History of mascarpone cheese

Mascarpone is a triple-creme cheese made from fresh cream. Traditionally, this was made from the fresh milk of cows that have grazing pastures filled with fresh herbs and flowers. Mascarpone originated during the Middle Ages in Lombardy. Lombardy, in the northern part of Italy includes the cities of Brescia, Cremona, Mantova, Milano and Sondrio, and it has a rich agricultural and dairy heritage.

In the 1500s and 1600s, dairymen in the region became famous for selling fresh cheese curds, known as mascarpone. The name Mascarpone may have originated from the word “mascarpa” which is milk made from the whey of stracchino cheese, or from the word “mascarpia”, the local Italian word for ricotta.

Mascarpone is an ingredient in tiramisu. Tiramisu is the most classic dessert when people think of mascarpone cheese. It's a rich coffee-soaked cake with mascarpone cream and cocoa powder on top.

The word tiramisu literally means “pick me up”. It comes from the Treviso dialect, “Tireme su”, Italianized into tiramisu in the latter half of the 20th century. Historical records state that tiramisu originated in Treviso in 1800. It is said that this dessert was invented by a clever “maitresse” of a house of pleasure in the center of Treviso.
History of mascarpone cheese

Invention of Camembert cheese by Marie Harel

Legend holds that Marie Harel (April 28, 1761- November 9, 1844) is credited with inventing the gourmet cheese named for her native village of Camembert.

Marie was a 19-year-old cheesemaker. One day in 1819, her thoughts more on the boy next door than on her cheesemaking, she omitted the blue mold culture for one batch of cheese. Upon testing of that one batch with its soft creamy texture and delicious flavor, her fame was made. Camembert started life as a meager, dry, yellow-brown cheese made for family consumption.

Fortunately for cheese-lovers, the Harel family gave shelter to a young priest from Brie region, on the run during the French Revolution of 1789. Having closely watched his parishioners make cheese, he was able to return the Harel’s kindness by imparting his knowledge.

This helped them turn the small, rather bitter cheese into a delicious, softer, infinitely more palatable and memorable experience.

The first known reference to cheese from the village of Camembert is from 1706, and in 1760 a nearby may0r wrote that Camembert’s cheeses were reputedly even better than the local ones at Livarot’s market, although cheeses from Livarot and Camembert were still richer and better than those from Pont I’Eveque.

In 1855 a descended of Marie Harel presented Napoleon III with a sample of this cheese. He liked it and ever since then it became known as Camembert cheese.

In 1890 the characteristic round box was invented and Camembert quickly became of the most popular French cheeses conquering foreign markets as well.

After repeated attempts since 1909 to protect its name, Camembert de Normandie became a protected designation of origin cheese in 1983.
Invention of Camembert cheese by Marie Harel

Cheddar cheese in United States

Cheddar came to North America in the seventeenth century arriving with the Pilgrims, spreading through New England and then westward across the continent. Export of cheese from New York to England increased from 328,566 kg in 1840 to 18.2 million kg in 1861. It was during this period that the name Cheddar came to be applied to Yankee or American cheese, because it offered a marketing advantage.

Genuine Cheddar cheese originated in the village of Cheddar, in Somerset, England, in the nineteenth century was in high demand in England by this time.

The first cheddar cheese factory in the United States, other than farmhouse cheesemaking, was established in New York in 1861.

Cheddar cheesemaking was a lucrative business and American cheesemakers - the vast majority of whom were of New England origin or descent – were well equipped to take advantage.

In 1867 Robert McAdam popularized concept of cheddar cheesemaking in upper New York State, leading to directly to the evolution of the vast American Cheddar cheese industry.

He introduced the English Cheddar system in a factory near Herkimer, New York. This is the Cheddar system as know-today. It produces the closer bodied cheese demanded by the export trade.
Cheddar cheese in United States

History of cheese in United States

Many countries have developed one or more varieties of cheese peculiar to their own conditions and culture.

When the Pilgrims voyaged to America in 1620, they made sure that the Mayflower was stocked with cheese. When the colonists settled in the New World they brought with them their own methods of making their favorites kind of cheese. Cheese making in North America and specifically in the United States, remained a farmhouse process throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

In 1851, entrepreneur Jesse William had built the first US cheese factory near Rome, Oneida County, New York and introduced production in a grand scale.

After extensive experimentation, Williams regulated the timing as well as the temperature for converting milk to curds, regardless of volume.

In 1867, Robert McAdam introduced the English Cheddar system in a factory near Herkimer, New York. This introduction made Herkimer County famous for its cheese.

For many years during this period, the largest cheese market in world as at Little Falls, New York.

