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See also: Cheese Statistics; Whey; Story of Curds & Whey; Dairy Articles; Blue Cheese Trivia, Roquefort Trivia, etc.
CHEESE TRIVIA
New data indicate that sherds from vessels used as sieves, dating back to the sixth millennium B.C. in Poland, have residue of dairy fats on them, suggesting they were used in the earliest known instance of cheese-making. Researchers at the University of Bristol confirmed what Princeton archaeologist Peter Bogucki had suspected for 30 years—that Neolithic farmers in Europe whose settlements were dominated by remains of cattle were dependent on those animals for more than meat. (2013 Archaeology Magazine)
From 1935 to 1937 state law in Wisconsin required restaurants to serve 2/3 ounce of Wisconsin butter and 2/3 ounce of Wisconsin cheese with every meal served.
What appears to be the remains of cheese have been found in Egyptian tombs over 4,000 years old.
The USDA issued new guidelines in 2002 regulating the size of the holes in domestically produced Swiss cheese. The size of the holes was reduced by 50% to accommodate modern cheese slicing machines that jammed with the larger holes.
Turophilia is a love of or obsession with cheese.
All cheese is made from milk, but different manufacturing and aging processes are used to produce the array of cheeses available today. Cheese is made by coagulating or curdling milk, stirring and heating the curd, draining off the whey (the watery part of milk), collecting and pressing the curd, and in some cases, ripening. Cheese can be made from whole, 2% lowfat, 1% lowfat or fat-free milk, or combinations of these milks. About one-third of all milk produced each year in the U.S. is used to make cheese.
Consuming cheese immediately after meals or as a between-meal snack helps to reduce the risk of tooth decay. Certain cheeses - aged Cheddar, Swiss, blue, Monterey Jack, Brie, Gouda and processed American cheese - have been shown to help prevent tooth decay. Calcium, phosphorus and other components in cheese may contribute to this beneficial effect.
Cheese was popular in ancient Greece and Rome, but fresh milk and butter were not. This was probably due to the fact that olive oil was available in the Mediterranean area, where the climate would have spoiled milk and butter quickly.
Cheddar, Cheshire and Leicester cheeses have been colored with annatto seed for over 200 years. Carrot juice and marigold petals have also been used to color cheeses. Coloring may have originally been added to cheese made with winter milk from cows eating hay to match the orange hue (from vitamin A) of cheeses made with milk from cows fed on green plants.
The terms "Big Wheel" and "Big Cheese" originally referred to those who were wealthy enough to purchase a whole wheel of cheese.
Cheese takes up about 1/10 the volume of the milk it was made from.
Greek historian Xenophon (430?-355? B.C.) mentions that goat cheese had been known for centuries in Peloponnesus.
The first cheese factory to make cheese from scratch was started in Rome, New York in 1851 by Jesse Williams. He had his own dairy herd and purchased more milk from other local farmers to make his cheese. By combining the milk and making large cheeses he could produce cheese with uniform taste and texture. Before then, companies would buy small batches of home made cheese curd from local farmers to make into cheese, each batch of curds producing cheese with wide differences in taste and texture from one another.
Leicester cheese is a hard cheese similar to Cheddar. It is usually orange colored. Leicester's texture is crumbly, so it does not slice good, but it as great with dishes such as Welsh Rabbit.
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