Cheese Legend & History

Ancient Cheese Making Recreation

Most cheese authorities and historians believe that cheese was first made in what is now called the Middle East. The earliest type was a form of sour milk which came into being when it was discovered that domesticated animals could be milked.

Ancient Cheese Making Recreation
Ancient Cheese Making Recreation

The Romantic Legend

A legendary story has it that cheese was ‘discovered’ by an unknown Arab nomad who is said to have filled a saddlebag with milk to sustain him on a journey across the desert by horse. After several hours riding he stopped to quench his thirst, only to find that the milk had separated into a pale watery liquid and solid white lumps. Because the saddlebag, which was made from the stomach of a young animal, contained a coagulating enzyme known as rennin, the milk had been effectively separated into curds and whey by the combination of the rennin, the hot sun and the galloping motions of the horse.

The True History

In reality, it isn’t known when cheesemaking was first discovered, but it is an ancient art. The first cheeses were not cheeses as they are now known, but curds and whey. Curds and whey result when milk is coagulated. The curd is solid and the whey is liquid. Curds and whey remained a common food (this is what the nursery rhymes Little Miss Muffet ate) until the mid 1900’s although it is still eaten in some areas today.

French Neufchatel Cheese Mold
French Neufchatel Cheese Mold

Egyptian hieroglyphics depict workmen making cheese. In ancient times, the whey was consumed immediately and the curd was salted and/or dried to preserve it. The Roman Legion was instrumental in spreading the art of cheesemaking throughout Europe.

During the Middle Ages, the art of cheesemaking was improved greatly in the monasteries and feudal estates of Europe. The monks became great innovators of cheese and it is to them we owe many of the classic varieties of cheese made today.

During the Renaissance period cheese suffered a drop in popularity in Europe, as it was considered unhealthy.

Cheese regained favor in Europe by the nineteenth century coincident with the move from farm to factory production of cheese.

French Gillot Brand Camembert
French Gillot Brand Camembert

Famous & Fun Cheese Quotes, Sayings, Facts, & Game

WC Fields

Just for fun, below is my list of famous & fun cheese quotes, sayings, facts, and a game a friend told me she used to play in car (OK I think too much about cheese).

Cheese Quotes

British Cheese Needs You
British Cheese Needs You
  • In 1546, author John Heywood wrote in “Proverbes” that “The moon is made of a greene cheese.” But in 1546 greene meant new, unaged, not green in colour.
  • In late 1700’s famous French philosopher, gourmand, and avid cheese lover Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said “A meal without some cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye”.
  • In 1883, Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson in book “Treasure Island” when castaway Ben Gunn finally is found by young Jim Hawkins says, “You mightn’t happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No? Well, many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese–toasted, mostly–and woke up again, and here I were.”
  • In early 1900’s, American comic actor W. C. Fields said “The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath.”
  • In 1960’s, Clifton Fadiman an American writer, editor and New Yorker book reviewer wrote “A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be over sophisticated. Yet it remains, cheese, milk’s leap toward immortality.”
  • In 1962, French General & Politician Charles De Gaulle in “Les Mots du General” wrote “How can one be expected to govern a nation with 246 kinds of cheese?”
  • In 1979, in British Monty Python movie Life of Brian, a scene spectator who mishears “Blessed are the peacemakers…” says “I think it was Blessed are the cheesemakers”.
  • WC Fields
    WC Fields
  • In 1995, in Wallace & Gromit in A Close Shave movie: Wallace courting Wendolene says “Won’t you come in? We were just about to have some cheese.” Wendolene replies “Oh no, not cheese. Sorry. Brings me out in a rash. Can’t stand the stuff.” To which Wallace replies with a gulp “Not even Wensleydale?”

Cheese Sayings

  • Say Cheese please.
  • Who cut the Cheese?
  • Who moved my Cheese?
  • As different as Chalk & Cheese, English saying in reference to an extreme difference, for this saying it’s texture.
  • Just follow the Cheese.
  • All you need is Cheese.
  • Mi Queso Es Su Queso/My cheese is your cheese, a play on phrase my house is your house.

Fun Cheese Facts

Typical American Teenager
Typical American Teenager
  • There are over 2,000 varieties of cheeses.
  • Remains of cheese have been found in Egyptian tombs over 4,000 years old.
  • In 1869, English Cheese makers Green’s of Glastonbury made and gave British Queen Victoria a wedding gift of a giant 1/2 ton Cheddar wheel.
  • The terms “Big Wheel” and “Big Cheese” originally referred to those who were wealthy enough to purchase a whole wheel of cheese.
  • The average American eats 32 lb / 14.5 kg per year of it.

Fun Cheese Game

  • In car, when bored, each person in turn says the name of a cheese type, if can’t remember one then you are out, last person to name one wins!

Fun Cheese Joke

  • What type of cheese is made backwards . . . . . . . . . . . . Edam!