Now this my friends is what I call news: http://www.counselheal.com/articles/8828/20140228/archaeologists-find-worlds-oldest-cheese-buried-chinese-mummies.htm I find this interesting because some roommates of mine years ago estimated I eat fifty times more cheese than the average cheese-loving human being. They took to calling me 'Captain Cheese. 'Now, I want to be buried with a waxed wheel of it on my chest. . If you love solidified, fermented milk this is the article for you. Hooray for cheese!
I misread the title of this as "Archaeologists find World's oldest cheeseburger." I can't read the link. It doesn't work. =/
Hahah! Oldest cheeseburger would probably be found in a derelict Denver White Castle, discovered by sufferers of the munchies brought on by Colorado's legalization of weed. (I fixed the link. Please have another go at it) http://www.counselheal.com/articles/8828/20140228/archaeologists-find-worlds-oldest-cheese-buried-chinese-mummies.htm
Cheese is a preservation method, since raw milk does not last long without refrigeration. In modern cheese making, milk is first heated and then cooled. I can see the ancient milk sitting in the hot sun, spoiling. Someone comes along and notices it will last longer in the cool. Churning the milk into butter could have evolved via trying to homogenize the warm spoiling milk that was curdling. Often necessity is the mother of invention. It could have been motivated by the need to quickly prepare the milk for the pharaoh, to avoid milk specialist from being tortured. The pharaoh likes the new solid milk. They also find it lasts much longer and gets better with age.
The enzyme that is a catalyst in cheese formation/milk solidification is rennet, and it exists in a sheep's stomach. So what probably happened is that ancient people were carrying around milk in a sort of freshly improvised leathern bottle, then did not get around to drinking it for a few days, and voilà - a cheese is born.
Reasonable... but what prompted them to eat it? If a solid suddenly appeared where I had been carrying a liquid, especially one known to spoil/sour, I doubt I would eat it. Then again, who was the first person to try eating a clam or mussel... and how desperate was that poor bastard to suck down what, at least uncooked, tends to equate to a wet snot ball...
Short answer: hunger. Or probably as in the case of clams and mussels - they saw that the dog ate it. Man's best friend indeed!
