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As I begin writing on Saturday night, my wife and children are all in bed, presumably asleep.

As for myself, I am sitting downstairs, waiting for the next step in my cheddar. Yes, perhaps in defiance reason, and certainly in defiance of the commercial expansion of the twentieth century, I am stubbornly making my own cheese. Throughout the afternoon, I heated the milk, added starter and other ingredients, drained it, and scooped it into a cheese press, which uses a hand crank and spring to apply pressure to firm up the cheese.

The more rational among you may wonder, "Why?"—a perfectly reasonable question, for which the answer may be less than reasonable. But I will try anyway.

(And six cranks of the press later, I return to continue this column.)

For whatever reason, I seem to have an urge to make for myself that which I can easily buy commercially. Several years ago, I took up the brewing of beer, with (eschewing false modesty) more than a little success. That adventure began from a combination of stubbornness and the simple fact that my taste and budget no longer matched. (Another round with the cheese press.) In the last year or two, I've expanded my efforts, taking up the roasting of coffee, canning, the making of wine, and now cheese.

It is hard to explain the effort I expend in these endeavors. Especially with the outrageous prices mandated for milk by the state of Pennsylvania (about $3/gallon), it would probably cost me less to simply buy cheese and leave it in my basement to age to a more expensive grade. Yet I persist.

(Six more turns) There is probably something more to be learned here about life in the earlier twenty-first century. I write this but a few miles from large Amish populations, who live in this time using the technologies of the nineteenth century, while I type on a laptop computer and use a Tivo to watch the new Battlestar Galactica, in which the remains of humanity use largely 1970's technology while traveling among the stars. Again, even if I'm missing it, there's a lesson here.

Somehow, society has lost its perspective. I write this from neither right nor left, nor what I like to fancy as the classic liberal "up." As a reactionary Catholic, I am about as far from Anabaptist such as the Amish as a Christian comes. Yet still, the Amish focus upon simplicity strikes a chord, and makes me ask myself, "Why?" on several levels.

As our productivity has increased, why do we now have two adults working more than forty hours each rather than one parent working less than forty hours outside the hone?

The twentieth century saw staggering increase in productivity. The rise of the American Housewife in the 1950's was not due to oppression, but because of wealth: middle class families could afford to have the mother stay home to raise children. Yet, somehow, as productivity increased, rather than cutting the hours for the one outside worker per family, we have chosen to have two earners per family working more than forty hours per week. Is this progress?

When I ask my economics classes how many women want to stay home with their children when the time comes, the overwhelming majority want to do so at least for the first few years, and a significant portion want to remain there through school. Yet as I look around at the families a few years older, it appears that very few of them will do so. With the new expenses of a child, the second income is hard to give up.

I'm not pretending to have all the answers (though I wish I did!). In fact, I seem to have very few. But I have a lot of questions, many of which come from trying to explain why increased wealth and productivity lead to more work and less time with family, rather than the other way around.

© Richard Edmund Hawkins, MMV

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Links of interest

An easy mozzarella recipe

This .pdf file at the Grape and Granary explains how to make a simple mozzarella. My kids love doing this. You will need a few dollars worth of supplies, but they will suffice for several cheeses. Read

Cheese making supplies at the Grape and Granary

One of many venders of cheese making supplies, and the one I usually use Read

The Cheesypress

The cheese press I use (I have the large one), including plans to build it Read

The HBD cheese mailing list

An email list for the making of cheese with many helpful people, including vendors Read

Read

Dr. Hawkins is a statistician, antitrust attorney, and Assistant Professor of Economics at the Pennsylvania State University.

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