Cheese's History

Cheese was probably invented by accident, from people, mainly nomadic herders, transporting unheated cow's milk around, causing it to curdle and turn into a form of cheese. The fact that cheese nearly didn't happen is too unspeakable for this website. Anyway, people started making cheese on purpose soon. Shards of pottery were found near Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland and were thought to be cheese-strainers. Animal skins and inflated organs were also thought to be storage for curdled milk by archaeologists. Anyway, now cheese had been formed and it was ready to take the world by storm.

In Post-Roman Europe, most European cheeses were made or named. Cheddar, Parmesan, Gouda and Camembert were all alive and thriving in the late Middle Ages. In 1546, English writer John Heywood claimed that "The moon is made of a greene (new and undiscovered) cheese". This may have led to the theory that the moon is actually made of cheese, mostly believed by extreme conspiracy theorists, NASA on April 1st and Wallace and Gromit. 

The first industrial cheese factory opened in Switzerland in 1812, but large-scale cheese production truly began in the USA. Using milk from neighbouring farms, a farmer named Jesse Williams made many forms of cheese in an assembly-line fashion. Soon after, many more dairy companies were created. Mass-produced artificial cheese became available for the poor. Cheese bells and cheese dishes became popular in households to store cheese for longer periods of time, until 1913 when the refrigerator was invented. During World War 2, factory cheese took over traditional cheese-making. The rise of sloppy, flavourless, plastic-y American cheese became popular in many fast-food restaurants. The creation of factory cheese, whilst allowing cheese to spread to a wider demographic, is at best a mixed blessing.