The history of cheese

Perforated pottery from the Kujawy region of northern Poland, dated to approximately 5,500-5,400 BCE, contains milk-fat residues. Researchers have interpreted these vessels as strainers used in early dairy processing, possibly for fresh cheese.

In the Middle East - the "Fertile Crescent" spanning modern Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran - cattle, sheep, and goats were domesticated from around 9,000 BCE. The step to cheese was likely accidental: milk stored in pouches fashioned from animal stomachs would have been exposed to natural rennet (the enzyme chymosin produced in the stomach lining), causing spontaneous coagulation into curds and whey.

Early humans would have been lactose intolerant as adults, making raw milk difficult to digest. Fresh cheese, which contains significantly less lactose than milk, offered a solution - a durable, digestible, calorie-dense food that could sustain nomadic populations far longer than fresh milk.

The Sumerians of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) left behind some of the earliest written descriptions of cheese production. The "Hymn to Ninkasi," a Sumerian poem from around 1800 BCE, references dairy products, and administrative tablets from the Ur III period (2100-2000 BCE) record cheese distributions in temples and among workers.

The limestone "Frieze of the Dairy," found at Tell al-Ubaid and dated to approximately 2900-2400 BCE, depicts people milking cattle and processing dairy products.

• At least 20 different types of cheese are believed to have been produced in Mesopotamia
• Cheese was used as temple offerings to the gods
• Workers on large estates were partly paid in dairy products including fresh cheese
• Salt was already understood as a preservative - salted cheeses could last longer in the hot climate

Tomb paintings and preserved remains show that dairy products were made and eaten in ancient Egypt. In 2018, researchers reported a roughly 3,200-year-old solid dairy sample from the tomb of Ptahmes at Saqqara.

Egyptian cheese was typically soft and fresh, made from cow's, sheep's, or goat's milk. The hot climate made long aging nearly impossible without proper infrastructure, but Egyptians developed early salting and brining techniques to extend shelf life. Cheese appears in accounts as rations for workers on construction projects, as payment, and as food for temple priests.

Homer's Odyssey, composed around 800 BCE, contains one of the most vivid descriptions of ancient cheesemaking. In Book IX, Odysseus and his men encounter the Cyclops Polyphemus and find his cave filled with "pails and bowls brimming with whey" and "racks loaded with drying cheeses." This suggests that rack-aged, whey-drained cheeses - similar to modern fresh sheep's cheeses - were already a common sight in Greek civilization.

The Greeks elevated cheese to a sophisticated culinary ingredient. They produced a variety of cheeses from goat, sheep, and cow milk, mixing them with herbs, honey, wine, and poppy seeds. A dessert of cheese mixed with honey and sesame was served at symposia (formal drinking parties). Cheese was also considered medicinal - early Greek physicians prescribed certain cheeses for digestive problems.

• Brined cheese - early feta-like cheeses preserved in brine
• Smoked cheese - preserved over wood fires
• Honey cheese - mixed with local honey for sweetness
• Herb cheese - flavored with thyme, oregano, and wild herbs

The island of Zakynthos was particularly renowned for its cheese production, as were regions of Macedonia and Epirus. Greek colonists carried cheesemaking traditions to southern Italy (Magna Graecia), where they laid the foundations for what would later become Italian cheesemaking excellence.

Roman writers and trade networks provide evidence of cheese production across much of the empire, from Britain and Spain to North Africa and the Black Sea coast.

The agricultural writer Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BCE) and the encyclopedist Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) described cheese types, aging methods and regional differences. Pliny mentioned cheeses from Nîmes, Liguria and the Alps.

Roman soldiers received a ration of approximately 27 grams of cheese per day. The city of Rome maintained large cheese markets (the forum casearium). Cheese was used as an ingredient in Roman cooking - the cookbook Apicius, compiled in late antiquity, contains numerous recipes calling for cheese, including pastries, sauces, and stuffed dishes.

Roman Cheese Types

• Caseus Helveticus - from the Alpine Swiss region, a firm, aged cheese
• Caseus Vestinus - from the Apennine highlands, smoked and strong
• Caseus Lunensis - from the Luni region, a large-format aged cheese ancestor of Pecorino
• Caseus Sarsinas - from the Romagna region, considered a luxury product
• Caseus molle - fresh, soft cheese eaten immediately
• Caseus aridus - dry, salted cheese made for long preservation

Monasteries were important centres of farming, record keeping and food production in medieval Europe. Their cellars, labour and trade links made them well suited to producing and aging cheese.

