Cheese - How it was made accidentally

USE OF ANIMAL SKIN / STOMACH AS CONTAINERS

The traditional containers for carrying and storing milk used to be made from animal skins or stomachs. Clotting of milk was noticed when it is kept undisturbed in the containers made of animal skin due to the development of acidity as a result of bacterial activity. Another possible reason for the clotting could be ascribed to presence of clotting enzymes originating from stomach. During the process, a soft coagulum was formed and some of the liquid portion (called whey) was absorbed in to the skin, which later evaporated. The coagulum thus obtained was later concentrated further by squeezing and drying in the sun.

The product i.e. cheese obtained was found to have a better keeping quality than the original milk owing to increased concentration of lactic acid which prevented the growth of contaminating type of bacteria that resulted in severe off flavours. But a longer shelf life was achieved by dipping the concentrated curd in brine solution (salt solution), which added to the palatability of the product. The product was later known as ‘pickled cheese’ which is still manufactured in parts of Middle East. Cheeses such as Feta, Domiati, Akkawi, Halloumi can be cited as examples for these pickled varieties.

PICKLED CHEESE

The popularity of the pickled cheese slowly grew within the eastern Mediterranean region and it spread to other parts of the world especially to the west in the Europe. The tradesmen from these countries considerably helped in spreading the popularity of pickled cheese. As the pickled cheese gained popularity and became an acceptable dairy product in Europe, efforts were made to know its manufacturing technique and produce it locally in Europe. Later as the dairy industry made rapid strides, Europe saw the establishment of many advanced processing dairies. Some modifications were made in the cheese preparation, especially with regard to preservation of cheese in brine solution (partial brining was followed) in order to suit the prevailing temperate climate of the Europe. For e.g. Development of a new variety of cheese known as ‘Dutch Cheese’. Some times dry salting was resorted to because the curd produced was much drier.

Because of the continuous change in the manufacturing procedure to suit the local taste, the initial soft variety of cheese gave birth to hard pressed variety cheese or simply hard cheese. The advantage of hard cheese is that they can be stored for a longer duration at higher ambient temperature with out spoilage. Classical of the hard cheese is ‘Cheddar cheese’ and cheese developed in other British territory.