When the late Reg Scott wrote the first edition of this book in 1981, his intention was 'to produce a script generally interesting to those readers requiring more information on cheese'. It was not conceived as a book that covered the most recent developments with respect to lipid or protein chemistry, for example, but rather it was hoped that the text would reveal cheesemaking as a fascinating, and yet technically demanding, branch of dairy science. The fact that the author had some 50 years' experience of cheesemaking gave the book a very special character, in that the 'art' of the traditional cheesemaker emerged as a system that, in reality, had a strong scientific basis. Today, cheesemaking remains a blend of'art and science' for, while much cheese is made in computer-controlled factories relying on strict standard ization to handle the large volumes of milk involved, the production oftop quality cheese still relies on the innate skill of the cheesemaker. It was considered appropriate, therefore, that this revised edition ofCheesemaking Practice should include, at one end of the spectrum, details of the latest technology for curd handling and, at the other, simple recipes for the production of farmhouse cheeses. Obviously a student of dairy science will need to consult other texts in order to complete his/her knowledge of the cheesemaking process, but if this revised edition stimulates its readers to delve more deeply, then the task of updating the original manuscript will have been worthwhile."

When the late Reg Scott wrote the first edition of this book in 1981, his intention was 'to produce a script generally interesting to those readers requiring more information on cheese'. It was not conceived as a book that covered the most recent developments with respect to lipid or protein chemistry, for example, but rather it was hoped that the text would reveal cheesemaking as a fascinating, and yet technically demanding, branch of dairy science. The fact that the author had some 50 years' experience of cheesemaking gave the book a very special character, in that the 'art' of the traditional cheesemaker emerged as a system that, in reality, had a strong scientific basis. Today, cheesemaking remains a blend of'art and science' for, while much cheese is made in computer-controlled factories relying on strict standard ization to handle the large volumes of milk involved, the production oftop quality cheese still relies on the innate skill of the cheesemaker. It was considered appropriate, therefore, that this revised edition ofCheesemaking Practice should include, at one end of the spectrum, details of the latest technology for curd handling and, at the other, simple recipes for the production of farmhouse cheeses. Obviously a student of dairy science will need to consult other texts in order to complete his/her knowledge of the cheesemaking process, but if this revised edition stimulates its readers to delve more deeply, then the task of updating the original manuscript will have been worthwhile."

D.A. Cooke and R.K. Scott Sugar beet is one of just two crops (the other being sugar cane) which constitute the only important sources of sucrose - a product with sweeten ing and preserving properties that make it a major component of, or additive to, a vast range of foods, beverages and pharmaceuticals. Sugar, as sucrose is almost invariably called, has been a valued compo nent of the human diet for thousands of years. For the great majority of that time the only source of pure sucrose was the sugar-cane plant, varieties of which are all species or hybrids within the genus Saccharum. The sugar-cane crop was, and is, restricted to tropical and subtropical regions, and until the eighteenth century the sugar produced from it was available in Europe only to the privileged few. However, the expansion of cane production, particularly in the Caribbean area, in the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, and the new sugar-beet crop in Europe in the nineteenth century, meant that sugar became available to an increasing proportion of the world's population."