They feede most on Whitemeates, and esteeme for a great daintie sower curds, vulgarly called by them Bonaclabbe. And for this cause they watchfully keepe their Cowes, and fight for them as for religion and life; and when they are almost starved, yet they will not kill a Cow, except it bee old, and yield no Milke.
Fynes Moryson, early 17th century
Although stretching back to ancient times, cheesecake isn’t necessarily a dessert we would associate with Ireland. However, this recipe for “Irish Curd or Cheese Cake” found in Theodora FitzGibbon’s 1968 A Taste of Ireland is not only delicious, but a symbolic reminder of Ireland’s cheesemaking past. Plus, a cheesecake based on a manuscript from 1755? I had to try it.
In general, there is a significant amount of cheese in Irish literature and mythology. Queen Maeve was killed by a well aimed piece in Táin Bó Cúailnge, and Aislinge Meic Con Glinne paints the following picture:
Smooth pillars of old cheese
And sappy bacon props
Alternate ranged;
Stately beams of mellow cream,
White posts of real curds
Kept up the house.
Much has been written about this topic, but here are the highlights, especially when we’re looking at cheese curds, which are called for in this recipe. Curds are a product of the cheesemaking process that form after rennet is added to milk. Curds, or gruth, are mentioned in very early documented sources on the Irish diet. Cain Aicillne, a seventh to eight century law texts, states that farmers had to hand over an annual return of sweet cheese curds. Regina Sexton says that these curds were often flavored with wild garlic, wood sorrel and salted butter, and sweetened with honey and hazelnuts.
The Common sort of People in Ireland do feed generally upon Milk, Butter, Curds and Whey . .
Anon, The Present State of Ireland Together with some Remarks about the Antient [sic] State thereof, London, Wilkinson & Burrell, 1673, ‘Of their Dyet’ p. 151
The best overview of curds is given in A.T. Lucas’ “Irish Food Before the Potato” (1960):
The various preparations made from milk, comprising, it seems, every possible gradation from simple curds to cheese, were collectively known as banbidh, ‘white foods”, which was Englished by writers like Spenser as ‘whitemeats”. When the scholar MacConglinne set out from Armagh to visit King Cathal Mac Finguine in Munster, we are told: ‘The scholar had heard that he would get plenty and enough of whitemeats, for greedy and hungry for whitemeats was the scholar.” The’ basis of these ‘whitemeats” was curds. These could, of course, be allowed to form naturally in the milk but there were various ways of hastening the process. One method is described by Dunton in his account of a breakfast prepared for him in Iar Chonnacht in 1698: ‘The next morning a greate pott full of new milk was sett over the fire, and when it was hott they pour”d into it a pale full of butter milk, which made a mighty dish of tough curds in the middle of which they placed a pound weight of butter … ” Another method was to add rennet (binit), the use of which was known from ancient times for Cormac’s Glossary gives a fanciful derivation of ie and, equally fancifully, derives the name Benntraige (Bantry, Co. Cork) from binit-rige or ‘rennet kingdom~, ‘from the ·cheese-curds that the king of Cashel is entitled to from them … ‘ Rennet is also mentioned for making curds in the Rule of the Culdees which probably dates to the 9th century. Still another method is recorded by Stevens, who says that the milk was kept in sour vessels and that ‘they order it so that it is impossible to boil it without curdling four hours after it comes from the cow’. However made, large amounts of these curds were eaten without further preparation. They were called gruth and their use can be traced back almost as far as our factual documentary sources go. They appear in the Laws in the food rents paid by the inferior grades of society to their superiors, as the ‘summer food’ of a man on sick maintenance and even in the fine for the trespass of dogs, a context which, even if it is an excursus into legal fantasy, is still illustrative of the commonplace thing curds were in contemporary life. In other early settings they are accepted as a normal article of tribute and as a normal item in monastic regimen. They are described as ‘condiment’ for bread in the Laws and