favorite parts of the book were the explorations of broader economic trends and developments, The portions that went deeply into the flavors and traits of cheeses, however, got a little dry for someone, like me, who doesn't already know cheeses I wanted to try everything he mentioned! Reading this reminded me of reading EXTRA VIRGINITY: THE SUBLIME AND SCANDALOUS WORLD OF OLIVE OIL.
This time I learned more than I ever hoped to know about cheese, Painstakingly researched by a professor at the University of Vermont, Kindstedt points out the strong connection between religion and cheese production.
The monastery was Europe's premier economic engine of the Middle Ages, Thanks to the ingenuity of the Benedictines and Cistercians, cheeses of great diversity were produced during the Middle Ages.
Even earlier than the Middle Ages milk coagulation through the use of rennet may have been practiced as a rite of religious healing.
Cheese vats were actually discovered in the sanctuary of Asklepias, god of healing and the son of Apollo.
We Americans have missed out on the diversity of cheeses due to our country's pasteurization requirements.
Although I can't afford some of the more exotic imports that go for as much as thirty dollars per pound, I will make a point of trying small quantities of Dutch Gouda, French Roquefort, and Swiss Gruyere now that I have attained a greater understanding of the impact of cheese on culture.
If you love history and cheese, this is truly a book to geekout over, Kindstedt discusses what is known about cheese in the ancient worldhey, the gods love a good cheesebut through the Roman era, the rise of the market economy in Europe, and the expansion of cheese into the American colonies.
The historical aspect is what really appealed to me: the history of the western world told through its cheeses.
I did feel like the very end was bogged down by legalese and arguments over name origins and pasteurization this seemed to be explained in a drier way than in other cheese books like Mastering Cheese.
Overall an excellent book though, and one I'll keep on my shelf for reference, An enthusiastic attempt to chart the entire world's history of cheese, by a cheeseologist who became interested in history as opposed to a historian who is interested in cheese.
It's a tertiarysource sort of book everything's footnoted, but all his sources are academic papers and books and so on.
I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that he doesn't come off as a careful historian sort of person.
He's eager to speculate where evidence is lacking, and evidence is pretty well lacking when you're talking about ancient Hittite cheesemaking recipes.
Sad but true.
The book tracks what we do know about cheese in history, from those BronzeAge civilizations up through Classical times, the Middle Ages, industrialization, and the modern artisan cheese movement, and caps off with a quick look at current legal issues.
The ongoing tussle about cheesename protection who can call their cheese "Roquefort", e, g. and the equally ongoing wrangle about rawmilk cheese in the US,
Rather than try to analyze the book further, I'll just tell you what I learned, which will either enflame your interest further or save you from having to read the book at all.
Pretty much every civilization invents cheese, It's what happens as soon as you have a surplus of milk and need to do something with it.
However, inventing a storable, shippable, durable cheese is trickier, Most of the author's speculation is about who started using coagulants such as rennet, and when, Anatolia,ish BC, looks like the earliest definite date,
"Transhumance" is an awfully impressive word for having separate winter and summer grazing fields for your herd.
Cheese is an important food throughout European history, Not so much in China, etc, The author falls short of making it a crucial part of every stage of Western civilization, but he does turn up a lot of interesting relevancies.
The great enemy of the cheese industry turns out to be the butter industry, You generally want to skim off some of the cream before you start making cheese, and then you sell that as butter.
But butter is more profitable, so it is tempting to skim off more and more cream, Pretty soon all your profit is coming from butter, and your cheese is this nasty lowfat stuff which is boring when fresh and turns into a rock if you try to age it.
Give up and feed the whey to your pigs,
Unless you are a Dutch cheese genius and figure out how to make an interesting spiced skimmilk cheese that doesn't suck, and then you sell that.
Holland had a lot of cheese geniuses in the late Middle Ages this is when Gouda and Edam and so on got popular.
Most importantly, "cheese" is a funny word, and the more you read it the funnier it gets.
Particularly in a book like this which goes on about cheese factors and cheese innovators and cheese technology.
The author tries to keep the tone serious by throwing in a "transhumance" now and then, but it's no good against the tidal wave of "cheese".
Cheese cheese cheese.
This book made me want to eat nothing but cheese, all the time, It was very inspiring on that front! It's a little dry in places, and at times functions as a Western Civ course that occasionally mentions cheese in what seems like an afterthought.
Basically, there isn't a whole lot of tangible evidence of how cheese was made before the middle ages a lot of the first few chapters is speculation.
It's interesting nonetheless.
Since I am borderline obsessed with cheese, I enjoyed this book, However, it's not for the person who isn't really interested in cheese, It won't make a noncheese believer suddenly convert, Yes, the book is about cheese but it is much more fascinating for the history is presents.
From a wide angle lens, the author walks you through prehistory through thest Century while trying to squeeze cheese in as much as possible.
At one point he discusses Jesus Christ as “one whose influence on western civilization and cheese history would soon be unleashed.
” A little dramatic but I enjoyed learning some basics of cheese making and the differences behind the cheeses.
I skimmed over some of the chapters that got a little to
cheesy for me but I really enjoyed his discussion of the ancient empires of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece.
