Episode Details

Cheese was once among the most shoplifted items in supermarkets worldwide. This episode explores how a prehistoric accident of storing milk in an animal stomach became one of humanity's most valued foods, from Neolithic strainers and a cheese found with ancient mummies to Roman supply chains and medieval village names.

We explain the chemistry of curd making, from lactic acid bacteria and rennet to stretching, cheddaring, washing, and pressing, plus how recombinant rennet solved the calf stomach bottleneck. We also cover mold ripening and our taste for controlled decay, the 19th-century rise of cheese factories, cheeses beyond the West, raw milk safety rules, and the myth that cheese causes nightmares.

• The Arab trader legend and 7,000-year-old pottery strainers from Poland
• The Xiaohe mummies and the world's oldest preserved cheese
• How Pliny the Elder cataloged Roman cheeses weighing up to a thousand pounds
• Rennet, chymosin, and how techniques create mozzarella, cheddar, and gouda
• Jesse Williams' first cheese factory, FDA 60-day aging rules, and the Charles Dickens nightmare myth