What is National Cheese Lover's Day?
Don't be afraid to be bleu, throw a feta, or be capriciously on National Cheese Lover's Day. It's a gouda day to kummin over and have some cheddar or asiago or fontina on January 20th.
There is no concrete evidence of how humans invented cheese making. But legend tells us that it was likely that someone made the first cheese by chance. People used to milk and stored it in sheep's stomachs thousands of years ago. The proteins would separate into curds and whey if left to sit for a few days. Salt preservation may have been a logical next step from there. Salt was a highly valued preservative in ancient times.
In what is now Poland, the first record of cheese making dates back to 5,500 BCE. Today there are over 1,400 varieties of cheese on the market.
Basic cheese making
The basic principles behind making cheese are fairly straightforward.. Let the milk sour (or, more precisely, coagulating the casein protein). Then isolate the curds (solids) from the whey (liquid), which is separated by then. The curds are then salted and left to age, and are then allowed to age.