A thoughtful, thorough and though dense, incredibly revealing book about the rise of cheese through western human history.
The author takes a deep dive into many aspects of cheese production, history, and the physical, geographical, ideological, cultural and political influences of world events on the history of western cheesemaking.
A fantastic resource for any cheese enthusiast, I would love to see another book in this style for the rest of the world! Some favorite quotes:
Every time he uses the word "transhumance"
.
. . "with grave consequences to cheese quality"
"lactage police" a phrase which, after Googling, I realize is not a really cool, bizarrely specific term, but is totally made up by the author
I thought the book was really interesting, especially as he got into more modern history i.
e.,s. In the beginning, there's a lot of willingness to speculate about cheese history because the evidence simply isn't there.
I think, as a cheese scientist type person, he also got a little too caught up in the history part of his book at times.
I found myself skimming some pages that seemed all history and no cheese, However, I learned a whole lot about how cheese played a role in historical events that I already knew about the birth of Christianity, the growth of monasteries, the colonization of the Americas, slavery, etc.
Is this a book an attentiongrabbing story about the life of cheese No, Is it a thoughtprovoking informative textbooklike read Yes, Dont be deterred. I love that this book is what it is, It weaves anthropology, sociology, history, politics, and of course, food science, together, History doesnt always happen rapidly or in a very interesting way, and I believe that is why some may classify this book as boring.
I also think the author made a fair attempt and putting what little pieces we have of the archaeological puzzle together.
I may be a bit biased due to my extreme obsession of cheese, but this book is definitely on my list of books to read again I may even take notes next time.
Subject Appeal:/.
Research Depth:/.
Research Breadth:/.
Narrative Flow:/.
Verdict:/. Filling like its topic, Kindstedt's research makes a convincing case for cheese's hallowed place in the human diet.
Had higher expectations than what I got, Was hoping for an anthropological account of cheese production and consumption, Instead the author goes through pain staking historical details since the beginning of agriculture, The title of the book would lead one to believe that the audience is a bit more sophisticated than your average reader, not sure why the author felt the need to do a deep dive in early agriculture, god worship of the classics, inception of the industrial age, and much more.
Not sure if the biblical quotes at the beginning of most chapters added value to this book by tying the bible to cheese making.
If you want to skip ahead to the lastpages, that's actually where the author gets interesting.
How production of cheese changes and therefore impacts the world market and tastes, The last chapter on EUUSA food regulation needed to be addresses, but feels so out of place that the abrupt ending does not seem to bother at all.
Just glad it is over,
This book was so insanely boring I couldn't finish it, It wasn't so much a history of cheese and cheese making, but a generic survey of Western Civ, with the occasional mention of cheese.
I tried to pick it up again, but just couldn't get into it, I wanted to like this book, This book starts out a bit slow, covering irrelevant bits of human history, but before it gets a dozen pages in, it has managed to reach the relevant portion: the Neolithic era, where the changing composition of bones from domestic animals points to their being dairy, not meat, producers, and the milk fat on pottery shards.
Approximately a thousand years before adult lactose tolerance appeared, so they were making butter and cheese even then, to make it digestible by adults.
Discussing the techniques, both acid probably the earlier and rennet methods of making cheese, Rennetbased is only definitely identified among the Hittites,
Before then we have the Sumerian goddess Inanna persuaded to change whom she'll marry based on the shepherd's argument that he can provide her with all these milk products, and the temples had enormous sheep flocks to provide the necessary cheese and butter offerings the constant ration pointed at the way they made butter first and then cheese from the buttermilk and the whey.
The arrival of cheese in India in the form which it remained for centuries a combination of prohibitions against impure food and killing beasts, and the tropical weather, probably kept it that way.
How the increase in trade changed cheese, and the need for rinded cheese for it to keep.
How climate changes in Europe produced alpine transhumance moving the large flock to alpine pasture opened up by the cooling that lowered the tree line in the summer and back in the winter, when feeding was actually more difficult, often relying on leaves and the effects of that on cheesemaking.
Greek cheese, used as sacrificial offerings and as ingredients in sacrificial cakes, and exported the priests of Athena in Athens could not eat local cheese, only imported the temple of Artemis in Sparta was famed for its cheese partly because that was a favorite raiding location for Spartan boys, deliberately underfed and punished if caught stealing.
The time that Athens sacrificed a deliberately simple meal to Castor and Pollux, to remind Athenians of the good old ways it included cheese.
How the conquest of Sicily made it the breadbasket of Rome and so had many Roman farmers switching to cheese a process not exactly hurt by the ecological damage caused by farming the hillside and denuding them of trees for their navies.
Demesne and peasant techniques of making cheese in the medieval times, and how the cooler climate let you pool milk over several days, which produced much more acid cheeses, and also let you ripen it with mold growing on it.
The balance of butter and cheese some counties in England lost the cheese trade entirely when they skimmed off too much of the fat for the butter and made a cheap cheese that soon lost favor even among the poorer classes.
Holland managed by making "spice cheese" and favoring the lowfat stuff,
Cheese to America and the rise of the factory made cheese,
The current fights over designated names and the impact on cheese,
Full of wonderful stuff, .