Fromage Francais

There's no arguing that cheese is one of the quintessentially French foods. I guarantee that any picnic in the Luxembourg Gardens will feature at least one variety of cheese, whether it's chevre, emmental, bleu, or brie. Cheese is also one of those foods that you don't generally want to think too much about while eating. Well, the other day I decided to think about it while eating it. Then I decided to read about it. Now I will write about it.

It turns out that cheese is one of the oldest foods known to man. Thought to have begun as early as 8000 BCE, cheese making predates recorded history. It's assumed that cheese was discovered by accident, through the practice of storing food in animal skins and organs. With heat and acid, the milk would have been converted to curd and whey. Eventually the curds were salted and pressed for preservation, and cheese was born. There is evidence of cheese in ancient Egyptian tombs, and it even appears in Homer's Odyssey.

In Europe, the cheese would have been exposed to colder climates, and therefore would have required less salt for preservation. This provided a nice breeding ground for bacteria, which plays a starring role in the flavoring of aged cheeses. In cheeses that use little or no rennet, the acidification of the milk can be done by adding bacteria which convert the sugar in the milk to lactic acid. The complex and variable process of cheese making has given us hundreds of known cheeses today. Needless to say, over the centuries, cheese making has become an art.

Oh, and since I don't have to write papers anymore, thanks Wiki.

GG