50 Fun Facts About Dairy

Wheels of which hard Italian cheese are accepted as loan collateral by the bank Credito Emiliano?

Parmesan is aged for at least 12 months before it can be sold, so each wheel is a slow but valuable asset. An industry consortium inspects every wheel at that point.

Despite its name, Philadelphia cream cheese was first made by dairyman William Lawrence in which US state?

New York dairyman William Lawrence made it in the village of Chester. A distributor added the Philadelphia name in 1880 because that city was known for fine dairy.

Which gas, given off by bacteria as the cheese ripens, forms the famous holes in Swiss Emmental?

Carbon dioxide bubbles get trapped in the firm cheese and leave the holes, which cheesemakers call eyes. For centuries the eyes were treated as a flaw to avoid.

Which US state, whose football fans wear foam cheese wedges as hats, makes about a quarter of America's cheese?

Wisconsin leads the nation in cheese production, and its people answer to the nickname Cheeseheads. The foam hats caught on with Packers fans in the 1990s.

Which French scientist's 1860s experiments on spoiled wine led to the heat treatment that makes milk safe to drink?

Louis Pasteur found in 1864 that briefly heating young wine killed the microbes that soured it. The method, later named after him, was not used on milk for many years.

Which black-and-white cattle breed from the Netherlands is the breed of choice for most of the world's dairy farmers?

Holstein cows are the biggest of all dairy breeds, and an average one in the United States gives about 22,000 pounds of milk a year.

Which substance makes up about 87 percent of ordinary cow's milk, far more than anything else in the glass?

Water accounts for about 87.7 percent of typical American cow's milk. Sugar, fat, protein and minerals together make up only around an eighth.

Which food did chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès invent in 1869 to meet Napoleon III's call to feed the army cheaply?

Margarine began as a butter substitute made from beef tallow, which its inventor patented under the name oleomargarine. It brought him little commercial success.

Which natural sugar in cow's milk are around 65 percent of the world's adults unable to digest fully?

Lactose takes its name from lac, the Latin word for milk. Most mammals stop making the enzyme that breaks it down once they are weaned.

Which famously smelly cheese is ripened with the same bacterium that helps cause foot odour on human skin?

Limburger gets its notorious smell from Brevibacterium linens, a bacterium that also lives on people. The odour only develops once the cheese is about three months old.

Which Channel Island, the largest of the group, gives its name to a small dairy cow famed for milk rich in butterfat?

Jersey cows were bred on the island, and their milk has a yellowish tinge. Before 1789, cows were handed over as dowries when islanders married into neighbouring Guernsey.

Which word for a young female cow that has not yet calved also names a charity that gives livestock to poor families?

Heifer is the term until a cow has her first calf. The charity Heifer International took the name after starting out in 1944 with a shipment of 17 young cows to Puerto Rico.

What do cows bring back up from the stomach to chew a second time, grinding tough grass into small particles?

Cud comes back up a mouthful at a time and is ground down by the molars. It is then swallowed again so that micro-organisms in the stomach can digest it further.

Which is the largest of the four compartments of a cow's stomach, where microbes ferment tough plant fibre?

Rumen microbes break down fibre-rich roughage that mammals cannot digest on their own. The organ is also known as the paunch.

Which sour-smelling winter feed is made by fermenting chopped green crops packed tightly to keep out the air?

Silage keeps because fermentation sours the crop once air is shut out. Bulk loads usually go to dairy cattle, while wrapped bales tend to feed beef cattle and sheep.

Like every other mammal, a dairy cow only begins to produce milk after which event in her life?

Giving birth starts each cycle of milk, so farms breed their cows again and again to keep it flowing. A cow is rested for about 60 days before her next calf arrives.

World Dairy Expo crowns a Supreme Champion cow each October in which Midwestern state capital?

Madison hosts what is considered the largest and most important dairy cattle show in North America. The winner is chosen from the grand champions of each breed.

Which state's fair has shown a life-size cow sculpted from butter since 1911, carved for decades by Norma 'Duffy' Lyon?

Iowa knew her as the Butter Cow Lady. Between 1960 and 2006 she also sculpted Elvis Presley, John Wayne and a butter version of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper.

Which month has been promoted as National Dairy Month in the US since it began in 1937 as National Milk Month?

June was chosen to steady demand at a time when farms were producing a surplus of milk. The name changed after the National Dairy Council joined the campaign.

Which inflammation of the udder, usually triggered by bacteria, is the most common and costly disease of dairy cows?

Mastitis sets in when white blood cells flood the mammary gland, usually because bacteria have entered through the teat canal. It can be fatal.

Which mineral, the most abundant metal in the human body, is milk best known for supplying to growing bones?

Calcium is also plentiful in yogurt and cheese, but dairy has no monopoly on it. Salmon, kale and soy products are rich in it too.

Which nutrient did American dairies start adding to milk in the early 1930s to wipe out the bone disease rickets?

Vitamin D had only been discovered in 1922, by researchers hunting for what was missing from the diets of children with rickets. Fortified milk sharply cut the disease.

Which process forces milk fat into tiny, evenly spread globules so that cream no longer floats to the top?

Homogenization works by forcing milk at high pressure through very small holes. Without it, the fat slowly separates and collects at the top of the bottle.

Which protein, about 80 percent of the protein in cow's milk, clumps together to form the curds in cheesemaking?

Casein comes from caseus, the Latin word for cheese. It has also been mixed into a fast-drying paint that artists have used since ancient Egyptian times.

Which thin liquid is left behind when milk is curdled and strained, the stuff eaten by Little Miss Muffet?

Whey was once treated as waste and pumped into American rivers and streams. Its protein is now marketed as a popular dietary supplement.

