heeses, like mozarella, are melted and re-pressed, until they get the right flavor.
Over time, different areas of the world developed different flavors of cheese. It starts with the native bacteria of the region. France, for example, has bacteria that lead to the white, powdery wheels of cheese that the region is so well known for. America is more known for bacteria that produce sharpish hard cheeses. And of course the Swiss have — among others — the bacteria that pump out carbon dioxide, giving the cheese its distinctive holes. Each cheese maker saves some of the last batch of cheese to make a starter, a bacterial sample, that gets the next batch going - like a rancher keeping a stock of laying hens or calving cows to get the next generation. After a while, the best strains of bacteria got sold or passed around, along with techniques that told cheese makers exactly how long to let them grow, when and how much to heat them, and how long to age them for a specific taste.
American-made cheese is generally considered to be limited and sad compared to foreign cheeses for a very simple reason; pasteurization. The USDA requires that cheeses be made with milk that is pasteurized, flash boiled or irradiated, in order to remove any harmful bacteria. If the milk isn't pasteurized, it has to be aged for sixty days before it can be sold to the public. This makes certain flavors in certain fresh cheeses impossible to achieve in America. It's a loss to foodies, but it has a certain historical aesthetic that I, personally, like.
Early cattle and goat herders had to recognize early the nutritious potential of milk. They also had to recognize its dangers. Milk went off quickly, either curdled or colonized by harmful bacteria that would kill the human who drank it. Hence, those early cheese-making methods that used simple rennet to curdle the milk, or stronger acids to curdle it before the bacteria could get the chance. This was all designed to let them enjoy the milk a little longer.
And then the beneficial bacteria came along. Although humanity had used yeast to raise bread, the yeast's labor was solely beneficial. In cheese, humanity put sympathetic bacteria to work killing deadly bacteria. We allowed certain strains to invade our food and take it over, mowing down our enemies and occupying their territory. Since these bacteria could never do us any harm, we let them stay where they were, preserving our precious food for years at a time. Until we wanted to eat it.
And so I lied a bit in my opening paragraph. The bacteria aren't cattle, and they aren't on a ranch. They're more like a group of colonists, storming into enemy territory, battling it out with their host's enemies, then settling and raising generations on the land that they won for us. Until one day, we decide they're no longer useful, and slaughter them all. They're the first organism enslaved to do our fighting and preservation for us, and we betray them every time.
I'd feel bad, if they weren't so delicious.
Top Image: Christian Bauer
Second Image: Flickr, OSU