History of cheese and cheese legends.

In this article we will try to answer the question: where did this wonderful protein product, so beloved by many bodybuilders around the world, come from? Cheese is a very ancient food and it is impossible to say with complete certainty: when and who exactly invented it, since the history of cheese goes back to the distant past, even before the advent of writing...

Most likely, its origin dates back to ancient times. Cheese is the same age as milk. As soon as our ancestors began to extract cow's milk, they had a new task - storing it. And one day they noticed that when curdled, this product acquires a harder consistency and can be stored much longer. At the same time, its taste characteristics change only for the better.

Since then, many experiments have been carried out in the field of obtaining this product. This includes the type of milk, storage temperature and processing method. New varieties of cheese and cooking recipes were constantly being invented. Most likely, they all came to us this way.

Oriental cheeses are considered to be the most ancient. But the famous and most widely heard Dutch cheese is not so old. This product came to Europe only in the Middle Ages. But Europeans immediately picked up the baton of producing their own varieties of this delicacy, loving their piquant taste. France, Switzerland and the Netherlands are leaders in the cheese business. Their culinary works still occupy leading positions on the tables of gourmet cheese lovers. The French got rid of it as much as they could and did not disdain to use even mold, mites and nematode worms in the preparation of this dairy product. For the French, cheese means no less than bread for a Russian, potatoes for a Belarusian, and lard for a Ukrainian.

Each country had and valued its own types of cheeses and recipes for their preparation. The Greeks loved the goat milk product. But the Romans, for example, valued Moon cheese. Semi-hard Cheddar was popular in England. Hard cheese came to Russia thanks to the great Peter the Great, who first brought it from Holland.

Cheese legends.

There are a large number of legends about the appearance of this miracle product. The most famous and most truthful legend is about the merchant Kanan, dating back to the 2nd millennium BC. This story says that cheese originated in Africa. Wandering from one place to another in the hot desert, the Bedouin transported milk sealed in a leather skin. Apparently, the milk turned sour and frothed, and after a few days of wandering the Bedouin saw a strange yellowish mass instead. Having tried it, he was surprised by the unusual taste and hastened to tell all his relatives and friends about his discovery. This is where the widespread distribution of the new dairy product began.

The ancient Greeks had their own legend. It, like all Greek stories, is more like a beautiful fairy tale. So, according to this legend, it was the goddess of hunting Artemis who gave the cheese recipe to people. It was she who taught how to combine wine with this unearthly product. After all, even the gods feasted on it, washing it down with selected grape wine. Even some ancient religious rituals were associated with cheeses. For example, the inhabitants of Crete sacrificed it to the Gods. And the Athenian priests were strictly forbidden to taste this product, so as not to develop an addiction.

In Ancient Rome, our dairy product was also praised. They believed that this food was simply necessary for proper digestion, and could even be effectively used as an antidote for poisoning! Cheese is mentioned in Homer's poem "Odyssey", in Pliny the Elder's "Natural History", in Virgil and many other poets and writers of antiquity.