70 Fun Facts About Cheese

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

The village had a natural advantage: its caves kept a steady temperature and humidity, and tradition once required the cheese to be made within 30 miles of Wells Cathedral.

Which sheep's-milk blue cheese received France's first Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée in 1925?

Every wheel is made from the milk of Lacaune sheep, and about 4.5 litres of milk go into each kilogram of finished cheese.

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?

The cheese fly's larvae break down the fats until the cheese weeps a liquid locals call 'teardrop'; a ready wheel can hold thousands of them.

Pule, the world's most expensive cheese, is made in Serbia mostly from which animal's milk?

Only about 100 jennies in the Zasavica reserve are milked for it, and it takes 25 litres of milk to make a single kilogram.

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

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

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

The wheel gets a one-second head start and is rarely caught; the first runner across the finish line at the bottom wins it anyway.

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

Its 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?

Most cheese sold as feta in the United States is made domestically from cow's milk, which would not qualify for the name inside the EU.

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

Modern moulds simply have the pattern, called pleita, carved into their inner surface; the cheese must be made from Manchega sheep's milk and aged at least 60 days.

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

The famous round wooden box came a century later, in 1890, when an engineer named Ridel designed it so the cheese could travel further.

Which Dutch city's historic cheese market featured the hand-clapping haggling ritual called handjeklap?

Guild porters in coloured straw hats carried the farmers' 16 kg wheels to the weigh house once a price was clapped out.

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

In Spain and its former colonies it is still known as queso de bola, and in Yucatán a hollowed-out ball is stuffed with spiced meat as queso relleno.

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

Accounts differ on whether Joseph Steinwand meant to do it or simply forgot to drain the batch; either way it skipped the laborious curd-stacking step used for harder cheeses.

Which mild white cheese, first made by Franciscan friars in California, is named partly for David Jacks?

Doña Juana Cota de Boronda sold it as Queso del País to support her family, and pressed the curds with a handmade jack that may also have inspired the name.

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

It was created at the request of Louis XIV as a home-grown rival to a popular Dutch import, and looks uncannily like a cantaloupe.

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

In recent years a single Midwestern cooperative has been the only producer left in the United States.

Which Pas-de-Calais beer-washed cheese did Cranfield researchers rate the smelliest of 15 in 2004?

A 2007 follow-up using electronic-nose sensors confirmed the title; the cheese itself only dates from 1982.

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

The rind is washed every four weeks in perry made from that pear, and only around 1,000 wheels are made a year.

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

It comes in two styles, the buttery dolce and the crumbly piccante, and the town throws a festival for it every September.

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 in Vestfold, comes from which country?

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

Genetics suggests the animals behind mozzarella di bufala reached Italy in the 7th century from where?

Fresh mozzarella is usually sold as a 90-gram ball and is traditionally eaten the day after it is made.

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

Records point to Lorenzo Bianchino of Andria as its inventor, and burrata di Andria gained protected geographical status in 2016.

Paneer differs from most cheeses because the milk is curdled with what, rather than rennet?

Because it is acid-set and never aged, it holds its shape when heated, which is why cubes of it survive a curry intact.

Ricotta, meaning 'recooked', is traditionally made from what cheesemaking leftover?

Heating the acidified liquid to near boiling makes the remaining 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?

One traditional recipe used the tartaric acid scraped from the sides of wine barrels to set the cream.

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

Dairyman William A. Lawrence made it around 1873; distributor Alvah Reynolds slapped the Philadelphia name on it in 1880 purely as marketing.

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

Large-scale production only truly took off decades later in the US, when Jesse Williams began assembly-line cheesemaking in 1851.

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

Emil Frey developed it in 1918 from broken bits of cheese that would otherwise have been thrown away; the name was meant to suggest 'velvety'.

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

It launched in the UK and the US in the same year, 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, which the FTC ruled misrepresented how much calcium survived processing.

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

Two Swiss chemists first tried it on melted Emmentaler in 1911; James L. Kraft patented his own process in 1916.

Which hard sheep's-milk cheese, a Roman legionary's ration, is mostly made in Sardinia?

Roman families still eat it with fresh fava beans on May Day, and by the 2020s it ranked as Italy's fourth most exported cheese.

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

Production had all but died out by the 1950s until farmers Robert and Simone Berthaut revived it in 1956.

Which hard Jura cheese, made in cooperative fruitières, is the largest of France's PDO cheeses by production?

