The first time I ever heard of curds was in the nursery rhyme “Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey.”  Curds look similar to cottage cheese, but in the recipes from 1800s cookbooks, they used rennet for milk curds, but not for cottage cheese.

Today, you can buy rennet powder and rennet tablets at stores or online.

INFORMATION BELOW COMPILED FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS

TO PREPARE A RENNET
A rennet is the stomach of the calf. As soon as the calf is killed, take it, wash it very quickly, and cover it with salt. Let it lie three or four days, stretch it on sticks, and hang it up to dry. When dry, put it in a bag, and set it in a dry place to keep. The same piece salted and dried will do several times.

Rennets properly prepared and dried are also sold in the markets. The cost is trifling and it is well to have one always in the house in case of being wanted to make whey for sick persons. They will keep a year or more.

RENNET WINE
Rub the salt from a nicely dried rennet, and cut it up. Put it in a bottle and fill it up with good wine. If care is taken to keep it filled up, it will last for several years, to make cold custard and cheese curds. Either the wine or the rennet will be found good for turning milk, but do not put in both together or the curd will become so hard and tough, as to be uneatable.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF RENNET
According to the Italian method, a more delicate and tender curd is made without the use of common rennet. Take a number of the rough coats that line the gizzards* of turkeys and fowls, clean them from the pebbles they contain, rub them well with salt, and hang them up to dry. When they are to be used, break off some bits of the skin, and pour on some boiling water. In eight or nine hours the liquor may be used as other rennet.

*gizzards – a type of stomach, found in birds.

CURDS AND WHEY
Take a piece of rennet about three inches square, and wash it in two or three cold waters to get off the salt. Wipe it dry and fasten a string to one corner of it. Have ready in a deep dish or pan, a quart of unskimmed milk that has been warmed but not boiled. Put the rennet into it, leaving the string hanging out over the side, that you may know where to find it.

Cover the pan, and set it by the fire-side or in some other warm place. When the milk becomes a firm mass of curd, and the whey looks clear and greenish, remove the rennet as gently as possible, pulling it out by the string.

Set the pan in ice or in a very cold place. Send it to the table with it a small pitcher of white wine, sugar and nutmeg mixed together, or a bowl of sweetened cream, with nutmeg grated over it.

CURDS AND CREAM
One gallon of milk will make a moderate dish. Put one spoonful of prepared rennet to each quart of milk, and when you find that it has become curd, tie it loosely in a thin cloth and hang it to drain. Do not wring or press the cloth. When drained, put the curd into a mug and set it in cool water, which must be frequently changed.

When you dish it, if there is whey in the mug, tilt the mug gently to pour it out without pressing the curd. Lay it on a deep dish, and pour fresh cream over it. If turned only two hours before wanted, it is very light. Those who like it harder may have it so by making it earlier, and squeezing it. Cream, milk, or a whip of cream, sugar, wine, and lemon, may be put into the dish to serve with the curd. Have powdered loaf-sugar to eat with it and also hand around the nutmeg grater.

For lemon-flavoring—to two quarts of milk, allow two lemons, using only the yellow rind or surface of the skin, and grating it as finely as possible. Reserve the juice of the lemons for some other purpose. Mix the grated rind with the rennet-water, first removing the piece of rennet that has been soaking in it. Have ready in a large china or glass bowl two quarts of rich milk, and stir into it the rennet-water and lemon-rind. Cover the bowl, and set it in a moderately warm place till the curd has become a firm, smooth, unbroken mass, and the whey looks clear and greenish. Then set the bowl on ice, and keep it there till wanted for the table. Accompany it with a small pitcher of rich cream, and a little bowl of powdered loaf- sugar and nutmeg. Send it round on saucers. It is a delicious article for summer dessert, or for a summer tea-table.

For vanilla flavoring—boil a vanilla bean slowly in half a pint of milk, keeping the sauce-pan closely covered. When the milk is highly flavored with the vanilla, strain it, and when cold, mix it with the milk you intend for the curds. Afterwards add the rennet-water. Or you may use instead of the bean, extract of vanilla, allowing four tablespoons to two quarts of milk.

For peach flavoring—stir into the milk some peach-water, as soon as you have added the rennet-water; allowing two tablespoons of the peach-water to each quart of milk. If you have no peach-water, take a handful of peach-kernels, (saved from the stones,) pound them, and boil them slowly in half a pint of milk till it tastes strongly of them. Then strain the milk, and when cold, mix it with the rest, and add the rennet-water. A handful of fresh peach-leaves boiled long and slowly in a small portion of milk will produce a similar flavor.

CURD PUDDING
Rub the curd of two gallons of milk well drained through a sieve. Mix it with six eggs, a little cream, two spoons of orange-flower water, half a nutmeg, three spoons each of flour and crumbs of bread, and half a pound each of raisins  and currants. Boil the pudding an hour in a thick well-floured cloth.

CURD PUFFS
Turn two quarts of milk to curd, press the whey from it, and rub it through a sieve. Mix four ounces of butter, four ounces of the crumb of bread, two spoons of cream, half a nutmeg, a little sugar, and two spoons of white wine. Butter some small cups or pattipans, and fill them three parts full. Orange-flower water is an improvement. Bake the puffs with care, and serve with sweet sauce in a boat.*

*boat – the name for a vessel containing gravy or sauce.

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