14 July: Legend of the first ever cheese.

marmitelover2000

Cheese dates back to around 4000 years ago ( as far as we know)

The legend of how it was made may seem disgusting, due to the nature of how cheese is made, thats a given. (I won't disgust you with the detail)

Essentially an arabian merchant decided to store his milk in a sheep stomach .

When it inevitably mixed with the rennet ( stomach juices) and curdled in the sun, he drank the whey later that day and ate the curds. It would have been similar to cottage cheese.

Apparently he enjoyed the flavour and here we are today , 4000 years later still eating curdled, mouldy milk.

Now the process is a bit more complex. Instead of rennet, people often use vinegar or other acids which are a bit less gross.

In the UK we even stick the cheese in a cave to age as the climate is very controlled. I know wookey hole ( not a euphemism for starwars fans) ages wine and cheese deep in the heart of the caves.

Rosie_Scope

That's so interesting @marmitelover2000! I've tasted cheese from Wookey Hole, it certainly had a cave-y quality to it 😁

One of my favourite cheeses is a mature cheddar called Black Bomber, I think they age it in old coal mines in Wales. Delicious.

Do you like cheese and marmite together? My dad used to be a huge fan of cheese and marmite sandwiches!

egister

Marmite is commonly used as a flavouring, as it is particularly rich in umami due to its very high levels of glutamate (1960 mg/100 g).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutamate_flavoring

marmitelover2000

cheese and marmite is the best!!!
im not supposed to eat. But when I’m feeling hungry and like a rebel, I will have mini cheddars with marmite and cheese 😋tasty

I don’t care what people say, my blood is practically marmite. I will die on the hill that it’s delicious. 😆

Rosie_Scope

Full of b12 vitamins, so it's good for you too @marmitelover2000! That combo sounds amazing!

Cantilip

Aargh, just not my lucky day, never got the hang of Marmite or most cheese. I do pizza, I do cheese sauce. If you showed me a Ploughman's I'd probably need to be somewhere else.

66Mustang

As a cheese lover I appreciate this post

One thing I found interesting which seems obvious is that lots of cheese is not vegetarian, because of the animal rennet used, but there are an increasing number of artisan cheeses made without animal rennet

@Rosie_Scope if you like Black Bomber I'd try their vintage version, called Rock Star. It's the same cheese but it's aged in an old salt mine I think, it has crunchy crystals in it which are an acquired thing but if you like that sort of thing (I do) it's fabulous

Rachel_Scope

@marmitelover2000. I always look forward to your posts. I've learned so much! It does sound a bit gross leaving milk in a sheep's stomach. I'm glad we don't do that now 😂

Jimm_Alumni

More interesting posts! Yesss.

We actually used to use animal stomach for a lot more than we do now. Pudding for example, have you ever wondered why we call it black pudding? Because the word pudding used to mean "blood roasted inside an animal stomach".

When we started to cook sweet puddings they were cooked by putting the batter/mixture into a cloth and steaming it. Apparently it was seen similar as the blood inside the animal stomach so they also gained the name "pudding". Which is why we now have sweet puddings and things like black pudding/white pudding both called "pudding"!