Cheese is a
food made from
milk, usually the milk of
cows,
buffalo,
goats, or
sheep, by
coagulation. The milk is acidified, typically with a
bacterial culture, then the addition of the
enzyme rennet or a substitute (e.g. acetic acid or vinegar) causes coagulation, to give "curds and whey".
[1] Some cheeses also have
molds, either on the outer rind (similar to a
fruit peel) or throughout.Hundreds of
types of cheese are produced. Their different styles,
textures and flavors depend on the origin of the milk (including the animal's diet), whether it has been
pasteurized,
butterfat content, the species of bacteria and mold, and the processing including the length of aging.
Herbs,
spices, or
wood smoke may be used as flavoring agents. The yellow to red color of many cheeses is a result of adding
annatto. Cheeses are eaten both on their own and cooked in various dishes; most cheeses melt when heated.
For a few cheeses, the milk is curdled by adding
acids such as
vinegar or
lemon juice. Most cheeses are acidified to a lesser degree by bacteria, which turn
milk sugars into
lactic acid, then the addition of rennet completes the curdling.
Vegetarian alternatives to rennet are available; most are produced by fermentation of the
fungus Mucor miehei, but others have been extracted from various species of the
Cynara thistle family.
Cheese has served as a hedge against famine and is a good travel food. It is valuable for its portability, long life, and high content of
fat,
protein,
calcium, and
phosphorus. Cheese is more compact and has a longer shelf life than the milk from which it is made.
Cheesemakers near a dairy region may benefit from fresher, lower-priced milk, and lower shipping costs. The long storage life of cheese allows selling it when markets are more favorable
HistoryA piece of soft curd cheese, oven baked to increase
longevityCheese is an ancient food whose origins predate
recorded history. There is no conclusive evidence indicating where cheesemaking originated, either in
Europe,
Central Asia or
the Middle East, but the practice had spread within
Europe prior to
Roman times and, according to
Pliny the Elder, had become a sophisticated enterprise by the time the
Roman Empire came into being.
Proposed dates for the origin of cheesemaking range from around 8000
BCE (when
sheep were first
domesticated) to around 3000 BCE. The first cheese may have been made by people in the
Middle East or by
nomadic Turkic tribes in
Central Asia. Since animal skins and inflated internal organs have, since ancient times, provided storage vessels for a range of foodstuffs, it is probable that the process of cheese making was discovered accidentally by storing milk in a container made from the stomach of an animal, resulting in the milk being turned to
curd and
whey by the rennet from the stomach. There is a widely-told legend about the discovery of cheese by an Arab trader who used this method of storing milk. The legend has many individual variations.
[3][4]
Dunlop cheese, a traditional cheese from Clerkland Farm,
East Ayrshire, Scotland.
Cheesemaking may also have begun independent of this by the pressing and salting of curdled milk in order to preserve it. Observation that the effect of making milk in an animal stomach gave more solid and better-textured curds, may have led to the deliberate addition of rennet.
The earliest
archaeological evidence of cheesemaking has been found in
Egyptian tomb murals, dating to about 2000 BCE.
[5] The earliest cheeses were likely to have been quite sour and salty, similar in texture to rustic
cottage cheese or
feta, a crumbly, flavorful Greek cheese.
Cheese produced in
Europe, where climates are cooler than the Middle East, required less salt for preservation. With less salt and acidity, the cheese became a suitable environment for beneficial
microbes and molds, giving aged cheeses their pronounced and interesting flavors. Cheese has become the most popular milk invention.
Ancient Greece and RomeModern eraThe biggest exporter of cheese, by monetary value, is France; the second, Germany (although it is first by quantity). Among the top ten exporters, only Ireland, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Australia have a cheese production that is mainly export oriented: respectively 95 percent, 90 percent, 72 percent, and 65 percent of their cheese production is exported.
[31] Only 30 percent of French production, the world's largest exporter, is exported. The United States, the biggest world producer of cheese, is a marginal exporter, as most of its production is for the domestic market.
Top Cheese Exporters (Whole Cow Milk only) - 2004(value in '000 US $)[32]
 France | 2,658,441 |
 Germany | 2,416,973 |
 Netherlands | 2,099,353 |
 Italy | 1,253,580 |
 Denmark | 1,122,761 |
 Australia | 643,575 |
 New Zealand | 631,963 |
| Belgium | 567,590 |
 Ireland | 445,240 |
 United Kingdom | 374,156 |
Germany is the largest importer of cheese. The UK and Italy are the second- and third-largest importers.
[33]Greece is the world's largest (
per capita) consumer of cheese, with 27.3 kg eaten by the average Greek.
Thank you wikipedia
Sat Aug 30, 2008 12:05 pm