As the population increased in the East and there was a corresponding increase in the demand for market milk, the cheese industry gradually moved westward.
History of cheese in United States

Early history of Kraft Foods

Kraft Foods, which was spun off from Phillip Morris in 2001, is the largest food company in the United States.

Kraft Foods company history began with James L. Kraft’s wholesale cheese business in Chicago in 1903. 

James L Kraft born in Ontario, Canada immigrated to the United States where he engaged in a variety of pursuits.

He noticed that grocers traveled daily to the cheese market to buy cheese for their stores.

Recognizing an opportunity, he started a wholesale cheese distribution business in Chicago that brought the cheese to the grocers.

His brothers joined him in the business and in 1914 J.L Kraft and Bros opened a cheese factory in Stockton, Illinois.

Sales were slow until Kraft came up with the idea of packaging the cheese in portions in advance, rather than weighing out and wrapping pieces to each customer’s specification.

In 1915 Kraft created a blended, pasteurized cheese, which called ‘processed cheese’ and packaged in small tin. 

The company was listed on the Chicago Stock Exchange as the Kraft Cheese Company in 1924.

In the year 1924 James L Kraft opened its first European sales office in London and Germany in 1927.

In 1928, the Phoenix Cheese Company was acquired by Kraft Cheese Company and the name was changed to Kraft-Phoenix Cheese Company.

In 1930 Kraft was bought by National Diary, but its operations were kept separate. The company was renamed to Kraft Inc in 1976.
Early history of Kraft Foods

Origin of blue cheese

Several different varieties of Blue cheese have been developed over time, each with its own characteristics involving milk of different animals and different manufacturing methods.

Blue cheeses have probably been produced for a long time either deliberately or by accident before they were describe in writing.

According to the legend, a young shepherd forgot his meal (bread and cheese), and left it in a cave. On his return, he noticed that the mould that had developed on his bread had spread to the cheese.

Gorgonzola was the first Bleu-veined cheese to be mentioned in the literature, in 879, while Roquefort was describe in customs papers in 1070. Gorgonzola originated when an innkeeper in the Valsassina area, stored stracchino cheese in his cellar for a bit too long, and some developed a blue mould.

He served regardless to the local cheesemakers who loved it and copied his method.

Stilton was not mentioned until the 17th century,

In Denmark, the production of Danablu and Mycella, Blue Cheeses from cow’s milk started in the 1870s. Denmark is known for its Danish blues or Danablu. This cheese was invented by Marius Boel, who wanted to create a blue cheese that as similar to Roquefort.

Although Boel started with this French cheese as model, the resulting Danish blue, is entirely different.

Another Danish blue cheese is Bla Castello, which was developed in the 1960s.
Origin of blue cheese

History of water buffalo

The production of mozzarella is linked to the water buffalo. Plinius the Elder in his writings in natural history classified the water buffalo as ‘bubalus’ or an exotic animal living in wet and swampy environment.

It is believed that the domestication of the buffalo occurred about 5000 years ago on the Indian subcontinent.

Indian water buffalo have been derived from the wild Asiatic water buffalo, or arni, Bubalus arnee, which still survives, though dwindling wild populations are now limited to the states of Assam and Madhya Pradesh in India and in Nepal.

The Chinese domestic water buffalo has developed from the Asian primitive water buffalo whose domestication began in 3000-4000 BC in China.

Water buffalo are good milk producers and are the principle dairy animals in India and Pakistan, producing large volumes of milk of high butterfat content.

The rearing of water buffalo in the marshy low lands in the Campania region dates back to the 12th century, but it was not until the 17th century that large scale processing of milk began.
History of water buffalo

History of Mozzarella cheese

Mozzarella cheese begins in the Campania region in southern Italy and was originally manufactured from buffalo milk.

Plinius the Elder, classified the water buffalo as a ‘bubalus’ or an exotic animal, living in wet and swampy environment. Columella in De Re Rustica described a cheese that after curdling was warmed, cut, scalded in water, hand kneaded and molded in the shaped of a lump.

The first written record shows that Mozzarella was first made by the monks of San Lorenzo di Capua Italy, from sheep’s milk.

In the 16th century, when water buffalo were introduced to Naples, the rich milk of those animals started to be used.

Mozzarella cheese-making technology was brought to the US by Italian immigrants at the start of 20th century.

The cheese remained an ethnic product with a limited market until around World War II, when Italian cuisine in general and pizza pie in particular, began its meteoric rise in popularity.
History of Mozzarella cheese

Cheesemaking during ancient times

It is commonly believed that cheese to have originated in the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq some 8000 years ago, during the so-called Agricultural Revolution. At that time, when certain plants and animals were domesticated as sources of food.

