Directions for making your own at home. Also, Italy moves to rescue its king of cheeses.
This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
Yogurt is a healthy food that can be made at home. One way to make it is to first buy some yogurt from a store or purchase dry yogurt culture. Add two small spoonfuls of the yogurt to two cups of milk. This will be the starter for your own yogurt. A cup in the United States is 240 milliliters.
When making yogurt, it is very important to have clean equipment, clean hands and good temperature control.
Pour 8 cups of milk into a large cooking pot. Heat the milk to 85 degrees Celsius. Then cool the milk quickly to 43 degrees. To do this, you can put the cooking pot in cool water.
Keep the yogurt at 43 degrees and add one-half cup of the starter. The remaining starter can be kept for later use. If you want a thicker yogurt, you can also add 1/3 of a cup of dry milk.
Cover the pot and keep it at a temperature of 40 to 45 degrees Celsius for 4 to 6 hours. After that, your homemade yogurt is ready. It can be left at room temperature for up to 12 hours if you like a stronger taste.
You can add fruit, nuts, honey or spices.
Yogurt can be made with milk from cows or other animals including goats, sheep, water buffalo and camels. It can be spelled y-o-g-u-r-t or y-o-g-h-u-r-t. More information on making it can be found at Web sites such as practicalanswers.org.
Now, from yogurt, we move on to another ancient and related food -- cheese.
Parmigiano-Reggiano is the king of Italy's cheeses. People worldwide use it on pasta and other foods. The traditional Italian cheese is produced on several hundred farms around the northern city of Parma.
Cheese makers age it for at least 12 months in large rounds called wheels.
Parmigiano-Reggiano producers say now they are struggling with the financial crisis. Sales of the cheese and a lower-priced version, Grana Padano, are down in Italy. Prices for producers have dropped. And low-priced copies are on the market.
Now comes a rescue plan for the industry. Italy's government has made available enough money to buy 200，000 wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano. Charitable organizations then will give the cheese -- more than 60 million dollars' worth -- to poor people.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Karen Leggett with additional reporting by Sabina Castelfranco in Parma.
