A Few of My Favorite Things
January 20th is National Cheese Lover’s Day! As a cheese lover myself, I HAD to use this week’s column to celebrate cheese! For me, cheese enhances any dish. I will add it to recipes where there is no cheese and I will add more cheese than called for because it tastes better. Chocolate is my first love, cheese is my second love if that tells you anything about me!
For the Love of Cheese
January 20th is National Cheese Lover’s Day! As a cheese lover myself, I HAD to use this week’s column to celebrate cheese! For me, cheese enhances any dish. I will add it to recipes where there is no cheese and I will add more cheese than called for because it tastes better. Chocolate is my first love, cheese is my second love if that tells you anything about me!
How cheese got its start is murky and probably lost forever in history, but it is recorded on Egyptian tomb murals dating back over 4,000 years. It is believed that cheese was an accidental discovery though. Milk stored in the lining of animal stomachs would separate into curds and whey due to an enzyme in the stomach lining itself. Go figure! Some believe though it was the addition of fruit juice that created cheese. Though why someone would add fruit juice to milk is beyond me.
While origins are mostly unknown, it is known that the Roman Empire was meticulous in taking notes and they have record of many experiments with many things to create new flavors of cheese. They also aided in refining techniques to make cheese. By the time Julius Caesar was in power, hundreds of varieties of cheese were being produced and traded across the Roman Empire and beyond. However, it was mainly a European mainstay. It didn’t jump the ocean until European immigrants brought it with them around 500 years ago.
Once they introduced cheese though, it soon expanded and manufacturing cheese spread as the states did, though mostly in the cooler northern region. For a long time, Ohio was nicknamed a “Cheesedom”, but once cheese took hold in Wisconsin it was over for the rest of the country. The first cheese factory opened in 1831 in Wisconsin and by 1850, census records revealed 400,283 pounds of cheese made on Wisconsin farms in 1849. Today, Wisconsin has more skilled and licensed cheesemakers than any other state and is the “Cheese Capital of the World”. Cheesemakers in training are also encouraged to work with an existing cheesemaker as an apprentice. Wisconsin is the only state to offer a cheesemaker the opportunity to become a Master Cheesemaker. 90% of the milk used in Wisconsin is used to make cheese and they make over 2 billion pounds a year. Wow! Wisconsin is really the place to be to know cheese.
I didn’t need much from the store this week either. I picked up some extra cheese and needed more milk than usual, but most of these ingredients I had on hand. It made this week’s list fairly light and cheap by comparison. This weekend, check your ingredients and make your grocery list. Then, meet me in the kitchen for recipes using so much cheese!
