When and where was the first cheese made?
The oldest archeological proofs of cheese existence date back to 5,500 BC, with first visual clue being recorded on the Egyptian tomb walls some 4 thousand years ago. Examples of cheese made in such time in Egypt and Middle East was most likely very salty and strong tasting and crumbly, similar to the modern Feta and cottage cheese.
What was the first cheese ever made?
History of Cheese. According to ancient records passed down through the centuries, the making of cheese dates back more than 4,000 years. No one really knows who made the first cheese. According to an ancient legend, it was made accidentally by an Arabian merchant who put his supply of milk into a pouch made from a sheep's stomach, as he set ...
Where, when, and how did cheese originate?
History of Cheese. 8 - 10,000 Years Ago. Domestication of Milk Producing Animals. The actual time and place of the origin of cheese and cheesemaking is unknown. The practice is closely related to the domestication of milk producing animals; primarily sheep, which began 8-10,000 years ago. The art of cheesemaking is referred to in ancient Greek ...
When was cheese first discovered?
It is thought that cheese was first discovered around 8000 BC around the time when sheep were first domesticated. Rennet, the enzyme used to make cheese, is naturally present in the stomachs of ruminants. The leak-proof stomachs and other bladder-like organs of animals were often put to use to store and transport milk and other liquids.
Why was processed cheese invented?
Processed cheese was first developed in Switzerland in 1911, when Walter Gerber and Fritz Stettler, seeking a cheese with longer shelf life and influenced by cheese sauces such as those used in fondue, added sodium citrate to melted Emmentaler cheese and found that the emulsified cheese sauce could be re-cooled into a ...
When was sliced cheese invented?
Although processed cheese was first invented in 1911 by Walter Gerber of Thun, Switzerland, it was James L. Kraft who first applied for an American patent for his method in 1916. Kraft Foods also created the first commercially available sliced processed cheese, which was introduced in 1950.
Who invented American processed cheese?
James Kraft1903: James Kraft invented “American Cheese,” which was processed in order to increase product safety and consistency. By 1930, over 40% of cheese consumed was Kraft brand.
When was the first processed powdered cheese invented?
The first real cheese powder was developed in 1943 by George Sanders, a USDA dairy scientist.
Why is American cheese not real cheese?
Unlike natural cheese, which is made from milk, American cheese is a processed cheese made by mixing Cheddar cheese, washed curd cheese, Colby cheese, and granular cheese, among other ingredients.
How was Velveeta invented?
The solution, a smooth cheese food product made with leftover cheese bits, was invented by Swiss immigrant Emil Frey, by combining the broken pieces with whey, a byproduct of the cheesemaking process. Thus, Velveeta was born in 1923.
When did stores start selling shredded cheese?
1958 – Sargento produces the first packaged shredded cheese.
What cheese does Mcdonalds use?
McDonald's uses their very own blend of processed cheddar cheese. Their blend is 60% cheddar cheese and 40% other ingredients, which include water, salt, whey powder, butter, milk proteins, emulsifying salts, natural cheese flavoring, and food coloring.
Is Velveeta real cheese?
According to the FDA, Velveeta is technically not real cheese, but rather, a "processed cheese product," although the regulations state that it must contain at least 51 percent cheese, as well as prescribing the minimum moisture content, fat content and the temperature (at least 70 F) at which is must be spreadable.
When was mac n cheese first made?
The exact origin of macaroni and cheese is unknown, though it most likely hails from Northern Europe, with the earliest known recorded recipe being scribbled down in 1769.
What was the first boxed mac and cheese?
Kraft was first to sell boxed mac and cheese, Insider previously reported. The product came out in 1937 and sold 50 million boxes during WW II, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Is plastic cheese actually plastic?
No, there's no plastic. But there are emulsifiers that bind the cheese's components tightly and do not lose their hold with a sudden increase in temperature. They do, however, let go with prolonged heating at a lower temperature. There is nothing devilish here, just some clever chemistry.
When was cheese invented?
The earliest written evidence of cheese ( GA.UAR) is the Sumerian cuneiform texts of Third Dynasty of Ur, dated at the early second millennium BC. The earliest cheeses were sour and salty and similar in texture to rustic cottage cheese or present-day feta.
Where was cheese first made?
