67 Fun Facts About Cheese

Which cheese, the UK's most popular, is named for a Somerset village with a cave-filled gorge?

Cheddar takes its name from the Somerset village beside Cheddar Gorge, whose caves kept a steady temperature and humidity for ageing; tradition once required the cheese to be made within 30 miles of Wells Cathedral.

Which blue cheese became the first French cheese granted an appellation d'origine, in 1925?

Roquefort, a sheep's-milk blue ripened in the caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, was the first French cheese given a protected appellation, by a law of 1925; every wheel uses only Lacaune ewes' milk.

Which English cheese cannot legally be made in the village it is named after?

Only cheese made in Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire qualifies; the village of Stilton, where it was originally sold at a coaching inn, is in Cambridgeshire.

Which Sardinian sheep's-milk cheese with live insect larvae is banned across the EU?

Casu martzu, Sardinia's 'rotten cheese', is a pecorino in which cheese-fly larvae break down the fats until it weeps a liquid called lagrima (teardrop); EU food-hygiene rules bar its sale.

Pule, a rare Serbian cheese from the Zasavica reserve, is made mostly from which animal's milk?

Pule is made mostly from donkey milk: only about 100 jennies at Serbia's Zasavica reserve are milked for it, and roughly 25 litres of milk go into a single kilogram.

Sales of which English cheese rose 23% after the 2005 film Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit?

Wensleydale is the cheese Wallace names as a favourite in the 1995 short A Close Shave, and the creamery later licensed an official Wallace & Gromit brand.

Which cheese is chased down Cooper's Hill at the annual cheese-rolling?

A wheel of Double Gloucester is rolled down Cooper's Hill near Brockworth, Gloucestershire; it gets a one-second head start and is rarely caught, and the first runner to reach the bottom wins the cheese.

Which grillable cheese must be made in Cyprus to carry its name in the US or the EU?

Halloumi's high melting point is why it can be fried or grilled without collapsing, and the UK is its largest importer.

Under EU rules, feta's sheep's milk may be mixed with up to 30% milk from which other animal?

Feta's PDO allows the sheep's milk to be blended with up to 30% goat's milk from the same Greek regions; most feta sold in the United States is made from cow's milk and would not qualify.

The zig-zag rind on Manchego comes from pressing the curd in baskets plaited from what?

The zig-zag pattern came from esparto grass baskets (pleitas) that pressed the curd; modern moulds carve the pleita pattern into their inner surface, and Manchego must be made from Manchega sheep's milk.

Marie Harel, a farmer from Normandy, is traditionally credited with creating which soft cheese in 1791?

Legend credits Marie Harel of Camembert village with the first Camembert in 1791; the round wooden box arrived a century later, in 1890, when an engineer named Ridel designed it so the cheese could travel further.

Which Dutch city's cheese market is held in front of a weigh house built in 1668?

Gouda's cheese market takes place before the Waag, built in 1668; prices were traditionally settled by handjeklap, the hand-clapping haggle in which farmer and trader slap palms with each bid until they agree.

Which Dutch cheese, sold in red-wax spheres, was reputedly the world's most popular from the 14th to 18th centuries?

Edam, the red-waxed ball from North Holland, was reputedly the world's most popular cheese from the 14th to the 18th century; in Spanish-speaking countries it is queso de bola, and Yucatán's queso relleno stuffs a hollowed ball with spiced meat.

Which semi-hard orange cheese was created in 1885 in the Midwestern town it is named after?

Colby was first made in 1885 by Joseph Steinwand in Colby, Wisconsin; instead of stacking and turning the curd as for cheddar, the curd is washed with cold water, giving a softer, moister cheese.

Which mild white cheese was first made by Franciscan friars in California?

Monterey Jack descends from the queso del país made by Franciscan friars at the Monterey missions; businessman David Jacks marketed it in the 1880s as 'Jacks' cheese', which became Monterey Jack.

Which bright-orange Lille cheese owes its grey rind to deliberately added cheese mites?

Mimolette, made around Lille, is coloured with annatto, and its pitted grey rind is the work of cheese mites introduced on purpose; legend says Louis XIV ordered it as a French rival to Dutch Edam.

Which smelly washed-rind cheese originated in the Herve area of what is now Belgium?

Limburger originated around Herve, in the old Duchy of Limburg, now in Belgium; Brevibacterium linens, the same bacterium found on human skin, is smeared on the rind and produces the smell.

