Talk:Cheese/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

American consumption

Someone please change the most consumed American cheese to read "fior di latte" and not mozzarella. Mozzarella is made with buffalo's milk, the one consumed by Americans is made by cow's milk, and is thus fior di latte. this is a common mistake and technically erroneous, so please change. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.133.143.171 (talk) 10:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

Yes, that is the proper name of what Americans eat, but not what they call it -- they do call it "mozzarella". 69.87.199.176 00:42, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

"mozzarella di bufala campana made only from Campania's buffalo milk; mozzarella fior di latte made from cow's milk" See? IT's still called mozarella -- 13:31, 25 December 2006 193.108.134.112

I think Italians generally refer to the cow milk version as just plain Fior di latte (written also as fiordilatte) -- but only a native speaker could say for sure. 69.87.194.147 15:00, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Er, please, this is a prime area where some disambiguation is going to be required. If you are creating a link to Cheddar this is going to point to the town of Cheddar which is quite historically significant, home to the Cheddar caves, the interesting pre-Roman Cheddar Man, the bike-race which is the Cheddar Challenge, etc, etc, if you follow my drift... Cheddar cheese should really be referenced as Cheddar cheese. Then all that is required is a simple link in Cheddar itself. This applies to all cheese names where the cheese has a place name. This will become even more of an issue with the new improved PHP version of Wiki where disambiguation can be qualified by e.g. bracketing. sjc

According to the naming conventions, we should use the most common form of a word, for linking purposes etc. So adding the word cheese to every kind of cheese violates this convention. When I want to write about brie, I will call it brie and not brie cheese, for example. So the page about brie should be at Brie. Disambiguating can be done later, only as the need arises. I'll wait to change the links in case anyone wants to argue the point. - Tim

There may be situations when you will need to include the word cheese, for example when referring to Swiss Cheese. Though more specific names for it may exist, they are not as well known and would not be as obvious to many readers. For the most part, however, it should be beside the point, as individual cheeses ought to eventually have their own articles. -- phreyan

Spellings

I've changed some spellings here which appeared to be phonetic guesses. I'm not sure I've picked them all up. I'm guessing 'Savoy aire' is really 'Savoyard' but I don't know that one so haven't changed it. - Gritchka Also, under British (now that they're grouped by nationality), I can name more cheeses but I have no idea whether they're cheddar-family (a concept new to me).

Nationality

Spent some time reorganizing the list by nationality of origin. Note that this is ambiguous for some cheeses. I also added the word "cheese" to the end of each subject, though I know some people object. As most European cheeses are named after a town of origin, even "Brie" needs to be disambiguated. There are a couple of exceptions, though, and I suppose people will change them as they see fit (some might see 'Queso Blanco cheese' as a bit redundant, I suppose...) Also, I couldn't find any references on Google to a couple of the cheeses, so they're not categorized. I hope someone can determine where these cheeses came from. -D

Monty Python

Removed the following, because it didn't seem appropriate for the article:

"There is also a Monty_Python cheese store skit (which includes imaginary cheeses such as Venezuelan Beaver Cheese). See also Monty_Python's Flying Circus." Dachshund

I think it's a pretty good quote.Exploding Boy 09:18, Feb 3, 2004 (UTC)

Monty python quotes are always good :)

"Cheese shop sketch" surely? And it doesn't really have a place here.

Surely the cheese shop sketch should be placed wherever it can get an audiance, its superb :-)

Re: Starting articles with quotes

Maveric149, when he/she edited the page, wrote "DO NOT start articles with quotes." Is this some sort of rule? Or is it just a personal preference? I thought the quote was actually pretty good myself, and there's a long history of starting articles and essays with a good quote; it's called an epigraph.

Not being sure if there acutally is some sort of rule about this (but doubting it), I didn't revert the edit. But I'd like to. Any imput? Exploding Boy 09:21, Feb 3, 2004

Your misspelling of input invalidates your opinion. -Iopq 08:26, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

lol... That almost made me spill my coffee :D -Anon.

Just kidding, I just personally hate epigraphs because they sound boring. -Iopq 08:26, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Pictures

If anyone wants, I have 21 pictures of cheesemaking, covering three cheeses (a marbled cheddar, ricotta, and mascarpone) here. For a description of what I was doing when these pictures were taken, visit here. I took these when working to get approval from the health department to make cheese for sale at a farmers market - consider them to all be public domain. - Rei

Post them up somewhere, I'm sure someone can find a good use for them :) -Iopq 08:27, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Cultural stigmas against cheese?