in the lives of the saints and a medieval poet saw nothing incongruous in supposing that the weary warriors who accompanied Muircheartach of the Leather Cloaks on his famous circuit of Ireland in A.D. 942 were refreshed on their home- coming with ‘three score vats of curds, which banished the hungry look of the army. In the vision of the Land of Food which MacConglinne narrates to entice the demon of gluttony out of the stomach of the diabetic king, Cathal Mac Finguine, ‘curds’, ‘real curds’ and ‘old curds~ take their place among the choice morsels. It will be apparent, then, that curds were an everyday article of food in ancient and medieval Ireland. They continued to hold their place in the diet through later centuries, being, of course, one of the main constituents of the whitemeats which, Spenser says, were the summer food of the Irish. They appear in a description of the food of the ‘common sort’ of the Irish in 1673/5 again in Dineley’s account of it in 1681 and among the summer food of the people in 1682. Dunton’s break-fast of them in 1698 has already been quoted but the passing of the 17th century did not mark their disappearance for Moffett introduces them into his description of an Irish feast, they are cited in a pamphlet of 1741 and of the inhabitants of the Rosses, Co. Donegal, in 1753 it is said: ‘Their usual summer diet consisted of milk, curds and butter, with most excellent fish of several kinds.’
The disappearance of cheese from Ireland’s foodscape has been partially solved, it is still in the process of catching up. Cheesemaking declined in the 17th century, largely due to the disruption of longstanding agricultural practices due to land and political issues. The Cattle Acts, the first of which was passed in 1663, was also detrimental to native cheeses. It was kept up in small pockets, as Regina Sexton finds evidence of cheeses being made and consumed amongst the inventories of the Ascendancy’s Big Houses. When a surplus of milk was finally realized by farming families, artisanal and farmhouse cheesemaking began again, though not quite in earnest. It’s still on the rise, and encouraged by local and national organizations.
In terms of old cheesecake recipes, compare the one below to this except from Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook, 1660:
“Let your paste be very good, either puff-paste or cold butter-paste, with sugar mixed with it, then the whey being dried very well from the cheese-curds which must be made of new milk or butter, beat them in a mortar or tray, with a quarter of a pound of butter to every pottle of curds, a good quantity of rose-water, three grains of ambergriese or musk prepared, the crums of a small manchet rubbed through a cullender, the yolks of ten eggs, a grated nutmeg, a little salt, and good store of sugar, mix all these well together with a little cream, but do not make them too soft; instead of bread you may take almonds which are much better; bake them in a quick oven, and let them not stand too long in, least they should be to dry.”
Irish Curd or Cheese Cake Recipe
From Theodora FitzGibbon’s A Taste of Ireland, where she says this has been adapted from the manuscript book of Catherine Hughes, Killinaule, Co. Tipperary, 1755. I used cottage cheese with fantastic results.
INGREDIENTS
PASTRY
6oz/6 tablespoons flour
3oz/3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
water
FILLING
½lb/2 cups sweet curds or cottage cheese
2 eggs, separated – lightly beat yolks together and stiffly beat egg whites
2 tablespoons vanilla sugar (or add ⅛ vanilla extract to regular sugar)
zest and juice of ½ lemon
1 tablespoon butter, softened
TOPPING
1 egg and 1 tablespoon each of sugar, flour and melted butter
METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C. For pastry, combine butter, salt and sugar with a little water. Chill for at least 10 minutes.
2. For the filling, beat together curds or cottage cheese with sugar, butter, lemon zest and juice, and egg yolks. Fold in egg whites. Roll out pastry to fit a 7 or 8-in tin and press in bottom. Brush with egg.
3. Pour filling over pastry. Combine topping ingredients and spread over filling. Bake for 35-40 minutes until golden.
“A handful of raisins or sultanas were sometimes added to the filling. It is a matter of taste: I prefer the simpler variety.”
cleite agus cnámh 