Which beer-washed French cheese did Cranfield University researchers rate the smelliest of 15 in 2004?

Vieux-Boulogne, a beer-washed cheese first made near Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1982, topped Cranfield University's 2004 ranking of 15 smelly cheeses, and a 2007 electronic-nose study confirmed the result.

Charles Martell's Stinking Bishop cheese takes its name not from a clergyman but from what?

Stinking Bishop is named for a variety of pear, the Stinking Bishop, itself named after Gloucestershire farmer Frederick Bishop; the rind is washed in perry made from that pear, which gives the cheese its pungent smell.

Which Italian blue cheese, named after a town near Milan, is said to have been created around AD 879?

Gorgonzola is named for the town east of Milan where legend says it was first made around AD 879; it comes in buttery dolce and crumbly piccante styles, and its PDO zone spans Piedmont and Lombardy.

Havarti, renamed in 1952 after the farm where Hanne Nielsen worked, comes from which country?

Before 1952 it was sold as 'Danish Tilsiter'; in 2019 the EU gave the name protected geographical status after four years of lobbying.

Jarlsberg, a mild holey cheese named after a manor estate, comes from which Nordic country?

Norway's modern Jarlsberg recipe was developed in 1956 at an agricultural university, and it tops Grandiosa, the country's best-selling frozen pizza.

Mozzarella takes its name from the Italian verb mozzare, which means what?

Mozzarella comes from mozzare, 'to cut off', because the cheesemaker pinches portions off the hot, stretched pasta filata curd by hand to shape each ball.

Burrata, stretched curd filled with cream and cheese scraps, comes from which Italian region?

Burrata comes from Puglia: Lorenzo Bianchino of Andria is usually credited with inventing it in the early 20th century, and Burrata di Andria was granted EU protected geographical status (PGI) in 2016.

Ricotta, whose name means 'recooked', is traditionally made from which leftover of cheesemaking?

Whey left over from other cheeses is heated again to near boiling, so its albumin and globulin proteins clump into a fine, slightly sweet curd.

Which soft Italian dairy product is not technically a cheese, since it is set with acid and heat, not rennet?

Mascarpone is cream thickened with acid and heat rather than rennet, so it is not strictly a cheese; one traditional Lombard recipe used tartaric acid scraped from the sides of wine barrels to set it.

Philadelphia Cream Cheese was first mass-produced in the town of Chester, in which state?

Chester is in Orange County, New York: dairyman William A. Lawrence began making the cheese there around 1873, and distributor Alvah Reynolds attached the Philadelphia name in 1880 purely as marketing.

The first factory for the industrial production of cheese opened in 1815 in which country?

The first cheese factory opened in Switzerland in 1815; large-scale production only truly took off in 1851, when Jesse Williams began assembly-line cheesemaking in Rome, New York.

Which processed cheese brand, sold to Kraft in 1927, first won the American Medical Association's seal in the 1930s?

Velveeta was developed in 1918 by Emil Frey of the Monroe Cheese Company in New York from broken bits of cheese that would otherwise be thrown away; the name was meant to suggest 'velvety', and Kraft bought it in 1927.

Cheez Whiz was originally developed by Kraft in the early 1950s as a ready-made sauce for which dish?

Cheez Whiz was developed by a Kraft team under food scientist Edwin Traisman as a quick sauce for Welsh rarebit; it went on sale in 1952 and later became a fixture on Philadelphia cheesesteaks.

In 1992 the FTC ordered Kraft to stop implying each Kraft Singles slice had as much calcium as what?

The ads claimed five ounces of milk went into each slice, implying a glass of milk's worth of calcium; the FTC ruled that misrepresented how much calcium survived processing.

Which emulsifying salt lets American cheese be pasteurised without its fat and protein separating?

Sodium citrate keeps the melt smooth. Two Swiss chemists first tried it on melted Emmentaler in 1911, and James L. Kraft patented his own process in 1916.

Which hard grating cheese, the staple of cacio e pepe, is mostly produced in Sardinia?

Pecorino Romano, the sheep's-milk cheese of cacio e pepe, was a ration for Roman legionaries; most of it has been made in Sardinia since producers moved there in the late 19th century, and its PDO covers Sardinia, Lazio and Grosseto.

Which pungent Burgundy cheese, a Napoleon favourite, is rind-washed in Marc de Bourgogne?

Époisses is washed with Marc de Bourgogne as it ripens, which gives its orange rind and powerful smell; production had all but died out by the 1950s until farmers Robert and Simone Berthaut revived it in 1956.