I must admit I haven't learned nearly enough on the subject, but can we add material that addresses cultural stigmas against cheese? Such as in various east Asian cultures, where cheese is considered gross because it is seen only as rotted milk, and repulsive because it is considered bad-smelling (compare durian). I got the impression that such cultures have few native milk culturing traditions, and have not developed a collective acquired taste for cheese of any kind. - Gilgamesh 13:18, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Err... Any statistical evidence for this? My experience has been contrary, as my Korean aunt and many other East Asian people I know love cheese. Of course, this just proves that anecdotal evidence is useless, which is why I asked for statistics. =P I should also point out that people of African and East Asian descent tend to lack the necessary number of lactase enzymes for processing cheese and other dairy products, so it might not be a matter of dislike as much as simple avoidance.--John 01:21, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What about southern asian counties, specifically India. I don't know specifics, but since the cow is considered sacred in all forms, wouldn't cheese be an abomination[...your kidding me]? -ORBIT Dec 5, 2004

The Indian culture sees cows as sacred more because of the population density and the necessity to keep cows alive such that they provide milk. A popular form of cheese in India is paneer, but beyond that they do not have many varieties. Paneer is usually made with spinach to make the dish Saag Paneer that is popular at indian restaurants.

Milk and dairy have been central features of the diet in West, Southwest, South and Central Asia but NOT in East and Southeast Asia. The dividing line between milk/dairy and non-milk/dairy cultures is roughly that between Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma). Although in the 20th century, many Southeast and East Asian cultures have adopted milk and cheese, there's all kinds of readily observeable evidence that this is something relatively new. In Korea, many people born before 1960 still consider milk, ice cream and cheese to be indigestible...for the simple reason that for them it IS indigestible. The same holds true more generally for the region from Korea, through the SE Asian archipelago, on to the border with the South Asian cultural region.

Looking at any cookbook, or better yet a culinary history of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai, Khmer, Malay and Myanmar cuisine will show that milk/dairy played little or no role in their food systems. Asking people from these cultures about what older family and friends say about dairy will also give evidence that milk and, especially, fermented cheese are NOT considered foods, properly speaking. Some East Asians will consider milk a medicine and will use it for the laxitive or purgative properties it has **for them**.

As mentioned elsewhere here, the ability to digest lactose is not universal. In many places, people have insufficient enzymes to digest milk, except in the smallest servings. Many people, if they do not drink cow's milk continuously from weaning, lose the ability to digest lactose-rich products. Since many Southeast and East Asian people now drink cow's milk from infancy, the percentage of those who are able to digest milk/dairy and, therefore, consider it a food, is increasing.

In South Asia, broadly, the principal form of milk/dairy has been that from bovines: cows and buffaloes. Pakistan and Afghanistan mark, more or less, the frontier where bovine products yield to ovine (sheep) and caprine (goat) milk/dairy products. Central Asia also has groups which have favored equine (horse) milk/dairy products. Tibetans have used yak (probably a bovine?) products.

More broadly, fermented products seem, in my experience, to be one of the food groups that most resists translation. No doubt this is because fermenting is, in fact, a kind of rotting. For a product with which we're familiar, we can recognize the difference between spoilage (bad rotting, which changes food into garbage) and fermenting (good rotting, which changes raw food into prepared delicacies). Japanese nato (soy beans), Filipino patis (fish sauce), European cheese (milk), Korean kimchi (cabbage), Greek olives, Central Asian koumis (mare's milk) are just some of the fermented products that often produce a yuck-reaction for those from other cultures.

Well, speaking for Japan, agricultural, economical, and religious problems made cheese "extinct" from its cuisine. Records from Nara and Heian period, roughly over 1300 years ago, show that various cow and horse milk products including cheese were available and consumed. But these products were consumed as a type of medication. These products were available only in a very limited amount because there simply wasn't enough land available in Japan to raising cattles to eat. If the same amount of land was used to raise rice instead of cattle, it would support far more people. Of course lands unsuitable for growing rice would be used for other crops or cattles but such place, namely Hokkaido, didn't become a part of Japan until 17th century. Japanese basically couldn't raise enough cattle so milk and related products didn't become popular. Also, Buddhism which spread around the same time was against killing of animals and the consumption of meat in general. So Japanese simply kept enough cows and horses for farming and decided to eat rice, vegetables, and fish. After all, it's not like that you have to eat cheese.

