Cheese is one of the most varied and subtle foods in the world. In taste cheese can be bland, buttery, innocuous, rich, creamy, pungent, sharp, salty or lightly delicate. In texture it can be hard enough to chip off in flakes, so soft and runny that it needs to be eaten with a spoon or at any one of a dozen points of softness and firmness between these two extremes. In aroma, cheese can be rank and overpowering enough to turn the stomach of the strongest man (and still be eaten with relish by devotees), delicately aromatic or virtually unnoticeable. Cheese can serve as the perfect companion for wines, a superbly satisfying finale to a gourmet meal or simply as a basic nourishing foodstuff for family snacks.
Archaeologists have discovered that as far back as 6000 BC cheese had been made from cow's and goat's milk and stored in tall jars. Egyptian tomb murals of 2000 BC show butter and cheese being made, and other murals which show milk being stored in skin bags suspended from poles demonstrate a knowledge of dairy husbandry at that time.
It is likely that nomadic tribes of Central Asia found animal skin bags a useful way to carry milk on animal backs when on the move. Fermentation of the milk sugars would cause the milk to curdle and the swaying motion would break up the curd to provide a refreshing whey drink. The curds would then be removed, drained and lightly salted to provide a tasty and nourishing high protein food, i.e. a welcome supplement to meat protein.
Cheesemaking, thus, gradually evolved from two main streams. The first was the liquid fermented milks such as yoghurt, koumiss and kefir. The second through allowing the milk to acidify to form curds and whey. Whey could then be drained either through perforated earthenware bowls or through woven reed baskets or similar material.
The Legend
Most authorities consider that cheese was first made in the Middle East. The earliest type was a form of sour milk which came into being when it was discovered that domesticated animals could be milked. A legendary story has it that 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.
From Biblical sources we learn that when David escaped across the River Jordan he was fed with 'cheese of kine' (cows) (2 Samuel 17:29), and it is said that he presented ten cheeses to the captain of the army drawn up to do battle with Saul (1 Samuel 17:18). Indeed, records show that there was at one time a location near Jerusalem called 'The Valley of the Cheesemakers'. Clearly, skills had been developed to preserve milk either as an acid-curd based cheese or as a range of lactic cheeses, and fermented milks such as today's unsweetened natural yoghurt.
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