ANTIQUITY OF CHEESE.
Cheese and curdling of milk are mentioned in the Book of Job. David was sent by his father, Jesse, to carry ten cheeses to the camp, and to see how his brethren fared. "Cheese of kine" formed part of the supplies of David's army at Mahanaim during the rebellion of Absalom. Homer makes cheese form part of the ample stores found by Ulysses in the cave of the Cyclop Polyphemus. Euripides, Theocritus, and other early poets, mention cheese. Ludolphus says that excellent cheese and butter were made by the ancient Ethiopians. Strabo states that some of the ancient Britons were so ignorant that, though they had abundance of milk, they did not understand the art of making cheese. There is no evidence that any of these ancient nations had discovered the use of rennet in making cheese; they appear to have merely allowed the milk to sour, and subsequently to have formed the cheese from the caseous part of the milk, after expelling the serum or whey. As David, when too young to carry arms, was able to run to the camp with ten cheeses, ten loaves, and an ephah of parched corn, the cheeses must have been very small.
Thomas Coghan, in The Haven of Health, 1584, says: "What cheese is well made or otherwise may partly be perceived by an old Latin verse translated thus—'Cheese should be white as snowe is, nor ful of eyes as Argos was, nor old as Mathusalem was, nor rough as Esau was, nor full of spots as Lazarus.' Master Tusser, in his book of Husbandrie, addeth 'other properties also of cheese well made, which whoso listeth may reade. Of this sort, for the most part, is that which is made about Bamburie in Oxfordshire; for of all the cheese (in my judgment) it is the best, though some prefer Cheshire cheese made about Nantwich, and others also commend more the cheese of other countries; but Bamburie cheese shall goe for my money, for therein (if it be of the best sort) you shall neither tast the renet nor salt, which be two speciall properties of good cheese. Now who is so desirous to eat cheese must eate it after other meate, and in a little quantity. A pennyweight, according to the old saying, is enough; for being thus used it bringeth two commodities. First, It strengthened a weake stomache. Secondly, It maketh other meates to descend into the chief place of digestion; that is, the bosome of the stomache, which is approved in "Schola Salerni." But old and hard cheese is altogether disallowed, and reckoned among those ten manner of meates which ingender melancholy, and bee unwholesome for sick folkes, as appeareth before in the chapter of Beefe.'"
The county of Chester was, ages since, famous for the excellence of its cheese. It is stated that the Countess Constance of Chester (reign of Henry II., 1100), though the wife of Hugh Lupus, the King's first cousin, kept a herd of kine, and made good cheese, three of which she presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Giraldus Cambrensis, in the twelfth century, bears honourable testimony to the excellence of the Cheshire cheese of his day.
Cheshire retains its celebrity for cheese-making: the pride of its people in the superiority of its cheese may be gathered from the following provincial song, with the music, published in 1746, during the Spanish war, in the reign of George II.
"A Cheshire-man sailed into Spain,
To trade for merchandise:
When he arrivèd from the main
A Spaniard him espies.
"Who said, 'You English rogue, look here—
What fruits and spices fine
Our land produces twice a year!
Thou hast not such in thine.'
"The Cheshire-man ran to his hold,
And fetched a Cheshire cheese,
And said, 'Look here, you dog! behold,
We have such fruits as these!
"'Your fruits are ripe but twice a year,
As you yourself do say;
But such as I present you here,
Our land brings twice a day.'
"The Spaniard in a passion flew,
And his rapier took in hand;
The Cheshire-man kicked up his heels,
Saying, 'Thou art at my command!'
"So never let a Spaniard boast,
While Cheshire-men abound,
Lest they should teach him, to his cost,
To dance a Cheshire round!"[56]
Next to Cheshire rank Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Somerset, for their cheese. In the latter county they have the proverb:
"If you wid have a good cheese, and hav'n old,
You must turn 'n seven times before he is old."
To curdle the milk in cheese-making was formerly used the Galium verum of botanists, a wild flower with square stems, shining whorled leaves, and loose panicles of small yellow flowers, popularly known as Cheese Rennet.
The practice of mixing sage and other herbs, and the flowers or seeds of plants, with cheese, was common among the Romans; and this led to the herbs, &c. being worked into heraldic devices in the Middle Ages. Charlemagne once ate cheese mixed with parsley-seeds at a bishop's palace, and liked it so much, that ever after he had two cases of such cheese sent yearly to Aix-la-Chapelle. Our pastoral poet of the last century has noted this device:
"Marbled with sage, the hardened cheese she pressed."—Gay.