rennet

[brennarella]

Bad new for vegetarians who love cheese: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennet

Weird. I never knew that.

EDIT: OH, and then I was thinking, gee, then most cheese couldn't be kosher, 'cause that would involve meat & dairy in the same thing. Sure enough, it's not!

So kosher cheese would also be vegetarian.

The things you learn with the internet.

Comments

[emma_rising]

This list might be helpful:
http://cheese.joyousliving.com/

[brennarella]

Ah, cool, thanks. :) I'm not vegetarian myself, but I find this all very interesting.

[kosherchick]

You didn't know about rennet? As far as I'm concerned (as a vegetarian myself), if I were overly concerned with that, I would be vegan. But I'm not. And cheese is f-ing amazing. So. :)

[brennarella]

Heh, no, but I'm not a vegetarian so it never crossed my mind!

I was trying to find rennet to make cheese, and then I happened across that. It also struck me as odd, thinking of how someone must have figured that out originally... stomach lining? Who would think to add that to milk and then cook it? Kinda weird. And wait, isn't there something about not bathing the calf in its mother's milk in being kosher? How does that work? I guess kosher cheese would have to use vegetable or microbial rennet. Right? Ah, all the questions.. Funny how little most people (or maybe just me) know about what all is in our food.

[kosherchick]

That's a good question about kosher cheese. ...and I have no idea! It makes me wonder whether people get by it because of the "if it's blessed by a rabbi, almost anything can be kosher" rule, or... Yeah, I dunno. Aren't there types of cheeses without rennet, though? Like, fresh mozzarella, for example? And possibly goat cheese? I'm also generally ignorant about this!

[brennarella]

So, yeah, I looked it up and kosher cheese is vegetarian... But it makes me wonder about the history of cheese. Some people think it might have been an accident, someone using sheep stomach bags to keep milk in or the like.
"Since animal skins and inflated internal organs have, since ancient times, provided storage vessels for a range of foodstuffs, it is probable that the process of cheese making was discovered accidentally by storing milk in a container made from the stomach of an animal, resulting in the milk being turned to curd and whey by the rennet from the stomach."- Wiki

But I can't figure out how they made kosher cheese originally...

I need to be working on my dissertation! ;)

[sheilagh]

gelatin (ie, Jell-O) isn't vegan or vegetarian :(

[brennarella]

I knew that... but for some reason I never knew about the cheese. I guess because my vegetarian friends didn't want to know. ;)