Talking to E. A. Melford of the Gotaas Export Corporation, New York City, who is introducing the cheese, we learned about its history. The maker, O. Wicander, lived for a number of years in this country and came to admire greatly our type of cream cheese, different from anything he knew back home in Sweden.
Fifteen years ago Mr. Wicander returned to his native land to buy a small dairy farm south of Stockholm. Remembering his love for the American cream cheese, he contacted Alexander Hable, an experienced French chef who owned a small restaurant in Stockholm, and invited him to the farm to try his hand at making cream cheese.
A laboratory was installed at the end of the cow barn near the milking parlor, and the cheese made in small batches. Soon M. Hable was experimenting with Brie and doing a good job at it, too. Next he tried Camembert. In the spring of 1939 a new modern dairy was completed at the farm to make cream cheese.
The first production was ready for market during a hot spell in summer, and both the Brie and the Camembert came to hotel tables soft, runny, odorous. The manager of the Operakallaren, a famous hotel in Stockholm, suggested to the cheese-makers that they try a more stable cheese, one made entirely of cream instead of milk and which could be served right through the hot months. The result was the Crème Chantilly, its exterior like Camembert but the inside velvety white like French Petit Suisse and with a flavor quite its own, as the cream mixture had been combined with fresh mushrooms and hazelnuts. In the beginning only the finest stores handled the cheese, and production was less than two hundred pounds per month, but by August 1939 this had increased to over four thousand pounds. During the lean war years all cheese made from cream or whole milk was prohibited, so the new product was temporarily forgotten. It came to market again in 1945, and in a very few months was being handled not only in the best stores but in chains and cooperatives throughout Sweden. At present, production is about twenty thousand pounds a month and is to be doubled this year. A portion of this increase is for export to Holland, Switzerland, and England, already steady customers, and now the States.
In New York the cheese is handled by Bellows and Company, 67 East Fifty-second Street, and by R. H. Macy, Herald Square. In Boston, S. S. Pierce and Company have a fair stock. Now the cheese is coming twice monthly, traveling refrigerated by fast passenger ship.
Coffee bubbling in the pot almost always smells a lot better than it tastes, haven't you noticed? We are talking about old-fashioned coffee where the maker boils the flavor into the air. Breathe it in—umm! But it's not in the cup, it's not for the mouth. That's what the manufacturers of Filtron told us, urging that we give this cold-water extractor a trial. That's just what we did, and believe it or not, here's an extractor that keeps the coffee in the coffee.
Take a look at this coffee-making machine. It's a three-piece glass unit operating on a new patented principle which removes all the coffee from the grounds by the use of cold water without applying heat of any sort. Take a pound of coffee, any brand you enjoy, and place this in the center section, filling the top part with cold water fresh from the tap. The bottom container catches the pure coffee essence, and enough essence in a pound to make sixty cups of the freshest coffee you ever did taste. None of the rancid oils gets in the brew, or the fatty acids or the sediment. These bitter astringent properties of the coffee bean are insoluble except when the water is hot.
What happens is that the cold water filters through the coffee, causing the thousands of aromatic oil cells to swell until they burst and release the flavorful oils for the cup. The extract produced in this manner can be kept in the refrigerator ready to make steaming hot or iced coffee on the instant, and it's coffee that tastes “just roasted” and most flavorful. Something any woman will approve: no coffee grounds after the first making and only one cleaning of the extractor to each pound of coffee.
Never a drop of coffee need be wasted, either, for the essence can be used exactly to current need, a cup of brew this morning; a potful tonight. It takes from 3/4 to 1 ounce of this highly concentrated liquid for one strong cup, the amount depending on the brand of coffee used and the strength you desire. Experiment to get the right measure to suit each set of taste buds.
The essence is convenient also for all kinds of coffee cookery. A recipe booklet is offered by the firm that gives twenty-five coffee desserts and drinks. For a copy of the book send your request to Helmco-Lacy, 1215 West Fullenon Avenue, Chicago 14, Illinois. To purchase the Filtron Extractor, ask in your local appliance store. In New York City it is handled by Hammacher Schlemmer, 145 East 57th Street, price ＄19.50.
For those quietly adventurous, we suggest chicken tamales for the next cocktail shindig. These are husk-wrapped about 2 inches long, to be heated in boiling water 15 minutes and served hot. Untie one end of the husk and how easy to squeeze out the small meaty middle. Yes, finger food, ＄1.29 a tin of 24, Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, New York.
A waffle smoking hot, a lump of butter slowly melting, filling the waffled surface with little lakes of gold. A big pour of thick honey—orange blossom honey. Exquisite moment as the fork breaks in—we are serene, at peace in our Sunday morning world. This orange blossom honey is more than just another orange blossom honey, it comes from F. W. Burkett of Haines City, Florida, who makes it his pride, so delicately yet distinctively flavored. If you have imagination, it will seem to carry a slight orangy fragrance.
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