Situations changed in 19th century but it's kind of hard for food that wasn't available for a millenium to become popular. The fact that milk and cheese were expensive didn't help. Anyway, to make the story short, from late 1940s, milk became the only type of drink available in school lunch during the compulsory education and that's what made milk and cheese accepted. Hokkaido started churning out milk in enough volume aided by improvement in roads and Seikan Tunnel. Japanese also became rich enough to be able to buy cheese from anywhere they want.

In fact Japanese know cheese enough that it can be used as a political ploy. In a latest news [1], this says that a Japanese politician, Mori, "insulted" rock-hard cheese. The news doesn't say this because it makes him look smart, but this exchange was actually a "cheesy" show. He knew that this cheese was a tasty one and used this to say "Look, pass this law or Koizumi is going to call a snap-election. I know it's hard to swallow but it will be good for everyone." Media took his words of "unhospitability" and run the story that way prompting a campaign by Koizumi's opponents to crush the law because they took it as a sign that Koizumi's position was weak. While media and opposing politicians were fooled, many on 2ch were saying that Mori was using cheese to make a point and that this whole "pursuading" rant was a joke. Oh, and he did came out on TV last week that he was acting on that day infront of camera with beer and cheese in his hand. Maybe this should be part of this article as a ingenious way of "cheesy talk". ;) - Revth 06:32, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

This is good information to learn about, and should be in the article. And what about modern China and southeast Asia? I get the impression that cheese is still considered disgusting in places such as Malaysia. - Gilgamesh 10:05, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

All the above leads me to think that East Asian lactose intolerance ought to be mentioned in this section, at least in passing, but my edit to that effect (dated 3 Nov 05) was immediately deleted by someone else, on the grounds that lactose intolerance is mentioned elsewhere in the article. What do others think? Is that enough, or should it be mentioned in the cultural section too?--Keeves 13:29, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Intro

There are over 400 types of cheese. Cheese is a solid food made from

Stylistically, should the first sentence define the subject of the article? The statement of fact that there are over 400 types of cheese is interesting, but shouldn’t the second sentence here be the first?

Wow Cheese

Cheese is a great thing that benifits us every day. Cheese is the most wonderful and cheesey matter on the planet! Cheese is my favorite thing the world has seen, but contrary to other beleifs, the moon is NOT made of cheese. Now let's all do the cheese dance! GO CHEESE! THIS IS OFFICALLY CHEESY!

"Wow Cheese" was Posted by Burlap

So, we have "Cheese Trivia", "Cheese expressions and quotes" and "Cheese Humor" but no historical or cultural background.

Yes, whatever, cheese is funny, but wouldn't some content be nice?

Can someone comment why some cheese has holes in it? --NeoThe1 00:07, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

honestly, this is not the cheese page, this is talk:cheese, so stop saying the history needs to be covered here, lol

You're missing the point. The talk:cheese page in-part exists to help editors discuss what changes and improvements should or can be made to the Cheese article.

Cheese has holes in it because the bacteria in it produces carbon dioxcide and that creates lil bubbles of air that result in holes in some cultrued cheeses. Either that or cheese pissed off some gansters from the 1920s. (why does the edit button refer to the article below it--shouldn't it edit the one that it comes after?)

Danish Blue Cheese article

Perhaps the users maintaining this page would like to assist with salvaging Danish Blue cheese. The page has been the subject of some less-than-wiki antics, and needs help. I see where there is on-going discussion of how to handle specific types of cheese; the outcome here should be applied there. I will add the cheese category tag and a See Also back here to this article. --Mddake 06:30, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Deleted Welsh rarebit "trivia"

I deleted this from the trivia section:

Cheese, grated and mixed with beer, is one of the main ingredients in the British dish Welsh rarebit, (archaically known as Welsh rabbit, yet having nothing to do with actual rabbits).