Which cheese, named after a Fribourg town, is the classic choice for French onion soup and croque-monsieur?

Gruyère, named for the town of Gruyères in the canton of Fribourg, is the classic melting cheese for French onion soup and croque-monsieur; unlike Emmental, with which it is often confused, modern Gruyère has few if any holes.

Scientists found the holes in Emmental depend on microscopic particles of what getting into the milk?

Agroscope researchers showed in 2015 that tiny particles of hay dust in the milk seed the eyes: bacteria gather around the specks and release gas, and cleaner modern milking methods let fewer in, so the holes began to vanish.

Raclette originated in which Swiss canton?

Raclette comes from the canton of Valais, where herders melted cheese by the fire and scraped it onto bread; the name is from racler, 'to scrape', and it is traditionally paired with Fendant white wine or hot tea.

Only two Bries hold PDO status: Brie de Melun and the Brie of which other town?

Brie de Meaux and Brie de Melun are the only Bries with protected status, both granted AOC in 1980; Melun's version is smaller and stronger, and both come from the old Brie region east of Paris.

Some Italian banks, such as Credito Emiliano, accept wheels of which cheese as collateral for loans?

Credito Emiliano's vaults hold hundreds of thousands of wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano, each worth several hundred euros, which makers pledge against loans while the cheese ages; thieves stole more than 2,000 wheels from warehouses between 2013 and 2015.

During the Great Fire of London, Samuel Pepys buried his wine and which cheese to save them?

On 4 September 1666 Pepys recorded burying his wine and 'my Parmazan cheese' in a pit in Sir William Penn's garden; Parmesan was a costly import in Restoration London, well worth digging a hole for.

Which stringy Mexican cheese, also called quesillo, is wound up like a ball of yarn?

Queso Oaxaca is a pasta filata cheese: Dominican friars brought the Italian stretched-curd technique to Oaxaca, where the strands are wound into a ball like yarn and sold as quesillo.

Cabrales, a pungent blue cheese aged in mountain caves, comes from which Spanish region?

Cabrales comes from Asturias, in the Picos de Europa; it ripens two to five months in natural limestone caves at around 90% humidity and 7–13 °C, where native moulds vein the cheese blue.

Which crumbly cheese, first recorded around 1580, did the Royal Navy order for its ships?

Cheshire, first recorded around 1580, is among Britain's oldest named cheeses; in 1758 the Royal Navy ordered its ships stocked with it, and sales peaked at around 40,000 tonnes in 1960.

Which natural colouring gives Red Leicester and yellow American cheese their orange hue?

Annatto, an extract of achiote seeds, colours Red Leicester and American cheese; Red Leicester was originally tinted with carrot or beetroot juice before annatto took over in the 18th century.

Which US president's White House open house served a 1,400 lb block of cheese?

Andrew Jackson received a 1,400 lb cheddar wheel and invited the public to eat it at the White House in February 1837; the event inspired The West Wing's fictional 'Big Block of Cheese Day'.

Which French leader reportedly asked how anyone could govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese?

Charles de Gaulle is credited with asking how anyone can govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese (the figure varies with the telling); France is generally reckoned to have around 400 distinct cheeses.

In the 1546 proverb 'the moon is made of a green cheese', 'green' most likely meant what?

In Heywood's 1546 proverb 'green' meant fresh and unripened, a young cheese not yet aged, whose mottled surface resembled the moon; the saying was always a jibe at gullibility, not a belief anyone seriously held.

In which country was the earliest evidence of cheesemaking, milk-fat residue on strainers from c.5500 BCE, found?

The sieves came from Kuyavia in central Poland, where pottery strainers dated to about 5500 BCE carried milk-fat residue; the find predates the earliest Mediterranean evidence, from the Croatian coast, by roughly 300 years.

The oldest preserved cheese, from c. 1615 BCE, was found on desert mummies in which country?

The cheese came from the Xiaohe Cemetery in the Taklamakan Desert of Xinjiang, China; the desert's dryness preserved lumps of kefir-style cheese on the mummies for more than 3,500 years.

The 'eyes' in Swiss cheese are bubbles of which gas, released by Propionibacterium?

Propionibacterium freudenreichii ferments lactic acid into propionic acid and carbon dioxide; the carbon dioxide collects at weak points in the curd to form the eyes, and the propionic acid gives the nutty flavour.

In 2022 the United States produced roughly what share of the world's cheese made from whole cow's milk?

