Cheese

Cheese is a food derived from milk that is produced in a wide range of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During production, the milk is usually acidified, and adding the enzyme rennet causes coagulation. The solids are separated and pressed into final form. Some cheeses have molds on the rind or throughout. Most cheeses melt at cooking temperature.
==Types of cheese==
Hundreds of types of cheese from various countries are produced. Their styles, textures and flavors depend on the origin of the milk (including the animal's diet), whether they have been pasteurized, the butterfat content, the bacteria and mold, the processing, and aging. Herbs, spices, or wood smoke may be used as flavoring agents. The yellow to red color of many cheeses, such as Red Leicester, is produced by adding annatto.
===Brick cheese===
Prepared in brick-shaped form, the color ranges from pale yellow to white, and it has a sweet and mild flavor when young, and matures into a strong ripe cheese with age. It is medium-soft, crumbles easily and is somewhat sticky to the knife.
===Cream Cheese===
A soft, mild-tasting cheese with a high fat content. Traditionally, it is made from unskimmed milk enriched with additional cream. Stabilizers such as carob bean gum and carrageenan are added.
===Cottage Cheese===
A cheese  product with a mild flavor. It is drained, but not pressed, so some whey remains and the individual curds remain loose. The curd is usually washed to remove acidity, giving sweet curd cheese. It is not aged or colored. Different styles of cottage cheese are made from milks with different fat levels and in small-curd or large-curd preparations.
===Cheddar Cheese===
A relatively hard, pale yellow to off-white (unless artificially coloured), and sometimes sharp-tasting, cheese.
===Mozzarella Cheese===
A fresh cheese, originally from southern Italy, traditionally made from Italian buffalo and later cow's milk by the pasta filata method. The term is used for several kinds of Italian cheeses that are made using spinning and then cutting. is generally white, but may vary seasonally to slightly yellow depending on the animal's diet. It is a semi-soft cheese.
==History of cheese==
===Origin===
Cheese is an ancient food whose origins predate recorded history. There is no conclusive evidence indicating where cheesemaking originated, either in Europe, Central Asia or the Middle East, but the practice had spread within Europe prior to Roman times and, according to Pliny the Elder, had become a sophisticated enterprise by the time the Roman Empire came into being.
====Earliest Evidence====
The earliest evidence of cheese-making in the archaeological record dates back to 5,500 BCE, in what is now Kujawy, Poland, where strainers with milk fats molecules have been found. Earliest proposed dates for the origin of cheesemaking range from around 8000 BCE, when sheep were first domesticated. Since animal skins and inflated internal organs have, since ancient times, provided storage vessels for a range of foodstuffs, it is probable that the process of cheese making was discovered accidentally by storing milk in a container made from the stomach of an animal, resulting in the milk being turned to curd and whey by the rennet from the stomach. There is a legend – with variations – about the discovery of cheese by an Arab trader who used this method of storing milk.
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Category:Cheese