A Brief History of Cheese

Cheese has a very long history dating back thousands of years. Egyptian murals from 2000 BCE show depictions of cheese making from the milk of goats and sheep. It is believed that these early Egyptian cheeses likely resembled the salty feta cheese we are familiar with today. Since sheep and goats were domesticated as early as 8000 BCE, the history of cheese could predate the ancient Egyptians, but there is no documented proof.

Throughout the world, cheeses have been made for centuries; however, many of the cheeses that we are most familiar with today weren’t documented until the Middle Ages. Although it is believed that the first cheeses were made in Asia, Europe became most known for its cheese making. Some of the origins of these cheeses came from unlikely sources. For example, monks in northern Italy first made the delicious Parmigiano-Reggiano. The delicious taste was credited to the monks’ cows being fed clover and lucerne. Monks are also credited with perfecting the techniques used to make Brie and Camembert in northern France. The Pilgrims brought cheese to America in 1620, and cheese making was first industrialized in the U.S. in New York in 1851.

Accidental Discovery?

It is believed that the origins of the first cheeses may have been the result of chance. After the domestication of these animals, milk from sheep and goats was commonly transported in the intestines of a slaughtered animal. In the stomachs of animals that are still nursing and have never eaten any kind of grass is a chemical called chymosin. This chemical is a natural coagulant, and it helps the young animal digest its mother’s milk. When added to acidified milk, it causes the milk to form curds that separate from the liquid whey. If is theorized that someone long ago was transporting milk in the intestines of a young animal, and the chymosin caused the formation of cheese curds in the milk. Salt may have been used to then cure the cheese curds. Many traditional cheeses today are still made using animal rennet, derived from the chymosin from the stomachs of young animals.

The Transformation From Milk Into Cheese

Once the basics about cheese making were learned throughout various regions of the world, the procedures and techniques used in cheese making were experimented with to produce different types of cheeses. Although the first cheeses were produced from the milk from goats and sheep, cow’s milk soon became a popular choice for cheese making. In some countries, the milk from a yak, buffalo, or other animal was used.
Each cheese begins with the addition of acid to the milk, followed by the addition of rennet. Although traditional rennet is derived from chymosin, plants such as nettles, thistle, and fig bark also contain coagulant enzymes that can be used instead of animal rennet. More recently, the enzymes of certain yeasts and bacteria have been used to make rennet; in the late 1980s, a method was created for injecting cow DNA into microbes to make rennet that closely resembled animal rennet without the need to slaughter a calf. After the curds are separated from the whey, the curds undergo various processes, such as additional cooking, smoking, curing, or aging to form the various varieties of cheeses. The unique process for each cheese gives the cheese its flavor and texture.