The United States made about 6.2 million tonnes in 2022, roughly 28% of a global total of 22.6 million tonnes of cheese from whole cow's milk; Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands followed.

In Homer's Odyssey, which monster makes and stores sheep's and goats' milk cheese in his cave?

Odysseus and his men find the cave's racks loaded with cheeses before Polyphemus returns from shepherding.

In which country is Hallstatt, whose salt-mine faeces show miners of 800-400 BC ate blue cheese and beer?

Hallstatt is in Austria's Salzkammergut; a 2021 study of paleofaeces from its prehistoric salt mine found DNA of blue-cheese mould and brewer's yeast, showing Iron Age miners ate blue cheese and drank beer. The salt itself preserved the evidence.

What replaced the real cheese wheel at the 2013 Cooper's Hill cheese-rolling for safety reasons?

For 2013 the organisers rolled a lightweight foam replica instead of the real Double Gloucester after police warned that a wheel reaching 70 mph could injure spectators; in 1993 fifteen people were hurt at the event.

Chymosin, the key enzyme in rennet, curdles milk by cleaving which protein?

Chymosin cleaves kappa-casein, snipping off its charged fragment so the casein micelles lose their mutual repulsion, clump together and trap fat, which is essentially what a curd is.

Fermentation-produced chymosin, the rennet substitute approved in the US in 1990, is made by what?

Fermentation-produced chymosin is made by genetically engineered microbes carrying the calf chymosin gene; the FDA approved it in March 1990, the first genetically engineered food ingredient cleared for sale in the United States.

Fans of which NFL team are famous for wearing foam 'cheesehead' hats?

Green Bay Packers fans adopted the foam cheesehead, first made by Ralph Bruno of Milwaukee in 1987, turning Illinois fans' 'cheesehead' taunt for Wisconsinites into a badge of pride.

Taleggio, a washed-rind Lombardy cheese, is traditionally wiped weekly with what?

Taleggio's rind is wiped once a week with a sponge of seawater (salt water), which keeps unwanted mould off and builds the thin pinkish-orange crust that gives the cheese its aroma.

Munster cheese comes from the high pastures of which French mountain range?

Munster is made on both sides of the Vosges, the range dividing Alsace from Lorraine; herders known as marcaires drove cattle up to the high pastures each summer and paid their tithes in cheese and butter.

Why do fresh cheese curds squeak when you bite them?

Fresh curds squeak because elastic protein strands rub against tooth enamel: the springy casein network has not yet relaxed, and as the curd ages the bonds loosen and the squeak fades within a day or so.

Cheese curds, French fries and gravy make up which dish from Quebec?

Poutine, which emerged in rural Quebec in the 1950s, tops French fries with fresh cheese curds and hot brown gravy; across the border in the upper Midwest the same curds are more likely to be breaded and deep-fried.

In which state was a record 56,850 lb cheese produced in 1989 by the Federation of American Cheese-makers?

Oregon members of the Federation of American Cheese-makers made the 56,850 lb cheddar in 1989; it beat the 34,591 lb Wisconsin cheese made for the 1964 New York World's Fair, which needed a day's milk from 16,000 cows.

Which genus of mould produces the blue-green veins in cave-ripened cheeses such as Cabrales?

Penicillium, the same genus that gave the world penicillin, is left to ripen Cabrales in cool, humid caves at around 90% humidity and 7 to 13 °C.

The English word 'cheese' descends from which Latin word?

Cheese comes from Latin caseus, via Old English cīese; behind it lies a conjectured Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to ferment, become sour', and caseus also gives the milk protein casein its name.

In which Dickens story does Scrooge blame a ghostly visitation on the cheese he ate?

In A Christmas Carol Scrooge tells Marley's ghost it may be 'an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese'; the belief that late-night cheese causes nightmares predates Dickens and has no solid evidence.

Microbial rennet, the common vegetarian coagulant, is produced by fermenting which mould?

Mucor miehei (now Rhizomucor miehei) is fermented to make the main microbial rennet, an aspartic protease that mimics chymosin; other vegetarian coagulants come from Cynara thistles, while animal rennet comes from calves' stomachs.

Which figure did ancient Greek mythology credit with the discovery of cheese?

Aristaeus, son of Apollo and the nymph Cyrene, was credited by the Greeks with teaching humans cheesemaking, beekeeping and olive culture; by Pliny's time cheese was everyday Roman food, and his Natural History devotes a chapter to it.