No Whey!
Curds and Whey
A jug left on the counter, a nursery rhyme, and the quiet joy of relearning old kitchen skills.
A couple of weeks ago, my husband opened the kitchen to find a jug of raw milk that one of the kids had clearly abandoned on the counter overnight after a late-night snack raid. He was — understandably — not thrilled. There were only a couple of cups left, and they'd already begun to separate.
I couldn't help grinning. "Relax, love," I told him. "That's practically Little Miss Muffet's lunch." Which is my roundabout way of saying: it had started turning into curds and whey.
Miss Muffet and her tuffet
That silly little rhyme takes me straight back to days listening to my grandmother:
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.
I could recite that whole thing before I had the faintest idea what "curds and whey" actually were — or, for that matter, what on earth a "tuffet" was. (I finally looked it up: a tuffet is simply a low stool or footstool. Mystery solved, several decades late.)
What whey is — and the tidy way to make it
Curds and whey are just what you get when milk separates: the soft solids (the curds) and the thin, cloudy liquid (the whey). And whey turns out to be a wonderful little kitchen helper. The easiest, tidiest way I've found to make some on purpose — no jug-on-the-counter required — is to strain plain yogurt.
Line a sieve with a clean cloth or a coffee filter, spoon in some plain yogurt, set it over a bowl in the fridge, and let it drip for a few hours. The liquid that gathers below is your whey. The thick, dreamy stuff left behind is yogurt cheese — labneh — which is heavenly with a pinch of sea salt, a drizzle of olive oil, and some herbs. Curds and whey, right there on your counter, exactly like the rhyme. Miss Muffet would approve.
What I do with it
I reach for whey in a couple of traditional ways: a spoonful to help get a ferment going, and stirred into the water when I soak grains overnight — an old practice meant to soften the grain and make its minerals a little easier for our bodies to absorb.
Two honest, updated notes from my own kitchen, though. For fermenting vegetables — my kimchi, my gingered carrots — you don't actually need whey at all; a simple salt brine does the job beautifully and, frankly, more reliably. And for soaking grains, a spoonful of yogurt, lemon juice, or a splash of vinegar in the water works just as well. So please don't let a lack of whey stop you from any of it.
Relearning what our great-grandmothers knew
Mostly, this whole little episode reminded me how much joy I've found in reclaiming the kitchen skills our great-grandmothers took for granted. There was a frightening stretch of years when my health fell apart — numbness that came and went, days I couldn't walk without help. In the middle of that fear, I did the one thing that felt within my power: I tore our whole way of eating down to the studs and rebuilt it around real, whole, home-cooked food, the kind Sally Fallon gathers up so lovingly in Nourishing Traditions.
I learned — clumsily at first — to make my own butter, yogurt, kefir, and a simple fresh curd cheese. (That very first batch of curd cheese, I'll have you know, was the most delicious cheese I had ever tasted. I may be a touch biased.) I would never tell you a single food was some magic cure. But learning to feed my family this way became a real part of finding my footing again — in more ways than one.
We've also had the joy of getting to know the good local farms around us — small, pasture-based dairies and cheesemakers who plainly adore their animals. One of our favorites raises goats under the motto "Every Goat Has a Name," which tells you just about everything you need to know about the care behind the milk. Eating dairy from animals raised well, and supporting the families who raise them, has been one of the sweetest parts of this whole journey.
So the next time a jug gets left on the counter and someone in your house sighs — smile, and think of Miss Muffet. There's a whole world of good, ancestral kitchen wisdom tucked inside those two funny old words: curds and whey.
Lots of love,
Steffanie
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Nothing here is medical advice. Public health authorities (CDC, FDA, and the American Academy of Pediatrics) recommend pasteurized milk and milk products; please consult your own healthcare provider about what's right for your family, and follow tested, current food-safety guidelines when culturing or fermenting at home.
A jug left on the counter, a nursery rhyme, and the quiet joy of relearning old kitchen skills.
A couple of weeks ago, my husband opened the kitchen to find a jug of raw milk that one of the kids had clearly abandoned on the counter overnight after a late-night snack raid. He was — understandably — not thrilled. There were only a couple of cups left, and they'd already begun to separate.
I couldn't help grinning. "Relax, love," I told him. "That's practically Little Miss Muffet's lunch." Which is my roundabout way of saying: it had started turning into curds and whey.
Miss Muffet and her tuffet
That silly little rhyme takes me straight back to days listening to my grandmother:
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.
I could recite that whole thing before I had the faintest idea what "curds and whey" actually were — or, for that matter, what on earth a "tuffet" was. (I finally looked it up: a tuffet is simply a low stool or footstool. Mystery solved, several decades late.)
What whey is — and the tidy way to make it
Curds and whey are just what you get when milk separates: the soft solids (the curds) and the thin, cloudy liquid (the whey). And whey turns out to be a wonderful little kitchen helper. The easiest, tidiest way I've found to make some on purpose — no jug-on-the-counter required — is to strain plain yogurt.
Line a sieve with a clean cloth or a coffee filter, spoon in some plain yogurt, set it over a bowl in the fridge, and let it drip for a few hours. The liquid that gathers below is your whey. The thick, dreamy stuff left behind is yogurt cheese — labneh — which is heavenly with a pinch of sea salt, a drizzle of olive oil, and some herbs. Curds and whey, right there on your counter, exactly like the rhyme. Miss Muffet would approve.
What I do with it
I reach for whey in a couple of traditional ways: a spoonful to help get a ferment going, and stirred into the water when I soak grains overnight — an old practice meant to soften the grain and make its minerals a little easier for our bodies to absorb.
Two honest, updated notes from my own kitchen, though. For fermenting vegetables — my kimchi, my gingered carrots — you don't actually need whey at all; a simple salt brine does the job beautifully and, frankly, more reliably. And for soaking grains, a spoonful of yogurt, lemon juice, or a splash of vinegar in the water works just as well. So please don't let a lack of whey stop you from any of it.
Relearning what our great-grandmothers knew
Mostly, this whole little episode reminded me how much joy I've found in reclaiming the kitchen skills our great-grandmothers took for granted. There was a frightening stretch of years when my health fell apart — numbness that came and went, days I couldn't walk without help. In the middle of that fear, I did the one thing that felt within my power: I tore our whole way of eating down to the studs and rebuilt it around real, whole, home-cooked food, the kind Sally Fallon gathers up so lovingly in Nourishing Traditions.
I learned — clumsily at first — to make my own butter, yogurt, kefir, and a simple fresh curd cheese. (That very first batch of curd cheese, I'll have you know, was the most delicious cheese I had ever tasted. I may be a touch biased.) I would never tell you a single food was some magic cure. But learning to feed my family this way became a real part of finding my footing again — in more ways than one.
We've also had the joy of getting to know the good local farms around us — small, pasture-based dairies and cheesemakers who plainly adore their animals. One of our favorites raises goats under the motto "Every Goat Has a Name," which tells you just about everything you need to know about the care behind the milk. Eating dairy from animals raised well, and supporting the families who raise them, has been one of the sweetest parts of this whole journey.
So the next time a jug gets left on the counter and someone in your house sighs — smile, and think of Miss Muffet. There's a whole world of good, ancestral kitchen wisdom tucked inside those two funny old words: curds and whey.
Lots of love,
Steffanie
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Nothing here is medical advice. Public health authorities (CDC, FDA, and the American Academy of Pediatrics) recommend pasteurized milk and milk products; please consult your own healthcare provider about what's right for your family, and follow tested, current food-safety guidelines when culturing or fermenting at home.
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