milk.

“There is also a distinction between cheese when it is soft and new made and when it is dry and old, for when it is soft it is more nourishing and digestible, but the opposite is true of old and dry cheese.

“The custom is to make cheese from the rising of the Pleiades in spring to their rising in summer, and yet the rule is not invariable, because of difference in locality and the supply of forage.

“The practice is to add a quantity of rennet, equal to the size of an olive, to two congii of milk to make it curdle.  The rennet taken from the stomachs of the hare and the kid is better than that from lambs, but some use as a ferment the milk of the fig tree mixed with vinegar, and some times sprinkled with other vegetable products.  In parts of Greece this is called [Greek:  opos], elsewhere [Greek:  dakruos].”

“I am prepared to believe,” I said, “that the fig tree standing beside the chapel of the goddess Rumina[154] was planted by shepherds for the purpose you mention, for there is it the practice to make libations of milk rather than of wine or to sacrifice suckling pigs.  For men used to use the word rumis or ruma where we now say mamma, signifying a teat:  hence even now suckling lambs are called subrumi from the teat they suck, just as we call suckling pigs lactantes from lac, the milk that comes from the teat.”