ABSTRACT

The complete range of dairy equipment was limited to buckets, milk pans, cream pots, churns, cheese vats, a syle dish and straining cloths. The Dictionarnim Rusticum of 1717 repeated Markham's advice about hygiene, the use of milk pans made of different materials, methods and times of milking, so it may be assumed that there had been little or no change in practice or equipment in the seventeenth century. The Tudor preference was for twice milking. There were advocates for three times, but Markham, writing in the early seventeenth century, thought two good milkings better than three poor ones, an irrefutable argument. Milking in the pasture was not confined to the good weather if Shakespeare's casual reference to the season when 'milk comes frozen home in the pail' is any guide. To determine its value for cheese making it was only necessary to curdle the skim milk, and ascertain the specific gravity of the whey.