The residents fed livestock and especially cows, whose milk their owners transformed into a number of cheeses, butter and other dairy products. Among them were cheeses flavored with honey, spices, fruits and herbs.

Most likely the first cheese were made by souring or ‘clabbering’ milk and then draining the whey from the curds in baskets. According to the legend, it is likely that some ancient traveler carrying milk in a pouch made from the lining of a sheep’s stomach discovered that the milk had coagulated into cheese along the way. 

About twenty different types of cheese are described in ancient Sumerian writings from 3000 BC. 

Archeologically, the oldest known cheese was found in an earthenware pot in the Egyptian tomb of King Horaha, dating back to 2300 BC.

Homer in 1184 BC wrote about cheese which was manufactured from sheep’s or goat’s milk in the caves by the ‘Cyclops Polyphemus’. The cheese may have been the ancestor of the Feta and Halloumi cheeses that are widely produced in Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria.

Cheese made from goat’s and ewe’s milk were common fare in ancient Roman times, an era which saw cheesemaking attain an unprecedented level of sophistication.

Knowledge of the art of cheesemaking spread throughout the empire and a number of firm cheeses were developed by the Romans, including Parmesan and Pecorino. The name Parmesan traces back to old Italian’s parmigiano – loosely translated, it means ‘in true Parma style’ or ‘in the ‘Parma tradition’.
Cheesemaking during ancient times

History of Cheese

History of Cheese
According to an ancient legend, cheese was accidentally made by an Arabian merchant when he put his supply of milk into a pouch made of a sheep’s stomach when he set out on a long day’s journey across the desert.

The rennet in the lining in the pouch combined with heat of the sun caused the milk to separate into curd and whey. This story seems to have occurred approximately 7000 years BC in the so-called Fertile Crescent situated between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris in Iraq.

The earlier records in Vedic hymms in India (6000 to 4000 BC), Egyptian records (4000 BC) and Babylonian records (2000 BC) clearly show references to milk, butter and cheese.

However it is believed that with the advance of civilizations, the art of cheesemaking spread via the Mediterranean basin to the rest of the world.

Witten history is scarce until the period of the Greek and Roman empires, when various authors left written evidence.

Greek records go back to about 1550 BC and Roman records to 750 BC indicating that milk and cheese were important components of the diet of these peoples.

By the beginning of the Christian era, milk and cheese were used as food throughout Europe.

Milking operations and the curding of milk are depicted in an early Sumerian frieze from El-Ubaid. A food material found in the tomb of Hories Aha (3000 BC) has been proven to be cheese.
A scene on the walls of a Ramesid tomb (100 BC) depicts goats being led to pasture and also skin bags suspend from poles. Such bags were traditionally used to ferment milk by nomadic tribes.

During fermentation, drainage of whey though cloth or perforated bowls allowed the collection of curds which when salted became cheese.

There was indications that that the cheese was made n England well before the arrival of the Romans. Cheese was included in the offering of ancient Greeks to the gods at Mount Olympus, and cheesemaking was clearly well established craft at the time of Homer’s writing.

Homer in 1184 BC referred to cheese made in caves by the “Cyclops” Polyphemus from milk of sheep and goats.

Later, Herodotus, 484 to 408 BC, referred to the “Scythian” cheese was made from mares’ milk, while Aristotle (384 to 322 BC) noted that “Phrygian” cheese was made from the milk of mares and asses.

By the fourteen century cheesemaking was a considerably industry in Switzerland, but export was forbidden. At this time, a cheese market was operating in Gouda, Holland. It is reported that the first cooperative cheese factory was started at Voralberg in the Balkans in about 1380.

By 1500m it is recorded that the expansion of cheesemaking in England, France, Germany and Holland resulted in Italy losing its dominant position as a cheesemaker.
History of Cheese

Cheese: The History

Food History
It is generally believed that cheese was first made in the Middle East. Legend has it that a nomadic Arab accidentally made cheese when a saddlebag filled with milk fermented due to the hot sun and the galloping of his horse.

Early cheeses were not the solid products known today. They were simple curds and whey. The curd is the solid part while the whey is liquid.

Workmen making cheese are depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphics. In ancient times, the whey was eaten immediately while the curd was salted or dried for preservation.

The Roman Legion helped spread the art of cheesemaking throughout Europe and England. The monasteries and feudal estates of Europe made great improvements in cheesemaking during the Middle Ages.

Many of the classic varieties of cheese enjoyed today were developed by monks. During the Renaissance, cheese dropped in popularity because it was considered unhealthy. By the nineteenth century, sentiment had changed and cheese production moved from farm to factory. No one involved in the early history of cheese could have imagined that today people would buy cheese online.


While most cheeses are mass produced today, some artisanal cheeses are still made by hand using old-fashioned techniques.
Food History