Cheese Throughout History

The history of the first cheese maker are lost to time. The prevailing myth is that an Arab trader filled a sheep’s stomach pouch with milk for transport, and during his travels, the milk separated into curd and whey. Most historians believe the practice of cheese making predates even these tales, and is entwined with our earliest unrecorded histories. The first recorded evidence of cheese making dates back to five-thousand and five hundred BCE, though it is speculated that it was even earlier that is was discovered and a became a common practice. This ancient cheese is speculated to be more similar to feta than modern cheeses like cheddar.

Roman Cheeses

Cheeses were also a staple of Greek and Roman societies. By the time of the middle Roman years, it was a seasoned art, with cheese makers dominating a valuable professional title. Salted cheeses were often carried with other field rations starting during this time. Modern cheese still would not have been created, but they would have had a more similar form, probably hard, flaky, and very salty, not unlike a mixture between very aged cheddars and Gouda. Some cheese enthusiast have made representations of what they think these cheeses would taste like.

The Dark Age Of Cheese

During the Middle Ages, cheese fell out of favor with the noble classes, and was largely relegated to the peasant, or surf classes. Even soldiers eschewed this amazing food as beneath them. Thankfully the Dark Ages for cheese did not last long. As the Age of Enlightenment dawned, modern cheeses like Gouda, Swiss, mozzarella, and cheddar became common and were named as such. It is impossible to tell how close these cheeses were to their modern equivalents, but some historians have tried to do it with the tools likely available then. Cheese was largely unknown or uncommon in the Asiatic countries until the early eighteen-hundreds, when it became more industrialized.

Industrial Cheese Evolution

As with nearly every other product, with the dawn of North America, and the industrialized age, cheese started being made in an assembly line fashion. The modern example of cheese as we know it were becoming a reality, and it was a major staple in nearly every household in the Americas, and most European countries. In the eighteen sixties, microbial cultures and the controlled productions of cheeses became possible, so instead of reusing old cultures, the bacteria could be created in a closed environment where all factors could be controlled.