Coming from a family where our motto is “we did not get fat not knowing how to cook,” I have grown up around many different types of food made with many different kinds of ingredients. One ingredient, however, seems to be prevalent in many of the dishes my family prepares. Cheese plays a major role in the dishes my family makes and consumes through the year. While it is not in every dish made, we make a point to add it to any dish we can and get away with it. Be it nachos, macaroni and cheese, or homemade shepard’s pie, my family uses cheese often, without ever thinking about where it comes from, how it’s made, or how long it has been available to society to make food taste a little better.
According to the International Dairy Food Association (IDFA), “The making of cheese dates back more than 4,000 years,” and while no one knows who the first person to make cheese was, there is an ancient legend that it was accidentally made by an Arabian merchant who put milk in his sheep’s stomach pouch and proceeded to travel across the desert. It is said that after a day in the desert, the milk separated into curd and whey, and the merchant found it to satisfy both his thirst and his hunger (Roeder). The article also discusses how Asian travelers are believed to “have brought the art of cheese making to Europe,” and “was made in many parts of the Roman Empire when it was at its height” (Roeder). The Romans then introduced cheese making to England, and from the decline of the Roman Empire until the discovery of America, “cheese was made and improved by the monks in the monasteries of Europe” (Roeder).
Cheese making continued to be popular in Europe, and was even included in the Mayflower’s supplies when the Pilgrims headed westward to America in 1620. Once in the new world, cheese making quickly spread, but remained a local farm industry until the nineteenth century, when the first cheese factory was built by Jesse Williams in Oneida County, New York in 1851 (Roeder). As the population in the United States grew, so did the demand for cheese, and thus the demand for more dairy farms in the country, with the center of the industry being focused on the rich lands of Wisconsin. In 1845, a group of Swiss immigrants settled in Green County and began the manufacturing of foreign cheese in America. At the time, many Wisconsin farmers believed their future survival “was tied to cheese and their first factory was a Limburger plan which opened in 1868” (Roeder).
The industry began to boom in the later part of the 1800s, with a total of 3,923 dairy factories in the United States in 1880, producing 216 million pounds of cheese that year alone, totaling to $17 million, making up almost ninety percent of total cheese production for that year (Roeder). The industry only grew after the 1880s, with the total natural cheese production growing from 418 million pounds in 1920 to 2.2 billion pounds by 1970. Further rising demand through the 1970s and 1980s took total natural cheese production to more than 6 billion pounds around the beginning of the 1990s. However, processed cheese experienced an increase in demand from the consumers, and annual production exceeded 2 billion pounds per year by the beginning of the 1990s (Roeder). Presently, the United States uses more than one-third of all the milk produced in the country each year to make cheese. Roeder also notes that as the appetites for all types of cheese continue to expand, the industry will expand even further as well.
After reading about the history of cheese and getting an appreciation of how long the dairy bi-product has been around, I decided to go a step further and see how some cheeses are made today. I thought it would be a fairly simple process of taking the milk and letting it sit until it turns to cheese, however I found this is not the case. There are many different ways to make different cheeses, and the ingredients for different cheeses are different.
The most obvious ingredient in cheese is milk, but what kind of milk that is used depends on the type of cheese that is being made. The different kinds of milk that are most commonly used come from cows, goats, sheep, water buffalos, or a mixture of the four. Coagulant type also depends on the type of cheese desired. For example, acid cheeses will use an acid source like acetic acid, while rennet cheeses (most hard cheeses) use calf rennet or a rennet produced through microbial bioprocessing. Sometimes calcium chloride is added to improve the coagulation properties of milk. Flavorings can also be added depending on the cheese, with common ingredients including herbs, spices, hot and sweet peppers, horseradish, and port wine (Unknown). There are twelve processes it takes to go from milk to packaged and shipped cheese. They are to standardize the milk, which is done to optimize the protein to fat ratio to make a good quality cheese. After that, the milk has to be pasteurized or heated, depending on the cheese desired. This reduces the number of spoilage organisms and improves the environment for starter cultures to grow. In some cases, raw milk cheeses are not pasteurized or heated, so they must age for at least 60 days (Unknown).