Several European cheeses are associated with monastic production or later monastic traditions:

• Roquefort (France) - legend dates its discovery to a shepherd who left his lunch of bread and fresh sheep's cheese in the Combalou caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon; returning weeks later, he found it transformed into a blue-veined delicacy. First documented mention appears in 1070 CE in the Chronicles of the Abbey of Conques.
• Gruyère (Switzerland) - production documented in the twelfth century in the Canton of Fribourg; exported as far as Rome by the thirteenth century
• Munster (France/Germany) - developed by Irish monks in the Vosges mountains around the 7th century CE, named after the Latin monasterium
• Port Salut (France) - created by Cistercian monks at the Abbey of Notre-Dame du Port-du-Salut in the nineteenth century, following ancient monastic cheese traditions
• Parmigiano-Reggiano (Italy) - Benedictine and Cistercian monks in the Po Valley are credited with developing the techniques for this hard, aged cheese, possibly as early as the twelfth century

Beyond monasteries, cheese was a cornerstone of medieval peasant diets across Europe. Manorial accounts from England, France, and Germany record cheese production as a major economic activity on estates. Cheese fairs were held in market towns, and regional varieties developed as a result of local milk, local molds, local cultures, and local aging conditions.

Northern Italy, particularly the Po Valley, developed large-scale dairy production supported by fertile farmland and cattle herds.

Parmigiano-Reggiano was exported beyond northern Italy by the fourteenth century. Boccaccio mentions Parmesan in Il Decamerone (1353), and later records show it served at banquets and exchanged as a valuable food.

Grana Padano - the Parmigiano's cousin from the western Po Valley - was documented in a 1477 list of local products by Bartolomeo Platina in De honesta voluptate, one of the first printed cookbooks.

Renaissance culinary writers began systematically cataloguing cheeses. Platina described multiple cheese types by texture, milk source, and aging. This period also saw the formalization of several cheese-production contracts and trade agreements that defined regional boundaries still recognized today in modern PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) legislation.

European colonisation carried dairy animals and cheesemaking traditions to parts of the Americas, Africa and Asia. Cattle and goats reached the Caribbean with Columbus's second voyage in 1493, and Spanish settlers made fresh cheeses in Mexico and South America.

Simultaneously, cheese became an essential provision on long ocean voyages. Hard, dried cheeses were among the most practical foods a ship could carry - they were calorie-dense, required no cooking, and could survive months at sea without refrigeration. Dutch and English sailors in particular depended heavily on hard aged Edam and Cheddar-style cheeses during transatlantic voyages.

Pasteurisation and factory production changed cheesemaking in the nineteenth century. Jesse Williams opened an early cooperative cheese factory in Rome, New York, in 1851, collecting milk from neighbouring farms to make Cheddar at a larger scale.

Pasteurization offered several advantages: it killed dangerous pathogens (including Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli), standardized milk quality, and allowed cheese to be produced in a wider range of climates without the risk of spoilage. Critics, then and now, argue that pasteurization removes some of the complex microflora that give artisan raw-milk cheeses their depth of flavor.

In 1874, the centrifugal cream separator was invented by Carl Gustaf de Laval, enabling dairy operations to process milk with unprecedented efficiency. Refrigeration, spreading through industrial use from the 1870s onward, allowed longer storage and transport of both milk and cheese. By 1900, cheese had transitioned from primarily local farm production to a nationally and internationally traded commodity.

Key Industrial Milestones

• 1815: First Swiss cheese factory established in Kiesen, Canton of Bern
• 1851: First U.S. cheese factory opened by Jesse Williams, Rome, New York
• 1864: Pasteurization introduced by Louis Pasteur
• 1874: Centrifugal separator invented, revolutionizing dairy processing
• 1882: First cheese factory in Canada opens in Ontario
• 1895: Lactic acid bacteria (starters) identified and isolated for controlled use
• 1916: James L. Kraft patents process cheese (processed American cheese)

Cheese production became more industrial during the twentieth century, while producer groups also worked to protect regional methods and names. Processed cheese became a common mass-market product, particularly in the United States.

In Europe, World War II had a devastating effect on artisan cheese production. Many traditional cheesemakers were killed or displaced, animals were requisitioned, and cheesemaking knowledge was lost in some regions. The postwar recovery period saw increasing pressure to modernize and industrialize, threatening many centuries-old traditions.

The European response was the creation of protected designation systems. France's Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) system, formalized for cheese in the 1950s-1960s, legally protected traditional cheese names and production methods. Italy's equivalent, the Denominazione di Origine Protetta (DOP), followed. These systems, now unified under the EU's PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) framework, protect over 200 European cheese varieties today.

Small-scale and industrial cheesemaking now exist side by side. Interest in provenance, sustainability and regional methods has supported new producers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and elsewhere.

Cheesemakers in countries including Japan, South Korea, Brazil and South Africa now produce local and internationally recognised styles.

Current research includes sequencing cheese microbial communities, fermentation-produced rennet and proteins, and automated systems for monitoring aging rooms.