Hopefully a non-controversial edit; there are a lot of foods which have cheese as one of their main ingredients and this one doesn't need a special callout, since it isn't inheritly more interesting than fondue or quesadillas or cannolis. Plus, the etymological information given there is mostly wrong, according to the Welsh rabbit page. Bunchofgrapes 23:12, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. --fvw* 23:17, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

"A slice of pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze." — Anonymous

Can anyone cite a source for this? Or at least claim to have heard the expression used? Googling for it, and eliminating pages that clearly either mirrored or copied this page or wikiquotes, I was left with maybe two or three pages, all of which could have gotten it from here anyway. Bunchofgrapes 23:24, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I pulled it out. Anybody who can site a good source, feel free and put it back. Bunchofgrapes 19:30, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I grew up in the sixties in Illinois, and my father often said that "Apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze." This is probably not a sufficiently authoritative source to merit inclusion in the article. pstudier 22:06, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Good to know it wasn't just made up, though! Since Late September 2005, most of the quotes were moved to wikiquote, anyway, so the issue of inclusion of that quote or not is no longer too vital to this page. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 00:29, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I have a friend with an old New Englander grandfather who said the same thing. It refers to sharp cheddar on apple pie. I belive he said it "A pie without a cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze." I think it's an old New England tradition.

I have an old New Englander grandfather, but his expression is "Apple pie without cheese is like a pretty girl with one eye." I don't know where it came from and it doesn't rhyme as well.

Kosher

Could someone clarify this, please?

The kosher prohibition against consuming dairy and meat in the same meal does not apply to cheese itself, even when made with animal-based rennet. (The cheese is still considered a dairy food, of course, and can't be eaten with other meats.)

Is it just me or do those two sentences seemingly contradict each other? If the second sentence is accurate, what exactly does the first sentence mean?

It means, even though kosher animal-based rennet is a "meat product", you can still eat the cheese itself - it is not considered a prohibited mix of meat and dairy, basically, I think, on a technicality that says that rennet is a meat product but not a "food." I admit that the article's phrasing is ambiguous at best, I was just trying to point out that animal-rennet cheese is kosher, which is rather counterintiuitive, at least to me. Bunchofgrapes 15:03, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Production of cheese

This article doesn't have very much about the way cheese is made... I came across Cheesemaker which I think should be deleted, but perhaps some of its content could be used here. --BigBlueFish 20:19, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

It does now. See also Home cheesemaking, which has more detail.(But probably needs some merging work with this page, since I wrote the stuff in this page without knowing of the existence of that one.) Bunchofgrapes (talk) 15:42, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Addictive properties

Not many people may know that cheese, like chocolate, has certain specific addictive properties. Casomorphin is the chemical in cheese that is responsible for this and it has opiate like effect. I'm not if this has a direct opiate effect or if it needs to be broken down into other substances first, but some quick research can clear this up. Nathan J. Yoder 09:39, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

It's hard to make a case that cheese (or chocolate, for that matter) actually is psychoactive to a degree that could cause an opiate effect or addiction. I've seen the chocolate myth debunked elsewhere (I think McGee's On Food and Cooking explores it some, eventually concluding that people get addicted to chocolate because — ! — it tastes really good) but this is the first I've heard of it for cheese. Most sites making any sort of opiate claim are fringe anti-milk advocacy sites. This page [2] cites some scientific studies largely debunking casomorphin claims. Of course, nutritional science is a moving target, and it could turn out there are real effects from these chemicals, but until data to that effect makes it into some more mainstream sources, I don't believe the information is neccessarily appropriate in the article. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 19:48, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

That's interesting, I had not read the studies on it, I was just going based on what some doctor interviewed for Super Size Me had said. I did some quick searching and that one study was the only one I could find specifically on the addictive properties, but other studies like this one appear to show some kind of response. I'll search in pubmed and in other places to see if I can find information other than from the anti-mil propraganda places. Nathan J. Yoder 13:14, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Vegetarian cheeses

I've heard about vegan cheeses recently; how do these work? Is there an article that talks about them? -- Creidieki 04:37, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, Chreese does, a little. I haven't seen an article on the generic item; I think there may be a number of approaches to making non-dairy cheese substitutes. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, "chreese" and other "taste kind of like cheese" mixtures show up quite a bit in veg cooking, but there are also actual cheeses (made, you know, by bacteria breaking down a base) that don't come from animal milk. Having some information about those would be interesting. Hmm.

