Cheese
Cheese: 7,500 years of curds, from Polish clay strainers to a wheel chased down an English hill, plus how to buy, store and swap it.
Cheese is milk that learned to wait. Add a little acid or rennet, let the curds firm up, drain the whey, and something you'd drink this week becomes something you can keep for months. The word itself goes back to Latin caseus, and further to an old root meaning "to ferment, become sour" 1. People have been making it for at least 7,500 years 1, and we still can't agree on the best one.
Background
Every cheese starts the same way. Milk is soured or set with rennet, the solid curds separate from the liquid whey, and the curds are pressed, salted and often aged 1. Change the milk (cow, sheep, goat, buffalo), the culture, the temperature or the time, and you get anything from fresh ricotta to a crumbly aged cheddar.
Rennet used to come only from the stomachs of young animals. Today most of it is made recombinantly, by microbes 1. That matters to plenty of people, as you'll see below.
The world makes a lot of cheese. In 2022 the United States produced 6.4 million tonnes, about 28% of the global total, followed by Germany at 2.7 million and France at 2 million 1.
History
The oldest clues are clay strainers. In Kuyavia, in Poland, archaeologists found sieves coated with milk-fat molecules from around 5500 BCE 1. Similar evidence turns up on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia from about 5200 BCE 1. Tomb murals in Egypt show cheesemaking around 2000 BCE, and a 2018 study identified actual cheese from about 1200 BCE 1.
The oldest cheese still sitting there to be looked at was found on mummies in the Xiaohe Cemetery in Xinjiang, China, dated to 1615 BCE 1.
For most of history, cheese was made on farms. Then Switzerland opened the first industrial cheese factory in 1815, and in 1851 a New York dairy farmer named Jesse Williams started making cheese on an assembly line, which turned cheddar-style cheese into one of the first American industrial foods 1. Mass-produced rennet arrived in the 1860s, and pure microbial cultures followed by the end of that century 1. That's why the block of tasty in your fridge tastes the same every time.
Customs, rules and rituals
- Kosher and halal. Strict followers of Jewish and Islamic dietary law avoid cheese made with rennet from animals not slaughtered under kosher or halal rules 1. Microbial rennet has made this much easier, so check the label.
- Vegetarians. The same rennet question applies. Look for "non-animal rennet" or "microbial rennet" on the pack.
- The cheese that runs away. At Cooper's Hill in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, people chase a 3–4 kilogram wheel of Double Gloucester down a hill so steep it has a 50% slope 2. The cheese goes fast enough to knock over spectators, and nobody actually catches it. The first person over the finish line wins it 2. The earliest written record is a notice in Berrow's Worcester Journal on 9 June 1836, though the custom is probably older 2.
Place in human experience
Cheese solved a real problem: fresh milk spoils in hours in a warm climate, and cheese doesn't. It turned a seasonal glut into food for the lean months, and into something you could carry, trade and share. Those Polish strainers are a picture of people working out, very early, how to make the good times last.
It also became a marker of place. Double Gloucester, cheddar, feta, parmesan: so many cheeses carry the name of a region, and some towns build whole festivals around them, like the one at Cooper's Hill 2. A cheese board at a family gathering is a small map of the world.
And it's a social food. It shows up grated over a weeknight pasta, melted into a toastie, and cut into wedges whenever people sit down together.
How to buy, store and use it
Picking a good one. Choose blocks that look evenly coloured, with no dry, cracked edges or mould you didn't pay for. Soft cheeses should give a little when pressed and smell fresh, not sour or ammonia-sharp.
Where to find it. Australian supermarkets keep everyday blocks, slices and shredded cheese in the dairy fridges. Feta, haloumi, brie and specialty cheeses usually sit at the deli counter or in a separate cheese case. Vegan cheese is often shelved nearby or in the health food section.
Storing it. Keep your fridge at 5°C or colder 3. Wrap hard cheese in baking paper, then loosely in a bag or container, so it breathes without drying out.
A safety note. Food Standards Australia New Zealand advises people who are pregnant, elderly or have weakened immunity to avoid soft, semi-soft and surface-ripened cheeses such as brie, camembert, ricotta, blue and feta unless thoroughly cooked 3.
How much is a serve? Australia's dietary guidelines count 40 grams of hard cheese such as cheddar (two slices, or a 4 x 3 x 2 cm cube), or half a cup (120 grams) of ricotta, as one serve 4.
Swaps.
- Parmesan on pasta: nutritional yeast, or a vegan parmesan.
- Ricotta: blended firm tofu with lemon and salt.
- Melting cheese on pizza or toasties: a vegan block that's labelled "melts".
- Feta: firm tofu marinated in brine, lemon and oregano.
Sources
- "Cheese", Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese
- "Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake", Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper%27s_Hill_Cheese-Rolling_and_Wake
- "Listeria and food", Food Standards Australia New Zealand. https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/safety/listeria
- "Serve sizes", Eat for Health, Australian Government National Health and Medical Research Council. https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/how-much-do-we-need-each-day/serve-sizes
