Say no to cheese

Cheesecakes. Pure golden nectar that just melts in your mouth. Yet, why is it some Hindus (which includes me) and strict vegetarians no longer partake of this yummylicious dairy product called cheese sold in most stores? Read on.


A really long, long time ago, oh like between 5,000 years ago, a young calf died. Tis was sad but the wise farmer merely accepted it as the cycle of life. Since times were tough, he wasted no time in cutting up and preserving each and every part of the poor youngster. Including its healthy looking fourth stomach.

With no adorable calf with moon eyes competing for the milk, the sad lactating mama cow had more milk than was needed. Quickly, the industrious farmer ran about, frantically filing up every conceivable container with milk. The missus, who was quite irritated to see her kitchen utensils used so, snapped at him, “Stop it! Here, use the calf’s stomachs instead!”

Now, neither one of them were expected anything out of the ordinary to happen. But something did.

The next day, the finicky farmer decided to tidy up his dwelling. When he picked up the calf’s fourth stomach, which had filled to the brim with milk previously, something felt wrong. The fourth stomach dropped unceremoniously onto the floor with a loud solid thump. Milk shouldn’t do that.

The puzzled man stood scratching his head. Not his no-nonsense wife. She just yanked up that darn fourth stomach and plunged her impatient hand into. Out came a white piece of solid mass.

They stared at it. They sniffed at it. They prodded it. Finally the wife broke off a teeny weeny piece of it. She put it up to his face, commanding, “Here, try it.” (Smart woman, that one.)

Tentatively he put it on his tongue. The mortified look on his face turned to one huge goofy grin. Even he knew that they had hit a goldmine.

That’s how cheese came about. Okay, okay, that’s my interpretation of it. There are other versions such as the weary traveller who substituted the water in one of his pouches (made out of a mammal’s stomach) with milk. As he traversed the dessert on his swaying camel, the milk was churned into golden cheese.

The point is, most of the cheese in today’s market is created using cow’s milk, often made with rennet obtained from the poor calf’s fourth stomach (seems they are quite particular which stomach it comes from).

A German friend said that back home there were many who refused to kill the young animals for this purpose (or for veal, of course). “They have stopped eating cheese altogether,” she commented.

Undeniably, there are alternatives to animal rennet, ranging from plants to microbial sources. But can you imagine me out at Secret Recipe, saying, “Eh, what was used to coagulate the cheese for the Boston cheesecake, ah? You can check the cover or not? Does it say animal rennet ah?” Yeah, right!

As a Hindu who does not eat beef, I have decided that its better for me to keep away from cheese totally. Unless it is Indian cheese called paneer (panir), which I believe is made using lime or lemon.

This whole rennet business (not unlike the veal saga) raises interesting questions.

Should we be killing young animals (e.g. calves, kids, lambs) just to obtain the rennet or some other specific part of the body that is considered a delicacy? Why is it that I had never heard about this until a couple of years ago? No one has created a stink about it because …..? I suspect it might have to do with our own attitude and personal values.

Pizzas with cheese toppings, burgers topped off with slices of cheese, spaghetti with an all too generous helping of cheese – all food from the west that is now so very part of our Malaysian lives. We have just adopted the foods of the world without giving it much though, haven’t we? Perhaps as we become more globalised, we should make it a point to examine what goes into our food and question how it is made.

The next time you are about to stuff yourself silly with something yummy, I would suggest you find out more about the ingredients first. If it blends in happily with your beliefs and principles in life, by all means, gobble it down. However, if it does not, take a minute to ponder on it before you blindly follow the crowd.

GIMPing

I feel like a dinosaur. The minute you turn your back, there are more new tricks to learn in the world of photography, leaving me perpetually feeling as though I’ve been left behind in the 100m race.

It was all triggered off by this email that landed in my inbox a couple of days ago. The innocuous note inspired me to start whipping those lazy photographs of mine that have holidaying in my hard disk into shape; all to earn more mullah.

Little did I suspect that there would be a fair bit of work involved.

First I had to chase them down and sort through them, leaving some personal favourites out in favour of others that are more likely to impress. Then I learnt about something called “noise”. Darn it! Whether it’s actual noise made by a bunch of rowdy kids or those grainy specks that appear in some photographs, both are equally unwelcome.

Hence, started my foray into editing and cleaning my pix. But wait, the software supplied by the camera people didn’t let me clean up the noise. How now brown cow? Photoshop is way too pricey, plus I was sure it would slow down my computer. Macam mana ini???

Fortunately, a kind Facebook contact led me to GIMP. Phew!
Now, I swear I’m a GIMPer. Okay, so the noise isn’t totally gone but I’ve learnt to distort my pictures and do some zany things to them. You’ll be see more of them soon enough.