Which set of enzymes, traditionally taken from the stomach lining of young calves, is added to milk to make cheese?

Rennet from calves now goes into less than 5 percent of American cheese. Most makers use a copy of its key enzyme produced by engineered microbes instead.

Which canned dairy product did Gail Borden pioneer in the 1850s, later a bulk field ration for Union soldiers?

Condensed milk grew out of tragedy: Borden set to work after seeing children die from bad milk on an 1851 sea voyage. His first two factories failed.

Which US president signed the proclamation that made July National Ice Cream Month in the United States?

Ronald Reagan's proclamation named only July 1984, but ice cream makers have kept the celebration going every summer since.

Which process, once done by hand in a wooden tub with a plunger called a dasher, turns cream into butter?

Churning in the European tradition was mainly women's work, one of the essential household chores. Later designs swapped the plunger for a crank that spun a paddle.

Which orange pigment, picked up from the pasture grass that cows eat, gives butter its natural yellow colour?

Carotene, mainly beta-carotene, passes from pasture into cow's milk and tints the butter. Makers sometimes deepen the colour with annatto, a natural dye.

Which stretched-curd Italian cheese, made with either cow or buffalo milk, tops a classic pizza Margherita?

Mozzarella squeaks when it is chewed fresh. The buffalo behind the prized version are thought to descend from animals that reached Italy in the 7th century.

Which crumbly white cheese, aged in brine and made mostly from sheep's milk, has been a protected Greek name since 2002?

Feta may carry the name in the European Union only if it comes from mainland Greece or Lesbos and is at least 70 percent sheep's milk. Lookalikes need another label.

Which cheese is named after a Somerset village whose gorge caves gave the steady cool air needed to mature it?

Cheddar ripened well in the caves because they held an ideal humidity and temperature. Only makers in four West Country counties may label theirs West Country Farmhouse.

Which blue cheese is made only from sheep's milk and ripened in the natural caves of Mont Combalou?

Roquefort is made entirely from the milk of Lacaune sheep. A 1961 court ruling barred anyone who ripened cheese outside those caves from using the name.

Which soft Normandy cheese, reportedly first made by farmer Marie Harel, is traditionally packed in a small wooden box?

Camembert only travelled far once the wooden box was devised. It let the cheese reach America, where it became very popular, and the boxes are still used.

Which fresh South Asian cheese, curdled with lemon juice, keeps its shape in a hot curry instead of melting?

Paneer may owe its existence to the Portuguese, who by one theory brought the trick of splitting milk with acid to Bengal in the 17th century. Its true origins are not known.

The blue-green veins in cheeses such as Stilton and Gorgonzola are grown by an edible mould from which genus?

Penicillium is the same genus that gave medicine the antibiotic penicillin. The moulds used in cheese need oxygen to grow.

In which English county do racers chase a wheel of cheese down the steep slope of Cooper's Hill each spring?

Gloucestershire sends a round of its own Double Gloucester down the hill with about a one-second head start. A foam replica stood in for safety in 2013, for one year only.

Which rich, soft Italian dairy product, made by curdling cream with acid, forms the creamy layers of tiramisu?

Mascarpone is technically a thickened cream, not a true cheese, because it never forms a proper curd. Tartaric acid scraped from wine barrels can be used to set it.

Which Mediterranean island is home to casu martzu, a sheep's milk cheese deliberately riddled with live fly maggots?

Sardinia's cheesemakers let cheese flies lay eggs in pecorino, and the larvae digest it until it turns very soft. A ripe wheel can hold thousands of maggots.

The word yogurt came into English in the 1600s from which language, where it is related to a verb meaning to knead?

Turkish gave English the word in the 1620s. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder had already described foreign peoples thickening milk into a pleasantly sour food.

Which fermented milk drink, popular in the North Caucasus, is made by adding cultures known as grains to milk?

Kefir was traditionally made in goatskin bags hung near a doorway. Anyone passing would knock the bag to keep the milk and grains well mixed.

Which thick, high-protein cultured dairy food, mentioned in medieval sagas, has been eaten in Iceland for centuries?

Skyr is eaten like yogurt but can be classed as a fresh sour-milk cheese. It turns up in medieval Icelandic sources including Egil's saga.

Which clarified butter, simmered until the milk solids settle out, is a staple cooking fat across South Asia?

Ghee has been used in religious rituals since the Vedic period, and its name traces back to the Sanskrit word for clarified butter.

Which country overtook the United States in 1997 to become the world's largest milk producer?

India took the lead after Operation Flood, a decades-long programme of village co-operatives, transformed its dairy industry.

Kumis, the fermented drink of the Central Asian steppes, is traditionally made from the milk of which animal?

Horse milk holds more sugar than cow's or goat's, so the fermented drink turns out mildly alcoholic. Factories usually switch to cow's milk because mare's milk is so scarce.

Tibetan butter tea is traditionally made by blending tea leaves and salt with butter from the milk of which animal?

Yak butter tea did not become popular in Tibet until about the 13th century, some six centuries after tea itself arrived. Cow's butter is increasingly used because it costs less.

Which dense Italian frozen dessert, traditionally served with a flat spade, has less butterfat than other ice creams?

Gelato was once reserved for nobles. A Sicilian, Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, was among the first to sell it to the public, at the Café Procope he opened in Paris in 1686.

Which Quebec dish, which emerged in the 1950s, tops French fries with fresh cheese curds and hot brown gravy?

Poutine was for many years used by some to mock Quebec society. It has since become a celebrated symbol of the province's culture.

Which US president was sent a 1,235-pound wheel of cheese by the townspeople of Cheshire, Massachusetts?

Thomas Jefferson's cheese was pressed in a cider mill from the milk of every cow in town, apart from those owned by his Federalist opponents. It left town on a sleigh.