The earliest direct evidence of cheesemaking is now being found in clay sieves ( holed pottery) over seven thousand years old, for example in Kujawy, Poland, and the Dalmatian coast in Croatia, the latter with dried remains which chemical analysis suggests was cheese. Shards of holed pottery were also found in Urnfield pile-dwellings on Lake ...
How many cheeses are there in Britain?
This also led to a diversity of cheese types. Today, Britain has 15 protected cheeses from approximately 40 types listed by the British Cheese Board. The British Cheese Board claims a total number of about 700 different products (including similar cheeses produced by different companies).
What cheeses were made in the Middle Ages?
Most cheeses were initially recorded in the late Middle Ages. Cheddar was recorded since the 1100s, Parmesan (Parmigiano Reggiano) was founded in 1597, Gouda in 1697, and Camembert in 1791. Cheeses diversified in Europe with locales developing their own traditions and products when Romanized populations encountered unfamiliar neighbors with their own cheese-making traditions. As long-distance trade collapsed, only travelers encountered unfamiliar cheeses. Charlemagne 's first encounter with an edible rind white cheese forms one of the constructed anecdotes of Notker 's Life of the Emperor. Cheese-making in manor and monastery intensified local characteristics imparted by local bacterial flora while the identification of monks with cheese is sustained through modern marketing labels. This also led to a diversity of cheese types. Today, Britain has 15 protected cheeses from approximately 40 types listed by the British Cheese Board. The British Cheese Board claims a total number of about 700 different products (including similar cheeses produced by different companies). France has 50 protected cheeses, Italy 52, and Spain 26. Italy has at least 400 cheeses. Meanwhile, the advancement of cheese art in Europe was slow during the centuries after Rome's fall. It became a staple of long-distance commerce, was disregarded as peasant fare, inappropriate on a noble table, and even harmful to one's health through the Middle Ages.
What is the most common way to prolong the life of cheese?
Ceramic cheese dishes, or cheese bells, became one of the most common ways to prolong the life of cheese in the home. It remained popular in most households until the introduction of the home refrigerator in 1913. Factory-made cheese overtook traditional cheese-making during the World War II era.
Why did humans develop cheese?
Humans likely developed cheese and other dairy foods by accident, as a result of storing and transporting milk in bladders made of ruminants ' stomachs, as their inherent supply of rennet would encourage curdling.
Where was cheese found?
Discovered in the Saqqara necropolis, it is around 3200 years old. Earlier, remains identified as cheese were found in the funeral meal in an Egyptian tomb dating around 2900 BC. Visual evidence of Egyptian cheesemaking was found in Egyptian tomb murals in approximately 2000 BC.
What is processed cheese on Amazon?
Learn about a little known plugin that tells you if you're getting the best price on Amazon. A burger topped with a slice of processed cheese. Processed cheese usually contains cheddar or colby. Processed cheese is typically used in the making of pizza.
How much fat is in process cheese?
Pasteurized process cheese food usually cannot contain more than 51% optional cheese ingredients, can contain one or more dairy and nondairy ingredients, and must normally contain more than 23% fat and less than 44% moisture. Pasteurized process cheese spread can contain the same level of ingredients as the other two types, ...
What temperature is process cheese spread?
Pasteurized process cheese spread can contain the same level of ingredients as the other two types, but it typically is spreadable at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius), with a fat level above 20% and a moisture content between 44 and 60%. Processed cheese is typically used in the making of pizza. A fourth classification exists, called ...
Does cheese cause hypertension?
This little known plugin reveals the answer. Processed foods which contain high levels of salt may cause hypertension. Processed cheese can have several benefits. It can remain on the shelf or be kept in the refrigerator for long periods of time without spoiling.
Is cheese soft or smooth?
There is little variation in the texture of the cheese, which is almost always smooth and soft. Concerns have been raised about the possible unhealthy qualities of processed cheese, since many products are made with oil, artificial colors and preservatives.
Can you use cheese slices in sandwiches?
The cheese can be packaged for convenient use in a variety of ways, including jars, cans and as individual plastic-wrapped slices. The uniform shape and size of cheese slices can make them ideal for use on sandwiches and hamburgers, and they melt very smoothly for ease of use in cooking.
Pasteurized Processed Cheese Products
PCPs are used in many applications, in both the raw and heated forms. The suitability for particular applications depends primarily on the textural and flavor characteristics of the unheated PCP and the cooking properties of the heated PCP.
