CHEESE (AS. cis(', from Lat. CUSCUR, •heese). A food product made from milk by separating the curd or casein and portions of the fat and other constituents from the whey, shaping the mass into different forms, and usually ripening or curing it. The product has been known since earliest times. the oldest mention of it dating back to about we. 1400. it was a common food material long before butter was known. the ref prelims to butter in the Bible being more correct ly translated, 'curdled milk.' The Greeks were familiar with eheese-making at the time of and Aristotle refers to the renneting of milk with the sap of the fig. mentions cheese made from mare's milk and from goat's milk. Sheep's In ilk was employed for this purpose by the early Egyptians. The Romans used cheese as food quite exl?msively. and were familiar with several kinds. one sim ilar to Limburger. others flavored with spices and herbs, and some \Vida were smoked in the Process of making. Columella gives a very good description of the methods employed in cheese making, and Pliny describes the foreign eheeses to be had in Rome, some of which were quite celebrated.
At the present day more than one hundred and fifty ditrereut kinds of cheese made in Europe and America have been described. These depend for their characteristics upon the kind and condition of the milk used the process of making, the seasoning. and especially upon the condition: incident to the ripening or curing. (See C11EEsE-\L\E1\G.) Cow's milk is, of course, mainly used, but in some parts of Eurolie the milk of goats and sheep is also employed. The milk inn y lie sweet tor sour, it may contain dif ferent amounts of fat, depending upon whether whole milk, skim milk, or milk to which cream is added is used, and the cheese ma} be hard or soft, according to the amount of water left in it and the eharaeter of the curing. The principal hard ehepses are the common Cheddar cheese, the English Cheshire, Gloucester, \Ciltslnrp, and Stilton, the Dutch Gouda and Edam, the Sell wpit rcr (Swiss) or Enunenthaler (known also as Gruyer('). and the ]taljail Parmesan and Gor gonzola. Among the soft cheeses are Brie t/'romage de Brie), Camembert. \euch5te1, Lim lmrger, 'brick,' Phi In del pluia cream, and eottage cheese, or '.smierkase.' The famous lioquefort is a semisoft cheese. In addition to these, there are many fancy brands of cheese, made in the United States and Canada, by mixing ground cheese with cream, or butter, or oils, and some times adding a flavoring material, such as \leadow-Sweet, Club-Ilouse. Canadian l9ub, pie. Pineapple cheese is ordinary cheese made very firm and pressed into the shape suggested by its name, in composition, cheeses of the same general variety vary quite widely, owing to (litTerences in the richness of the milk used, the amount of water left in the curd, and the age of the product. As cheese ripens and
ages it dries out considerably, losing from S to 15 per cent, of its water. The water in ordinary factory cheese varies all the way from 15 to over 50 per cent., although in well-cured cheese it usually constitutes about one-third, or 35 per cent. The remainder is solid matter. composed main]}- of fat, casein tprotein),and a little sugar and a,h (mostly salt). Fully one-half of the solids in a wholp-milk cheese should he fat: in skim-milh cheese the proportion is considerably b•.s. Van Sl•ke found the average composition of whole-milk cheese made in New York factories to be: \\rater, 31.5: fat, 37; protein. 2)1.25: ash, sugar. etc., 5.25 per cent. The average of a large number of American analyses difrers but little from this, and is as follows: \\'ater, 34.2: fat, 33.7; protein, 25.4; ; sh, sugar, etc.. 6.2 per cent.
'1 lie average pereentane composition of a nmu ber of the more eonnnun kinds of cheese is shown by the accomp:n ,\ lug table.
\l:my of the foreign cheeses, sueli as Ennuen tbaler (Schweitzer), Edam, Neueh51el, brick, and I.inburger, are now so - essilllly made in the lliitr•d States: but more than nine-tenths of all the cheese made in this country is the familiar st:urdard variety known as Clicddar. The grades of this cheese c•onunonly rceofmized aic: 'Full cream.' made from whale (nn.skinnned) milk: 'skims,' made from skinuned or partly skinuued milk; and 'filled' cheese, in whii'h foreign fat is substituted for the natural fat. of the milk. The latter is the most serious firm of adultera tion of cheese, and as the product is palmed ofT is 'full-cream cheese,' it is to be regarded and should he treated as a fraud. Its base is skim milk, which is very abundant and cheap in creamery districts. The fat added is usually oleo oil or neutral lard, and from these cheap materials it is said that filled cheese can he made for 4 or 5 cents a pound. it is not easily de tected by ordinary sampling when fresh; but it has little flavor or aroma, and its quality is short-lived. The exportation of considerable quan tities of this cheese under fraudulent names has unfavorably atl'ected the export cheese trade of the United States. Several of the dairy States have prohibited its manufacture, and others have enacted laws requiring its I roper labeling.