Official Body and Texture Criticisms of Dairy Products Judged in the National Contest

Abstract

Summary A study of the official body and texture criticisms of butter, cheese, and ice cream samples used in the Students’ National Contest in the Judging of Dairy Products during the fourteen-year period from 1926 to 1939, inclusive, showed: 1, that certain body and texture defects are more current than others; 2, that while butter is comparatively free of body and texture defects some occur infrequently; 3, that body and texture defects are very frequently encountered in the greater majority of samples of cheese and ice cream; and 4, that some association of defects exists in those products. Predominating body and texture criticism of butter was “leaky”; those of cheese were “open,” “weak,” “pasty” and “mealy,” and of ice cream “coarse” and “weak” for the frozen ice cream and “curdy” for the melting appearance. One criticism seemed adequate to describe any body and texture defect of butter, but an approximate average of two was necessary to describe properly the body and texture defects of cheese and ice cream. As in the previous report (1) the result of this study and analysis of trends in official body and texture judgments is in no way intended as a guide to future scoring, but merely to classify and make available the body and texture criticisms for those who may not have access to the official scoring records as well as calling attention to this phase of dairy products judging. Inasmuch as the samples used may have been selected in many cases for a specific defect, the percentages distribution reported herein may not necessarily apply to commercial products as a whole. However, the body and texture criticisms encountered in these studies appear to be representative of those encountered in the commercial products throughout the country.