The history of cheese goes back many centuries but who made the first cheese is not known. One legend is that it was accidentally discovered by an Arabian trader who put milk into a pouch made from a dried pig's stomach to be used to ease his hunger at the end of his journey across the desert. The combination of the desert heat, the rolling motion of his camel and the residual rennet (a digestive enzyme in the pigs stomach) combined to separate the milk into curds (the solid part of curdled milk) and the liquid part, whey. When he arrived at his destination, he drank the whey to take away his thirst and tasted the curds, which had a good flavor, so he ate them to satisfy his hunger. An alternative story is that when men put milk out as an offering to the Gods, as the weather got warmer, the milk became thicker. If the thickened milk was drained, it's liquid part removed and the solid remainder put into a dried sheep's stomach to store, it became a firmer. very soft "cheese". The first pictorial evidence for cheese making in this manner was found in a frieze at the Temple of the Great God in Ninhursag, Mesopotamia in 3000 BCE. Travelers from Asia are believed to have brought the art of cheese making to Europe. When ancient Greece was at it's peak, cheese had become a part of daily life. Many records about the production and comsumption of cheese are found in the writings of Aristoteles, Pythagoras and others. In Homer's Odyssey, the Cyclops, Polyphemus, describes the preparation of a cheese that is thought to be the precursor of the famous Greek cheese, "Feta". Eight thousand years later, "Feta" is produced in essentially the same way except for the introduction of automation and contemporary packaging. While the ancient Greeks called the product made by the coagulation of milk, "cheese", the name to be applied to this type of cheese, "Feta", meaning "slice", originated in the 17th century and refers to the slicing up of the cheese to be put into barrels - a practice still used today., From Greece, cheese making moved to Rome during the era of The Roman Empire. The Roman cheesemakers, by trial and error plus their documentation of
their methods, refined, improved and passed along the techniques of cheese making. The Romans introduced cheese making to many other European parts of their Empire, including England. However, during the Middle Ages - from them decline of Rome until the discovery of America - cheese was only made in Monasteries where the process was refined and improved by the monks. Gorgonzola was made in the Po valley of what is now Italy in 879 AD and Italy became the cheesemaking center of Europe. During the 10th century, Roquefort was mentioned as early as 1070 in a monastery at Conques, France. However, popular cheeses of today, Cheddar, Swiss, Edam, Parmesan and Gouda, to name just a few, only appeared within the last 500 years. In its early history, cheese flourished in the Middle East and Europe but cheese was never made in North and South America. Only much later was it introduced by European immigrants. Later, American influences introduced cheese to Asia, but cheese is still not a staple in most Asian diets. Exception's are Tibet and Mongolia who have a long history of cheese making. English settlers brought their love of cheese and the skills needed to make them to America and cheese has been produced in the US since early in the 17th century. As settlers from the Eastern US migrated west, they brought their cheese making skills with them. Later, in the mid - 1800's, Swiss, Germans and Norwegian immigrants who settled in several communities in Wisconsin brought their cheese making skills with them, as well. Now, Wisconsin leads the US in cheese production, followed by California, Idaho, New York, New Mexico, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio and Vermont. Today, there are more than 1750 kinds of cheeses available world-wide made from the milks of cows, goats, sheep, buffalo, yak, reindeer and camels. A cheese available for every taste!
