A brief history of cheese

Hard, soft, creamy, gooey, stinky — there are types of cheese to please every palate. Savour a look back at the humble, but delicious, origins of this culinary favourite.

Nomads in the Middle East have been making curd cheese for thousands of years. According to legend, the cheesemaking process was discovered by a traveller who was carrying milk in a container made from a lamb's stomach. When he stopped to drink, he found his milk had coagulated into a custard-like mass. Instead of throwing it away, he tasted the substance and was pleasantly surprised. Thanks to rennin, an enzyme found in the stomachs of newborn lambs, kids and calves, the milk had been transformed into curds and whey. This process is known as curdling and is the first step in the production of all cheese.

It was later discovered that the keeping qualities of the curds could be greatly extended by pressing out moisture, rubbing the solid residue with salt (to help prevent mould) and drying it in the sun. Thus the summer milk surplus could be preserved as concentrated protein that was easily carried and was easily stored for use during the lean winter months.

• Soft cheeses are made from unpressed curd and must be eaten within one to two weeks. Hard cheeses take longer to prepare but keep better in storage
• Cow's milk is the most popular base for all cheese. Because the goat and sheep milk does not contain the carotene in cow's milk, cheeses made from these milks are much whiter than cow's milk cheese
• Goat's milk cheese can be quite mild when fresh but tends to develop a strong ammonia taste if it is kept for long
• Sheep's milk is used in making genuine roquefort cheese while traditional mozzarella is made from the milk of the water buffalo
• The ingredients needed to make cheese are pasteurized, unhomogenized milk, a cheese starter, rennet and salt (for some cheeses). The richest and creamiest cheeses are made from fresh whole milk. However, skim milk and reconstituted milk powder can be used for most cheese recipes and are particularly suitable for cottage cheese
• A cheese starter replaces the bacteria destroyed during pasteurization which are necessary for the cheesemaking process. Rennet, sold as a concentrated liquid by dairy suppliers, contains the chemical agent rennin, needed to curdle the milk. Rennet sold as junket tablets is much weaker than cheese rennet and, while you can increase the proportion and use junket rennet, the results will not be as reliable

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