Food oddities are some of the most intriguing. I find myself wondering how we discovered the staples in our households. Especially when it’s an edible mold – so here we are, diving into the creepy origin story – of cheese.
Cheese has been around for thousands of years. Although there are many theories as to how human kind first discovered cheese rumor has it that cheese may have accidently created by people who were simply storing milk. Milk was stored in a stomach bag – yes you read that correctly, a stomach bag.
An animals stomach was used to carry animal milk around on horse/camel back for travelers. Eventually, if left too long in the stomach bag, the milk would curdle creating a yogurt/cottage cheese type food product. From here some think that it evolved over time in experimentation.
Another theory sprouts from ancient Greek text, stating that Aristaeus (son of Apollo) taught cheese making to humans. The importance of this is that someone had to have written this folklore with an understanding already of cheese, what it is and how it’s made.
To this day, explorers and archaeologists are finding signs of what once was cheese, stored in ancient tombs. It is thought to have been a worthy offering to ancient gods.
For a timeline of the history of cheese making from the University of Tennessee, check out the hyper-link.
