THE STORY OF CHEESE

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1934, Page 17 (Supplement)

THE STORY OF CHEESE

EXPORT TRADE WITH ROME. AN OLD-TIME FODDER EXPERIMENT Like that of butter-making the history of the manufacture of cheese is mingled with many traditions and records. Homer mentions cheese in his writings. In the Jewish king David’s time cheese from cows’ and sheeps’ milk appears to have been a common article of food, and near Jerusalem was an area known as the “cheese-makers’ valley.” What is still more remarkable is that Aristotle 2300 years ago discusses the relative values of certain fodder plants for milk production, while it is certain that the use of rennet was known 2000 years ago. Sometimes a vegetable rennet was used made frotn figs, artichokes or thistles, but the material was also obtained from the stomachs of kids, lambs and calves. In the fifth century B.C. there was a definite trade in cheese between the island of Sicily and the city of Athens, and 300 years later there was much knowledge of cheese and cheese-making. Hansen, in his history of cheese-mak-ing, refers to the records left by Lucius Columella, an ex-officer in the Roman, army. He was bom in Spain, but in the year A.D. 60 had settled in Italy, where

he wrote twelve volumes on agriculture, including therein directions for the manufacture of cheese. Painstaking and cleanly procedure is recommended, acquaintance with renneting is taken for granted, while salting, pressing and storing are described fairly minutely. Even faults in cheese are referred to, though Columella assumes all the time that his readers were acquainted with the fundamentals of cheese-making. INFLUENCE OF FODDER.

In the first century A.D. a Greek cheese was in demand in Rome. It was called Cythnos cheese and cost about 5d lb. It was made from sheep’s milk and 1 originated in the island of Cythnos. There a shrub called cystisus grew. It was particularly palatable to the sheep and produced an unusually good milk. Othe; herdsmen got to know of this fodder and it was transplanted to other parts of Greece. Alh of which seems to shoA that the cheese industry had reached a fairly high stage of development 2000 years ago. . Rome, the Imperial

capital, appears to have been the market for dairy products in those times much as London is to-day, for there are records of imports from Switzerland, Greece and the south of France.

Coming down the centuries the specialisation which began in Sicily and Greece spread itself into other countries. In Spain there was a distinct variety, parts of Germany specialised in others, the Roquefort of modern commerce has a “pedigree” of 1000 years, while the English cheddar has held its distinctive type for at least 500 years. Since the records were made 2000 years ago the skill of the cheese-maker has been applied continuously towards producing a commodity that would satisfy differing tastes and meet the desire for a change in diet, a desire that seems to have been as much in evidence in the days of the Roman Empire as it is to-day. ' The by-products of cheese-making were not ignored by early manufacturers of cheese. A Roman historian, Cato, speaks of feeding pigs with whey, and though in all the old records there are references to the influence of the moon and other mythological influences, the main principles laid down for the manufacture of cheese are sometimes almost startlingly modern.

Just about the time when modern dairying began in Taranaki a great step forward was made in Europe and America. The scientist began to take a hand in investigating problems that were troubling the cheese-maker. Manufac-

ture in factories aided the raising the standard of the general output, pasteurisation was made possible in 1900 by the use of “starters,” and since then the progress of cheese-making in New Zealand as well as in other countries has been definite and continuous. There is still much inquiry for the research worker to undertake, but of the Dominion’s special advantages for the production of high-class cheese there can be no doubt.