What food could be more basic than cheese? And yet its history and multitudes of variations make it a complex food indeed. As a preserve, it is much like wine for it bears the same relationship to milk as wine does to grapes. In fact some have described cheese as "milk's leap to immortality" - a title a bit overwhelming when you consider its humble beginnings.
Cheese made its appearance when animals were first domesticated about 9000 B.C. Like many great culinary discoveries, the creation of cheese was most likely accidental. Liquids were customarily stored in bags made from cow's stomachs, and when kept in these bags long enough the milk was converted to curds and whey through the enzyme called rennin found in the stomach's lining. Once established as palatable, people around the world refined the process and began their cheese making in earnest. It evolved into a delicacy and each region created its own specialty.
The desire for cheese inspired wealthy Romans to build special kitchens simply for making cheese while the common people brought their homemade cheeses to a public smokehouse for curing. A special term of endearment in Rome and Greece was to fondly call a loved one "little cheese" and Greek children were rewarded with cheese as we today would hand out candy. Participants in last year's games in Atlanta would be interested to know that the original Olympic athletes trained on a diet consisting primarily of cheese.
The countless variations of the food we collectively call cheese are due to the endless number of conditions under which it is made. Flavor and texture are altered by temperature, the type of milk used, how the curds are cut, the draining process, the length of time it ripens, how often it's turned, and even atmospheric conditions. Changing a single step can alter the taste of a cheese maker's product.
There is an interesting story about a famous cheese factory whose owners chose to relocate from one area of the United States to another. The equipment, the "mother culture", the secret recipe and even the original workers themselves were transported to the new plant leaving behind only the shell of the building. But for some unknown reason, the cheese made in the new location was significantly different, and in an act which resembled nothing less than alchemy, someone smeared some of the cheese made in the old plant all over the interior walls of the new location. With this seemingly desperate approach, the flavor of subsequent batches of cheese was restored to its original perfection. The cheese maker realized that airborne bacteria was as much a factor in the recipe as the bacteria in the starter culture.
So cheese making can be a complicated scientific process or as
simple as heating sour milk and letting it drain. Whatever the preparation, as
the old nursery rhyme says, "the cheese stands alone" in its contribution to
tables throughout history.