A brief history of cheese

Abstract

A perusal of the literature concerning cheese reveals almost 2000 names applied to cheese, and periodically more names appear as new varieties are made. In order to discover whether there really are so many varieties, or whether a curd type has a number of different names, it is of interest to consider briefly the history of cheese, and particularly how the movement of populations by free or enforced migration has caused the spread of cheese almost throughout the world.