Cheese: Making the most of Milk
Cheese is what I’m all about. That might not sound like the most alluring epitaph, but nevertheless it contains a ring of truth.
Cheese is something that we are all aware of; that we have an had different experiences of, and probably have an opinion about. Here, I am referring to cheese in the physical sense of a food substance made from milk, but cheese can of course have different meanings, and these things could also apply to those as well.
Cheese might not seem like the most interesting or important of topics, but actually quite a lot can be said about it and learnt from it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say!
It’s all in a Name
So, to begin with, where did the name cheese actually come from? As is often the case in English, a good place to start looking for the origins of a word is Latin. The Romans did many things to help influence and shape the world we live in, not least spreading around their language. Many words in English have a connection to Latin and it would appear that Cheese is no exception.
The Latin for Cheese was (and indeed still is!) ‘Caseus’. From this it seems that the Old English word ‘Cese’ came, which gradually became ‘Chese’ and finally, in modern in English, ‘Cheese’. It’s not hard to see how, over the years, due to different influences people gradually changed and developed their pronunciation of this word. Even at my not so advanced age, I can observe how the younger generation are transforming their use of the English language. A few years ago someone thought it interesting that I was unaware of the word ‘chav’ which apparently has become popular to describe anti-social youth culture. Here, I won’t even mentioned people’s indiscriminate and non-grammatical adhering use of the word good, or frequent American Television inspired uses of awesome!
Anyway, linguistically frustrated digression aside, the Latin word ‘Caseus’ is also the basis for the modern English word ‘Casein’ which means the type of protein which makes up about 80% of milk protein and, in other words, is then essentially what cheese is made out of.
Going Back and Forth
Travelling even further back in time to before the Romans, it is believed that there was an ancient root word, ‘Kwat’ which meant ‘to ferment or to sour’. It is not hard to see how this could have become ‘Caseus’ in Latin in terms of the aforementioned vocabulary metamorphosis from generation to generation and ,indeed, from culture to culture. But also, in terms of meaning, it’s easy to see why this word would have been chosen for cheese as it describes well the process of cheesemaking (cheese being the product of milk that has been fermented with enzymes or soured with acid).
Moving on in time, the Romans found different techniques to take very simple, basic cheeses produced by curdling milk, what we might call ‘Fresh’ or ‘Soft’ cheeses today, and mature them to make hard, long life cheeses, along the lines of today’s ‘Parmesan’. These cheeses were particularly useful for taking on long journeys as they lasted a long time before going off, and so were in demand for soldiers’ rations. A new name developed for them, ‘Caseus Formatus’. The ‘Formatus’ referred to the fact that the cheese had been formed into a solid block that could be kept for a long time.
In modern languages, the word for cheese often reflects one of these two Latin names for cheese. As mentioned, we have ‘Cheese’ in English as well as ‘Kaese’ in German and ‘Cacio’ in Italian. These come from the caseus root. On the other hand, we have “Fromage’ in French and the more standard Italian name for cheese of ‘Formaggio’. These evidently derive from the formatus root.
Something a little more Exotic
A lot could be said about the names for cheese in different languages. However, life (in this world at least) is short and so we will move on, although not before making one more remark on this topic.
Less known languages are often considered exotic. One such language is Romanian. It is actually spoken by quite a lot of people, estimates of up to 30 million including first and second language speakers (I myself adding a one to the second language speakers total). Nevertheless, most of them live in, or around, Romania and so it is not a widely known language outside of this area.
In any case, Romanian is a language which adheres to the already discussed ideas of having a word for cheese contacted to Latin. This word is ‘Cas’, which is comes from caesus. These are usually yellowy, partially matured, soft-medium cheeses and are actually often referred to as ‘Cascaval’, the ‘caval’ bit referencing their rotund nature.
There is, however, a second word used generally to mean cheese, although it tends in everyday parlance to refer to white, soft, fresh cheeses, as a distinction from the slightly harder, more matured cascavals. This word is ‘Branza’. As you can see, it doesn’t appear to be related to the Latin ‘Formatus’. Indeed, it seems to have an uncertain origin, either being derived from the name of a place or from the name of a case used for putting the freshly extracted cheese curd into, in order to drain off excess liquid.
Other Meanings
Over the years, the word cheese has taken on meanings other than preserved milk solid. Indeed, with the rise of the health and alternative food industry, the term cheese can now be used for many food products that are cheese like in nature. Tofu, for example, can be called ‘Bean cheese’ due to the fact that the method used to obtain it is not dissimilar to that of curdling milk and the resulting product is cheese like in it’s consistency and even in some of its uses.
Another use of the word is in the expression ‘The Big Cheese’. In this sense, cheese means someone who is well developed in his field; a leader or important person in their domain. This is analogous to cheese as being a product that can be well formed over time, which is the case for hard cheeses that have been matured for a long time.
Cheese can also mean something lacking in quality or overly sentimental, such as it was a cheesy magic show or a cheesy grin.
And, of course, let us not forget another very common use of the word, so much so that it is even known internationally, that of making children and grown ups alike smile for photographs. Say cheese!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese