History of cheese

Cheesemaking dates back 5,000 years. It is believed to have originated from warm central Asia and the Middle East, as people learned to preserve naturally curdled milk by draining off the watery whey and salting the concentrated curds. There is physical evidence of cheesemaking in Egyptian pots dating to 2300 BCE.

Eventually, the custom moved West and North into Europe. In those cooler regions, people produced many variations of curds that resulted from milder treatments and time. The cheese became alive with different microorganisms. The ancient Columella notes cheese making practices in Europe in his Rei rusticae ("On Rustic Matters") about 65 CE. By the Middle Ages, cheesemaking techniques developed independently in the large feudal estates and monasteries. They suited local conditions and markets. Small, soft cheeses were mostly eaten locally. Large hard cheeses required milk from many animals so cooperatives developed. Gruyère fruiteries began around 1200 CE. Hard cheese was transported long distances and kept indefinitely. The independent producers resulted in a wide variety of cheese. By the 18th century, cheese was considered a stape food, "white meat" for the poor and an integral course in a multicourse feasts for the rich. The golden age of cheese was probably in the late 19th century to the early 20th century when the art was fully matured and railroad transportation made cheese widely available still at its best.
Sadly, industrialization and war brought the demise of traditional cheesemaking. Cheese and butter factories were born in the US, a country with no cheesemaking tradition. By the end of the Civil War there were hundreds of "associated dairies" that manufactured cheese for many farms. Pharmacies, and later pharmaceutical companies, began mass-producing rennet. At the turn of the century, scientists in Denmark, the US, and France standarized cheese making by introducing pure microbial cultures for curdling and ripening cheese. Cheesemaking no longer benefited from the complex flora found in individual farms. According to Harold McGee, in On Food and Cooking, "the crowning blow to cheese diversity and quality was World War II" (p. 54). Dairying in continental Europe was devastated. In the prolongued recovery, factory production of cheese was favored for its economies of scale and regulation. Cheese became inexpensive and standarized. Since then, most of the cheese in Europe and the US is factory made. In 1973, France instituted a certification program for cheese made by traditional methods. Still, less than 20% of French cheese today qualifies for that certification. In the US, most of the market is flooded with factory "process" cheese, made from a mixture of aged and fresh cheeses blended with emulsifiers and repasteurized. "Natural" cheese, though still almost exclusively factory-made, is not as widely consumed.

In the 21st century, cheese consumption is at its highest world wide. However, it has become an industrial product with little resemblance to the age-old art. McGee expresses that "industrial cheese is...a simplified food that could be and is made anywhere, and that tastes of nowhere in particular" (On Food and Cooking, p.54).

In the recent years, there has been a revival of tradition and quality. In the US, artisan cheese is starting to claim a small portion of the market share. What once was considered white meat for the poor, now is a pricey treat for the urban middle class.