The role of dairy ingredients in processed cheese products
Processed cheese products (PCPs) are composites formulated from natural cheese, water, emulsifying salts and optional ingredients, the type and level of which depend on the category of the PCP, e.g. named variety processed cheese, processed cheese or processed cheese preparation.
Whey Protein Ingredient Applications
Processed cheese as a product evolved from the transformation of natural cheeses by melting and pasteurization with the aid of emulsifying salts (ES) before filling into molds and packaging.
Food Science Basics: Healthy Cooking and Baking Demystified
Jacqueline B. Marcus MS, RD, LD, CNS, FADA, in Culinary Nutrition, 2013
Saturated fat reduction in milk and dairy products
Cheese is the dairy product made by coagulating milk or milk products followed by draining of whey, such that the whey protein/casein ratio does not exceed that of milk. The Codex General Standard for Cheese ( CODEX, 1978) gives as raw materials milk, skimmed milk, partly skimmed milk, cream, whey cream or buttermilk.
NISIN
G.C. Williams, J. Delves-Broughton, in Encyclopedia of Food Sciences and Nutrition (Second Edition), 2003
Raw material selection: dairy ingredients
Processed cheese is produced by blending shredded natural cheese of varying maturity with emulsifying salts and other ingredients. The mixture is heated under vacuum with continuous agitation until a homogeneous plastic mass is obtained. Natural shredded cheddar cheese will not form a homogeneous plastic mass on heating.
Pasteurized process cheese
Pasteurized process cheese is the most commonly manufactured cheese in the United States. According to the Food And Drug Administration (FDA), pasteurized processed cheese is the food producing by comminuting, mixing, with the aid of heat, one or more cheeses of the same, or two or more varieties for manufacturing with an emulsifying agent .
Pasteurized process cheese food
Pasteurized process cheese food is very similar to pasteurized process cheese in terms of ingredients and manufacturing process. Although there a few differences. Generally, pasteurized process cheese food contains more moisture, less fat, and has a lower pH.
Pasteurized process cheese spread
Pasteurized process cheese spread is also similar to pasteurized process cheese. But the main difference is that pasteurized process cheese spread contains more moisture in order to be more spreadable.
What are some examples of processed cheese?
Some examples of processed cheese are: ‘cheese’ from a tube, spreadable cheese spreads, ‘La vache quite rit’, cheese strings, etc. You will notice they all tend to have properties that ‘natural’ cheese are not capable of, such as being dosed from a tube or dipped into.
What influences the final processed cheese?
In has been found that the cook time , cook temperature, extent of mixing as well as rate of cooling all influence the final processed cheese properties. The resulting product can then be shaped in packed in any shape or size. For instance, those slices to put on your cheese burger.
Why is processed cheese homogeneous?
Due to the use of so-called emulsifying salts, processed cheeses have a very homogeneous structure. The fats and proteins are mixed very well in the cheese. As a result, the fat will not leave the cheese and form a separate layer as it does for regular cheeses.
Why do cheese makers mix different cheeses?
This allows manufacturers to reduce the costs of the cheese (by adding cheaper ingredients) but also to tweak the processed cheeses further. By mixing different cheese they can get the specific flavour profile they’re looking for. The additional ingredienst can also be used to modify the properties.
Why is mixing cheese important?
By mixing cheeses you can obtain the exact same flavour profile for every batch. What’s more, to get flavour development you don’t have to ripen the complete cheese.
What is the purpose of emulsifying salts in cheese?
Emulsifying salts: these modify the proteins in the cheese such that they are dispersed better which makes for this very homogeneous product. Salt (processed cheese tends to contain more salt than regular cheese) Colourants and spices. The ingredients are heated and mixed to make a stable mass.
What happens when you cool cheese back down?
As we learned when zooming in on the cheese layer on top of a spinach quiche, ‘natural’ cheeses all behave very differently when melted and heated in the oven. Some will bubble, others will turn brown and some will simply burn.
Why does processed cheese end up in the fridge?
But really, these ingredients end up in processed cheese because it makes it last longer on the shelf. The preservatives are what give processed cheese the biggest draw. Some processed cheese doesn’t even need to be refrigerated; it can sit at room temperature for a seemingly-indefinite amount of time.
Is processed cheese healthy?
Less healthy? We kind of know a lot of stuff about it, but let’s take a minute to set the record straight. Processed cheese is not 100% cheese. Most of the time it hovers around 50% cheese, sometimes more and sometimes less, but at a base level, processed cheese is real cheese cut with other, non-cheese ingredients.
