This paper reviews the use of plant extracts as vegetable coagulants for cheesemaking. It covers the plants used as sources of coagulants, with a historical overview and particular emphasis on Cynara species. The genus Cynara L., its composition, milk clotting and proteolytic enzymes (cardosins) and their specificity towards peptide linkages are also described. Cheeses produced in the Iberian Peninsula using Cynara L. as coagulant are documented. Cynara L. is still the most used vegetable coagulant in cheesemaking, and also the most investigated. However, much work remains to be done to understand its action during cheese maturation and further characterization.

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The year 1999 marks the centenary of the jirst publication on the effects of high hydrostatic pressure on milk. After the initial activity, interest was revived with improvements to the high pressure processing equipment. High pressure processing has been demonstrated to be an effective method of modfying protein structure in milk and milk products and to have a bacteriocidal effect. Vegetative bacteria vary in their barosusceptibility and elimination of pathogens cannot be guaranteed.

Milk oligosaccharides (OSs) confer unique health benefits to the neonate. Although human digestive enzymes cannot degrade these sugars, they support specific commensal microbes and act as decoys to prevent the adhesion of pathogenic micro-organisms to gastrointestinal cells. The limited availability of human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) impedes research into these molecules and their potential applications in functional food formulations. Recent studies show that complex OSs with fucose and N-acetyl neuraminic acid (key structural elements of HMO bioactivity) also exist in caprine milk, suggesting a potential source of bioactive milk OSs suitable as a functional food ingredient.

-Portugal has a strong tradition of cheesemaking from raw ewe's milk; most of these cheeses are still made on a traditional farmhouse scale. Their production is protected by Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) but the specific biochemical aspects of the majority still need to be characterised. Two different cheesemaking procedures, traditional and semi-industrial, were compared technologically, biochemically and microbiologically. It was observed that, despite the highly significant difference between artisanal and semi-industrial cheeses (P < 0.001), both products were within the limits of national regulations for most parameters except maturation temperature, humidity and the value for the maturation index. Although the present study was not fully representative of the region, the results obtained suggest that the specific regulations for Serpa cheese should be revised and that other parameters, such as moisture and salt-in-moisture content, which are very much dependent on the cheesemaking process, should be included in order to characterise better this traditional cheese.Serpa cheese characterisation / PDO cheese / ewe's milk cheese / Cynara cardunculus L. / vegetable coagulant Résumé -Le fromage Serpa : caractérisation technologique, biochimique et microbiologique d'un fromage AOP au lait de brebis, coagulé par Cynara cardunculus L. Le Portugal a une forte tradition dans la fabrication de fromage au lait cru de brebis, continuant à être fabriqués pour la majorité à l'échelle des fermes traditionnelles. La production de quelques-uns de ces fromages est protégée par l'AOP (Appellation d'Origine Protégée) mais leurs caractéristiques spécifiques restent inconnues. Deux procédés de fabrication (artisanal et semi-industriel) ont été réalisés et les résultats obtenus ont été comparés. On a pu observer que, malgré la différence significative des deux procé-dés de fabrication (P < 0.001), tous les deux avaient des valeurs comprises dans les limites imposées par la réglementation. Toutefois, certains paramètres, tels que la température et les conditions d'humidité pendant la maturation, ainsi que les valeurs proposées pour l'index de maturation, étaient différentes. Cela nous conduit donc à suggérer que certains paramètres pourraient être révi-sés et d'autres tels que l'humidité et le sel dans l'humidité, qui dépendent beaucoup du procédé de fabrication, soient dorénavant inclus afin de permettre une meilleure caractérisation de ce fromage traditionnel. Caractérisation du fromage

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a b s t r a c tMilk oligosaccharides are believed to have beneficial biological properties. Caprine milk has a relatively high concentration of oligosaccharides in comparison with other ruminant milks and has the oligosaccharide profile closest to that of human milk. The first stage in recovering oligosaccharides from caprine milk whey, a by-product of cheese making, was accomplished by ultrafiltration to remove proteins and fat globules, leaving more than 97% of the initial carbohydrates, mainly lactose, in the permeate. The ultrafiltered permeate was further processed using a 1 kDa 'tight' ultrafiltration membrane, which retained less than 7% of the remaining lactose. The final retentate was fractionated by preparative scale molecular size exclusion chromatography to yield 28 fractions; oligosaccharide-rich fractions that were suitable for functionality and gut health promotion testing were detected between fractions 9/10 to 16/ 17. All fractions were evaluated for their oligosaccharide and carbohydrate profiles using three complementary analytical methods.

Proteolysis of Serpa cheese produced traditionally (B) and semi‐industrially (C) was evaluated for the first time by determination of nitrogen content and capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE). A citrate dispersion of cheese was fractionated to determine the nitrogen in pH 4.4, trichloroacetic and phosphotungstic acid soluble fractions (pH 4.4‐SN, TCA‐SN and PTA‐SN, respectively). The pH 4.4‐SN was significantly higher for B (P < 0.001), while TCA‐SN was significantly higher for C (P < 0.001). PTA‐SN was also higher for C but at 60 days ripening no significant difference was found between B and C. Degradation of αs1‐ and β‐caseins evaluated by CZE was in good agreement with the maturation index (pH 4.4‐SN/TN).