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How old is ... the cheese? A bit of history
According to most resources cheese was first
made in the Middle East. The earliest type was a form of
sour milk, which was discovered when domesticated animals
were milked.
According to a legend, cheese was
'discovered' by an unknown Arab nomad. He is said to have
filled a saddlebag with milk to sustain him on a journey
across the desert by horse. After several hours riding he
stopped to quench his thirst, only to find that the milk had
separated into a pale watery liquid and solid white lumps.
Because the saddlebag, which was made from the stomach of a
young animal, contained a coagulating enzyme known as
rennin, the milk had been effectively separated into curds
and whey by the combination of the rennin, the hot sun and
the galloping motions of the horse. The nomad, unconcerned
with technical details, found the whey drinkable and the
curds edible.
Cheese was known to the ancient Sumerians
four thousand years before the birth of Christ. The ancient
Greeks credited Aristaeus, a son of Apollo and Cyrene, with
its discovery; it is mentioned in the Old Testament.
In the Roman era cheesemaking was done with
skill and knowledge and reached a high standard. By this
time the ripening process had been developed and it was
known that various treatments and conditions under storage
resulted in different flavours and characteristics.
The larger Roman houses had a separate
cheese kitchen, the caseale, and also special areas where
cheese could be matured. In large towns home-made cheese
could be taken to a special centre to be smoked. Cheese was
served on the tables of the nobility and travelled to the
far corners of the Roman Empire as a regular part of the
rations of the legions.
During the Middle Ages, monks became
innovators and developers and so contributed to the many
classic varieties of cheese marketed today. During the
Renaissance period cheese suffered a drop in popularity,
being considered unhealthy, but it regained favour by the
nineteenth century, the period that saw the start of the
move from farm to factory production. |
