Cheese is a dairy product obtained from the acid or rennet coagulation of whole,
partially or totally skimmed milk, or of milk cream, also making use of ferments
and table salt.
Etymology
In Latin, the term used to refer to this product was caseus, but among legionaries
the term formaticum was also in use, referring to a "form" of this product —
caseus formatus. Italian terms such as "caseificio" (dairy) derive from the Latin
caseus, "cacio" (from which, for example, "caciocavallo"), as do the Spanish queso,
the Portuguese queijo, the German Käse, the Dutch kaas, the Luxembourgish Kéis, the
Romanian caş, the Corsican casgiu, the Calabrian and Sardinian casu, and the English
cheese (cf. the Venetian gratacaxa and the Apulian Murgiano grattachèse, "grater
[for cheese]," and the Sardinian trattacasu). From formaticum derive, besides the
Italian "formaggio," the French fromage, the Catalan and Occitan formatge, and the
Friulian formadi.
History
The history of cheese has very ancient origins in the Mediterranean basin, in North
Africa and in Asia Minor. Legend has it that a shepherd put milk in a sheep's
stomach in which rennet had been left, and the milk turned into cheese; more
likely, however, the crucial step was the observation of the entrails of slaughtered
animals still in their nursing phase. The oldest evidence dates back to the 3rd
millennium BC.
The oldest surviving artifact testifying to cheese production dates back to the
Sumerians, in Mesopotamia, in the 3rd millennium BC. Other documents from the same
period, found in Egypt, also attest to knowledge of cheesemaking methods. Cheese
would not spread to Italy until around 1500 BC, eventually giving rise to famous
Italian cheeses such as gorgonzola.
The art of cheesemaking continued to improve and became firmly established among
the ancient Greeks and Romans. In the Middle Ages there was initially a decline,
since it was only within monasteries that the Latin tradition could be preserved;
but in later centuries cheese began to be appreciated once again and to appear on
noble tables. A treatise on the nutritional qualities of cheese was written by the
physician and academic Pantaleone da Confienza of Vercelli in his Summa
Lacticiniorum, in the second half of the fifteenth century.
(source: Wikipedia)
(Selection 2026)