Cheese

Curd stretched by hand in the hot water basin, then pinched into balls. Eaten in first person, it strings when you bite it.

It tops MoreFood: Pizza pizzas.

The wheel from the press, white or orange with annatto. Placed anywhere, it ages in one game day; too young, it tells you how long it still needs.

Once aged, the cheesemaker's knife cuts a wedge: two slices, eight wedges per wheel. Broken, a wheel only comes back whole.

The slice melts on burgers and kebabs.

The pressed emmental bundle: a bigger wheel, two days of ageing, holes at the cut. The cheesemaker's knife cuts its slices.

The pressed raclette bundle: an orange washed rind, a paste that melts. The wheel goes on the raclette machine; the knife cuts slices too.

Fresh from the mould, rolled in ash or not, then aged on the rack, where they grow their bloomy rind in one day.

All of them can be eaten, and they top pizzas.

A plate of potatoes (a baked potato and a bowl) held to the machine once the face has melted: it gets the scraped layer.

Eaten with a fork, the raclette strings all the way to your mouth.

The copper vat over its brick firebox, all by hand:

• pour in a milk bucket (sneak with an empty bucket to take some back);
• wood or coal in the firebox mouth, a flint and steel lights it: the milk simmers and steams;
• rennet, between 32 and 55 °C (the green arc of the dial): the milk sets into a gel;
• the curd harp cuts it into a grid, two passes; empty hand to stir;
• the skimmer lifts the curd, two portions per bucket; sneak with an empty hand to empty the vat.

Variants: annatto in the milk gives curd for cheddar; goat milk, curd for goat cheeses; the cheesecloth lifts the whole vat at once, as an emmental bundle (stirred twice above 50 °C) or a raclette bundle (no cooking).

What the skimmer lifts from the vat. Plain curd stretches into mozzarella; annatto curd is made for cheddar; goat curd is moulded in the cheese moulds.

Edible, bland and lukewarm.

An empty bucket on an adult goat: milk it by hand. This milk isn't for drinking, it's for curdling.

The curd of a whole vat (four buckets of cow milk), lifted in the cloth. Cooked, it's emmental; lifted without cooking, raclette. A bundle fills the press mould on its own.

A water bucket fills it, wood under the basin, a flint and steel. Above 70 °C, drop in the curd (four portions).

Empty hand: stretch it three times, then pinch the mozzarellas one by one. Sneak with an empty hand to empty the basin.

Annatto (or plain) curd is spread on it, four portions; the cheesemaker's knife cuts it into blocks; empty hand, flip them three times, then take the cheddared blocks.

Sneak with an empty hand to take back a layer not yet cut.

A cheddared block in hand goes into the hopper; empty hand turns the crank (two turns per block); sneak with an empty hand to take the chips from the tray.

Cheddar chips (four portions) or a bundle in the mould; empty hand, four turns of the screw wheel, and the whey squirts out; empty hand again to unmould the wheel.

Six moulds. Goat curd is ladled into the first free one; it drains for a minute. Empty hand lifts the moulds; charcoal in hand rolls the cheeses in ash; sneak with an empty hand to take them.

Nine goat cheeses, fresh or ashed, one click each: they age there in one day. Sneak with an empty hand to take everything.

A raclette wheel in hand goes on it; empty hand switches it on or off. The face melts in about fifteen seconds, bubbles and drips included.

A plate of potatoes in hand then gets the scraped layer. Sneak with an empty hand to take back the wheel.

A few drops in warm milk and it sets into a gel. The empty bottle comes back.

A few drops in the vat's milk, and everything that comes out of it is orange: annatto cheddar.

A frame strung with steel wires: two passes through the vat cut the curd into a grid.

It lifts the cut curd and leaves the whey in the vat.

Dip it in the vat and lift all the curd out in one bundle.

It cuts the curd layer into blocks on the cheddaring table, and cuts aged wheels.

Blocks flipped three times on the table, fibrous; the mill turns them into chips, ready for the press.

This book. A book and a milk bucket make another one.

With MoreIndustry: Workshop, the vat, the basin and the machines are assembled from Workshop parts; without it, each page shows its recipe from vanilla items.