Once the milk is pasteurized or heated, it is cooled, then inoculated with starter and non-starter bacteria for 30 minutes so it can ripen. This allows the bacteria to grow and begin fermentation, which develops the flavor of cheese. The rennet is then added, which helps form the curd, and the milk sits undisturbed for about 30 minutes. The curd then ferments until it reaches pH 6.4, at which point it is cut with cheese knives and heated to 100 degrees. This helps to separate the whey from the curd. The whey is then drained from the vat, the curd forms a mat, and the mats are cut into sections and goes through the process of “cheddaring,” which helps expel more whey and allows fermentation to occur until pH of 5.1 to 5.5 is reached. Some cheeses are then salted, then formed into blocks and stored to age until they are ready to be packaged to be sent to consumers all over the world (Unknown).
When starting my research I was nervous I would learn something that would steer me away from how cheese is produced, yet I sit here eating string cheese completely unfazed by my newfound knowledge. I learned how tedious of a process it is to produce most cheeses, and that cheese has been a part of society for thousands of years, growing exponentially from the 1970s to 1990s, and still growing today as the demand grows. I don’t think my research will effect my relationship with cheese, though I may have more of an appreciation of how long it takes to make it and the many different methods there are to make specific cheeses. Maybe the next time I get the chance to eat Brie, I won’t eat it so fast, but savor it and think of the journey it took to get to my plate.
Works Cited
Roeder, Jeannette. N.p.. Web. 7 May 2013. <http://www.idfa.org/news--views/media-kits/cheese/history-of-cheese/>.
Unknown, . N.p.. Web. 7 May 2013. <http://www.milkfacts.info/Milk Processing/Cheese Production.htm>.
1. Summarize the main points of the essay. What food is researched, and what elements of its production and or history are reviewed?
ReplyDeleteThe author write the essay of cheese. The main points of this article are when cheese was first discovered, how it transitioned from Europe to America, and how cheese is actually made in todays society.
2. What research is used and how efficiently is it quoted and incorporated in the essay.
The author uses 2 sources and they are very well incorporated throughout the entire essay. The author did a very nice job of making the quote flow into the essay and explaining it after. Also the quotes did a good job of backing up what you were trying to say.
3. How is the essay’ authors relationship with that food implicated or affected in the essay?
The authors relationship with cheese did not really change. She said that she would appreciate cheese more when she ate it because of the process it takes to make it.
4. What other comments or suggestions for revision do you have?
First off I thought that your essay was very strong. There are only a few things that I would change. First is to break it up into paragraphs. There were many times that you could have created a new paragraph instead of having one large one. Also, I would add more in on the personal side of the essay. I would add another paragraph or add the part about your personal opinion because it was very short. Other than that it was a very strong essay.
This essay is focused on the production and history of cheese throughout time. The main parts of the essay was how cheese was first discovered by an Arabian man crossing the desert and making cheese by accident, and how over time Cheese has not only been a thing in Europe and Asia but is has also become a thing in America. After talking about the the history of cheese you begin to talk about the production of cheese and how it is created and then finish the essay off with how it has affected you today.
ReplyDeleteThe Author only uses 2 sources but it was enough to get the point across. You did a very good job of introducing the quote and tying it into what you want to talk about. You don't just stick the quote in the essay and make me analyze it, but rather you talk about the significance of the quote and source.
In the final paragraph you talked about how you where worried that this would affect your relationship with cheese, but at the end it didn't really change. Instead of just not eating it after doing research, you begin to appreciate the production process.
Overall I really enjoyed reading your essay and it was very strong. However your paragraphs are rather long and at times it was too much to read at once. So maybe break them into separate paragraphs and maybe tie in your personal experience with cheese. But good job.