¿Que Cuajo es?

Yes my friends and oh my foes... we are in possession of cuajo. Rennet to youse all that ain't picked up yet on the patter (full disclosure: in retrospect, I think I asked for "cuaje"... God only knows what THAT means in lunfardo. But the guy at the desk didn't even blink. ¡Que gente!)

Coagulant...if you will. The stuff that makes milk cheese.

Thank you, Mr. Salt Shaker.

I was never ambitious about cheese making. All I ever wanted to do is to make the easiest of cheeses: cottage cheese. Then I discovered that although you can make cottage cheese with nothing more than lemon juice or vinegar (like some cheap mozzarellas or all the ricottas) you need to go full-blown rennet for large-curd.

They tell me there used to be cottage cheese in Buenos Aires... like so many things yummy probably from Parmelat before they went cleavage-up.

I'm not even a tremendous CC fan... I think I miss it because it's one of those things that is inexplicably unavailable here. Go figure, the mildest of cheeses NOT available in the land of the mildest of cheeses.

Anyway... we got some now. What is more, rennet is the gateway to ANY sort of great cheese. So, maybe there is a camembert or cheddar in my future.