Each wheel needs about 500 litres of raw milk, which is why farmers pooled their supply into some 150 fruitières.

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

Unlike its holey neighbour it is often confused with, the modern version has few if any eyes, and it is the best-selling Swiss cheese in Europe.

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

Bacteria gather around the specks and release gas; cleaner modern milking machines let in fewer of them, and the holes started to disappear.

Fondue was promoted as a national dish in the 1930s by which trade body?

The word simply means 'melted', and the campaign's aim was blunt: get people eating more of the country's surplus.

Raclette originated in which Swiss canton?

Locals traditionally wash it down with black tea rather than wine, on the theory that a warm drink aids digestion.

France certifies only two versions of this soft, white-rinded cheese: from Melun and which other town?

Melun's version is smaller and stronger and gained AOC status in 1980; 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?

The wheels are valuable enough that organised crime stole 2,039 of them from warehouses between 2013 and 2015.

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

The cheese 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?

Dominican friars brought the stretched-curd technique to the region, and Mexico now makes close to 30,000 tonnes of it a year.

Cabrales, a blue cheese aged in Picos de Europa caves, comes from which Spanish region?

The caves sit at around 90% humidity and 7-13 °C, ideal for the moulds that vein the cheese during two to five months of ageing.

Which crumbly English cheese, first recorded around 1580, remains the UK's best-selling crumbly cheese?

In 1758 the Royal Navy ordered its ships stocked with it, and sales peaked at around 40,000 tonnes in 1960.

Which achiote-seed extract gives Red Leicester and yellow American cheese their orange colour?

Red Leicester was originally tinted with carrot or beetroot juice; the seed extract took over in the 18th century.

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

The event inspired the fictional 'Big Block of Cheese Day' in The West Wing, when staff meet the fringe groups the White House usually ignores.

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

The number is probably an undercount: 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?

NASA played on the old saying with an April Fools' announcement in 2006; nobody ever seriously believed it.

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

The find in Kuyavia predates the earliest Mediterranean evidence, from the Croatian coast, by about 300 years.

The oldest preserved cheese (c. 1615 BCE) was found on Xiaohe Cemetery mummies in which country?

The Taklamakan Desert's dryness kept it intact for more than 3,500 years.

Which country joined France, Finland and Germany among the heaviest cheese eaters in 2014, at about 25 kg a head?

That works out to roughly 55 pounds per person, close to a small wheel a month.

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

Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands followed; the global total was 22.6 million tonnes.

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?

The salt that preserved the evidence is the same salt those miners were digging out of the mountain.

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

The rolling wheel can hit speeds high enough to injure spectators; in 1993 sixteen people were hurt at the event.

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

Snipping off a charged fragment lets the protein particles clump together and trap fat, which is essentially what a curd is.

By the 2020s, less than what share of U.S. cheese was made with calf rennet?

Most U.S. cheese instead relies on chymosin produced by microbes, so it never came near a calf.

Which US state's legislature recognises the foam 'cheesehead' hat as an official state symbol?

The state once built a 70-foot cheeseboard just to show off the range of cheeses it produces.

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

The weekly wash keeps unwanted mould off and builds the pinkish-orange crust that gives the cheese its aroma.

Munster cheese comes from which French mountain region between Alsace and Lorraine?

Herders known as marcaires drove cattle up to the high pastures each summer and paid their tithes in cheese and butter.

Fresh cheese curds squeak against the teeth, a sound one newspaper compared to what?

The squeak fades within about 12 hours even in the fridge; keeping curds at room temperature preserves it longer.

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

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?

It beat a 34,591 lb Midwestern cheese made for the 1964 World's Fair, which itself needed a day's milk from 16,000 cows.

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

The same genus gave the world penicillin; in cheese it is deliberately introduced and left to ripen in cool, humid caves.

The word 'cheese' descends from which Latin word, which also gives us 'casein'?

Behind it lies a conjectured Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to ferment, become sour', which produced cīese in Old English.

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

The folk belief that late-night cheese causes nightmares predates the story and has been disproven, though its saturated fat may disturb sleep.

Most vegetarian rennet is produced by fermentation of which fungus?

Other vegetable rennets are extracted from Cynara thistles, while animal rennet comes from the stomachs of slaughtered calves.

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

Cheese was already an everyday Roman food by the time of Pliny, whose Natural History devotes a chapter to the varieties enjoyed in the empire.