Dairy

Ingredients

• How Cheese is Made
• Cheese Making Regions
• Varieties of Cheese
• Nutrition & Health
• Links

The full process listed here would be for an aged and ripened cheese. The process is varied for different types of cheeses and some cheeses don't go through all the steps, particularly fresh cheeses will not be aged and loose cheeses will not be pressed.

1. First you milk your beast - cow, goat, sheep, buffalo or whatever. The milk may be used as is, or it may be skimmed, or enhanced with extra cream, or you may pasteurize it, even homogenize it, depending on the cheese you are making. Some, like Swiss, can't be made from pasteurized milk and some soft cheeses just don't taste the same if not made from raw milk.
2. You warm the milk and add a starter bacteria culture to increase the acidity of the milk so it will curdle properly.
3. At a particular point you add a curdling agent. For simple farmhouse cheeses like Paneer or some recipes for Farmer Cheese lemon juice is both acidifier and does the curdling, no starter being used. More elaborate cheeses it will use rennet (extracted from the fourth stomach of a suckling calf (some disassembly required)) or now more commonly produced by genetically engineered bacteria (vegetable - microbal rennet) in large factory vats. Other curdling agents are also used.
4. You cut the congealed mass with a long knife to allow the whey (watery part) to drain off the curds (gel part).
5. The curds are gently cooked to further coagulate them and make them more firm. Most cheeses are cooked in the whey, but for "washed curd" cheeses like colby the whey is replaced with water to produce a milder cheese.
6. The curds are then "cheddared" for a few minutes to a couple of hours by piling them up in a mass. The weight produces a fibrous texture. Some milder cheeses like Colby are not cheddared.
7. You then "mill" the cheese which may be stretching and kneading to enhance the fibrousness (Mozzarella), or grind it up to make it smooth (Cheddar).
8. The cheese is then salted and pressed to remove the last of the whey and slow further fermentation.
9. You can now age the cheese and further develop it with special molds (blue cheeses) or bacteria. "Fresh" cheeses are not aged and some are pickled in brine (Feta, Nabulsi).

Anatolia & Caucasus

• Armenia doesn't need to export a lot of cheese to the U.S. because tons of Armenian cheeses are made every day in California.
• Turkey is a major cheese exporter, particularly of white goat and sheep cheeses preserved with salt or brine. Semi-hard cheeses are also made and some foreign style cheeses for export. Many other types are made all over Turkey, but these are the major varieties.
  • Teleme is freshly made cheese curd similar to Cottage Cheese and the starting point for all the other cheeses.
  • White Cheese is what Feta is being called now that the EU has given that name exclusively to Greece. This is soft, crumbly cheese packed in salt brine is the most important cheese in Turkey
  • Tulum cheeses are made in various regions of Turkey. Most are soft and white but some harder yellow versions are also made. Some are put up in brine and others aren't.
  • Kasar is a dark yellow cylindrical cheese.
  • Milhalic is similar to Kasar but made a little different and is a little harder and white in color.
  • Lor is made from the whey left from making Ksar and Milhalic, thus is similar in type to Ricotta. It is used mainly as a spread or filling.

Asia: East / Southeast Asia   The cheeses of this region are tofu and similar coagulated soy products. East and Southeast asian peoples are pretty much 100% lactose intolerant so milk products are not much used.

North America

• California is the largest cheese producer in the United States. Only a few types of cheese are unique to California but the state is particularly noted for a wide variety of "ethnic" cheeses, particularly types from the Mediterranian, Balkans and Caucasus, the Near East and Mexico. The state is home to a significant and growing number of "artisanal" cheese makers, most making cheeses similar to those of France and Italy. California quality varies from "industrial" to world class "boutique" products and pricing ranges from moderate to astronomical depending on the intended market. California cheeses: Monterey Jack.
• Mexico / California. Mexican cooking uses a lot of cheese, and Mexican cheeses are unique, so truly Mexican cooking requires the right cheese. Little cheese is exported from Mexico but California churns out Mexican cheeses in vast tonnage and will export it to anywhere that has cash. Calling it Mexican cheese is fair because California was once part of Mexico and a large and ever growing population of Mexicans lives in California, and some of them make cheese. Fresh Cheeses: Queso Fresco, Queso Blanco, Panela, Ranchero. Melting Cheeses: Quesadilla, Chihuahua, Asadero, Oaxaca. Dry Cheeses for crumbling: Cotija, Enchilado.
• Wisconsin - once the cheese capital of the U.S., Wisconsin has been displaced by California. Wisconsin promptly declared it was "quality not quantity" that counted - exactly what you'd expect them to say. Lacking California's many ethnic populations Wisconsin produces fewer types of cheese but does make some very fine cheddar and hard Italian style cheeses. Some Near Eastern cheeses are also made there. Wisconsin also produces some of the worst industrial grade cheese and "processed cheese foods" to be found anywhere. Wisconsin cheeses: Colby.

Europe

• Balkans and Southeast Europe - possibly where cheese was invented, this region makes a range of very fine fresh and white cheeses as well as semi-hard cheeses like Sulguni.
• Denmark - famous for Danish Blue cheese and for a feta which can't be called feta anymore (see Greece).
• France - the Mecca of cheese - France produces a bewildering array of cheese types, and many of the highest quality cheeses found anywhere in the world.
• Greece is noted for Feta cheese, and they have conned the EU into giving them a monopoly on the name of a cheese traditional throughout southeastern Europe. Greece also makes a number of other lesser known cheeses.
• Italy makes almost as many different cheeses as France and has a similar attitude regarding quality. Unfortunately the only Italian type cheeses most Americans know are sawdust flavored grated Parmesan from Wisconsin and over-aged mozzarella made from cow's milk instead of water buffalo milk as in Italy.
• Switzerland is well known for the bubble riddled "Swiss Cheese" (Emmentaler) that is imitated worldwide with various degrees of success, but the country makes a number of other aged cheeses, mostly hard but some soft.

India has a long dairy tradition in the north but also has customs forbidding food to be held overnight and strictures on using animal rennet for coagulation. For these reason the only cheese much used is paneer, an acid coagulated cheese similar to farmer's cheese but squeezed drier, that can be used the day it is made. Paneer is not much used in southern India because the population there is largely lactose intolerant.

Near East

• Syria produces a number of cheeses similar to those of other Near Eastern countries:
  • Charkassiye:   a soft white fresh cheese similar to farmers cheese.
  • Jibne balda:   a hard, salty cheese often boiled before eating.
  • Shalal:   a salty white cheese similar to Armenian string cheese.
  • Surke:   [Shanklish] an aged spiced cheese that's a popular appetizer made into balls about the size of tennis balls and coated zatar or hot chili powder. Generally served chopped up with olive oil, tomatoes, black olives and onions.
  • Testouri   a cheese made popular throughout the Near East by the Ottoman Turks. It is made from sheep or goat milk and usually made up into balls the size of an orange.
  • Turkomani   A soft delicately flavored cheese filled with tiny bubble holes.

Nutrition & Health

Nutrition:  

Links

• C1 - Swiss Cheeses - Switzerland Cheese Marketing AG
• C2 - Greek Cheeses - Hellas
• C3 - Turkish Cheese - Turkish Cultural Foundation