Overview
History
Processed cheese was first developed in Switzerland in 1911, when Walter Gerber and Fritz Stettler, seeking a cheese with longer shelf life and influenced by cheese sauces such as those used in fondue, added sodium citrate to melted Emmentaler cheese and found that the emulsified cheese sauce could be re-cooled into a solid again. Shortly after, in 1916, Canadian-American businessman James L. Kraft applied for the first U.S. patent covering a new method of processin…
Advantages
Processed cheese has several technical advantages over natural cheese, including a far longer shelf life, resistance to separating when cooked (meltability), and a uniform look and physical behavior. Its mass-produced nature provides arguably its greatest advantage over natural cheese: a dramatically lower cost—to producers and consumers alike—than conventional
Sale and labeling
Processed cheese is often sold in blocks, pressurized cans, and packs of individual slices, often separated by wax paper, or with each slice individually wrapped by machine.
In the United Kingdom, processed cheese is typically sold in individually wrapped slices, often referred to as "singles", or in foil-wrapped portions. Dairylea
Legal definitions
Owing to its highly mechanized (i.e., assembly line) methods of production, and additive ingredients (e.g., oils, salts, or colors), some softer varieties of processed cheese cannot legally be labeled as actual "cheese" in many countries, even those in which slightly harder varieties can be. Such products tend to be classified as "cheese food", "cheese spread", or "cheese product" (de…
See also
• Cheese sauce
External links
• American Chemical Society article on processed cheese
• "From Cheese to Cheese Food: How Kraft persuaded Americans to accept cheese by divorcing it from its microbe-laden origins", American Heritage, January 2001
Overview
The production of cheese predates recorded history, beginning well over 7,000 years ago. Humans likely developed cheese and other dairy foods by accident, as a result of storing and transporting milk in bladders made of ruminants' stomachs, as their inherent supply of rennet would encourage curdling. There is no conclusive evidence indicating where cheese-making originated, possibly Eur…
Earliest origins
The earliest direct evidence of cheesemaking is now being found in clay sieves (holed pottery) over seven thousand years old, for example in Kujawy, Poland, and the Dalmatian coast in Croatia, the latter with dried remains which chemical analysis suggests was cheese. Shards of holed pottery were also found in Urnfield pile-dwellings on Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland and are hypothesized to be cheese-strainers; they date back to 6,000 BC (8,000 years ago).
Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome
Archaeological evidence for making cheese in Egypt goes back about 5,000 years. In 2018, archeologists from Cairo University and the University of Catania reported the discovery of the oldest known cheese from Egypt. Discovered in the Saqqara necropolis, it is around 3200 years old. Earlier, remains identified as cheese were found in the funeral meal in an Egyptian tomb dating around 290…
Post-Roman Europe
Most cheeses were initially recorded in the late Middle Ages. Cheddar was recorded since the 1100s, Parmesan (Parmigiano Reggiano) was founded in 1597, Gouda in 1697, and Camembert in 1791. Cheeses diversified in Europe with locales developing their own traditions and products when Romanized populations encountered unfamiliar neighbors with their own cheese-making t…
Americas
Reports by conquistadors suggest that the Inca and other Andean cultures consumed llama cheese. However some studies failed to find any references to milking in these cultures.
Since the European colonization of the Americas, local cheeses have been developed across both North and South America. Mass-produced cheese has become quite common, replacing hand-made and/or local cheeses even more in the United States than in Europe. Recently , more peopl…
Asia
Preserved cheese dating from 1615 BC was found in the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China.
Local cheese today is commonly made or available in most of South Asia in the form of paneer and related cheeses. Rubing in Yunnan, China is similar to paneer. Mainstream Chinese culture is not dairy-centric, but some outlying regions of the country including Yunnan have strong cheese traditions. There are a variety of Tibetan cheeses.
Modern
Until its modern spread along with European culture, cheese was most common by far in Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa. It was unheard of or far less common in sub-Saharan Africa, the rest of Asia, and pre-colonization Americas. Although cheese is still less prominent in local cuisines outside of Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas, most cheeses have become popular worldwide through the spread of European and Euro-American empires and culture.
See also
• Food history
• List of ancient dishes and foods
• List of cheeses
• List of European cheeses with protected geographical status