I've been in chinese restaurants and been served soy milk cheese as a sort of dip/sauce for a dish we were having, was... different, but would come under the heading of a vegan cheese i suppose (although was served with meat)

Page protection

I've protected this article as it's on the main page today and has been getting lots of vandalism. I suggest that we unprotect it as soon as it's off the main page. --Gareth Hughes 12:59, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Page was unprotected by other admins. Rmhermen 14:35, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

As it shoulf be all the vandalism was getting sorted quickly and though it may look bad for highlighted page to be vandalised it also looks bad if highlighted page can't be edited.--JK the unwise 17:24, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I respect the views you have on this subject and personally you open my mind to think and look at things a lot deeper.

Thank You Your Truly Kerry-Ann Rowe

Processed cheese

Could we get a source on the claim that this form is the most commonly consumed in the U.S.? Rmhermen 14:35, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I was just about to comment on that. Now no anti-Americanism intended but if this is true for gods sake why don't you yanks eat propper stuff? Too French? Processed cheese tastes like dog sick (I imagine).--JK the unwise 17:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Source was McGee. I don't have it with me right now to give the exact quote. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Found it in Google Print. "In the United States, the market for process cheese, a mixture of aged and fresh cheeses blended with emulsifiers and repasteurized, is now larger than the market for "natural" cheese, which itself is almost exclusively factory-made." (McGee p 54)

I'll footnote it later.

Done.

As to why we yanks don't eat proper stuff, I have no idea :-) And don't knock the taste of dog sick if you haven't tried it: I know our dogs seem to enjoy it! —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 19:12, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Processed cheese is good. Not great like real cheese, but good. 75.153.221.227 09:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I hate the processed crap. "Natural" cheese ftw! wingman358 05:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

de Gaulle, cheese and the French

I googled for the exact de Gaulle quote on the Cheese and the French and found that the number of cheeses is quoted as being either 70, 246, 270, 300, 350, 365, 400 or 600. Our article says 300.

Does anyone knows which is the real figure? bogdan | ^Talk 15:27, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Great. Someone threw that quote (back) in during the day the article was on the front page, and it seemed to fit well enough there. But if the sources can't agree on the number, it's hard to be confident that the quote is legitimate at all. Researching... —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:17, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, http://print.google.com is the best thing ever. Columbia Dictionary of Quotes says 246 and attributes it to a specific Newsweek article. I put in the footnote. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:51, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

In The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, And When by Ralph Keyes, on page 82, it states that he said 265 in 1951. --Bob 20:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

November 4 - vandalism

Page should be considered locked for editing till it's off the front page as vandalims has got sky high on the page. Oyvind 17:41, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

See user:Raul654/protection, for policy reasons why this isn't done. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Cheese related media

I don't think there is an appropriate place for it in the main article (others may disagree), but is it worth mentioning things like the Wallace and Gromit films, where the main characters have a fondness for cheese? (I specifically picked these characters because the first film helped resurrect the only dairy in Wensleydale making the cheese bearing the same name, and the recent feature film seems to be doing the same thing for Stinking Bishop. [3]

What a great article. I would love to work something in, if it could be made non-gratuitous. A whole "Cheese is pop culture" section has always seemed like a bad idea to me, basically a trivia-magnet. Maybe a paragraph under "Cultural attitudes" could talk about some cultures where cheese is popular, and work it in... Hmm... —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:13, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

BC/AD vs BCE/CE

The Wikipedia manual of style allows either form; it's supposed to be consistent within an article, and you aren't supposed to change them once they are there. I was the first to introduce any dates to this article, as far as I know. I've always gone for BCE/CE, but I see I missed one earlier (now fixed). Please leave it in BCE/CE form. Thanks. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:11, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Template:Cheese

I've introduced a new template (Template:Cheese) to use in individual cheese articles. It is imported from the French wiki. An example of its use can be found at Gouda or Munster cheese. Could this type of thing be extended to all cheese type articles? --Bob 23:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Human Cheese

Does the properties of the milk fats in human milk allow the fermentation of cheese?

I haven't found anything conclusive answering one way or another. According to this Savage Love column, Dale Baumgartner, head cheese maker at the Tillamook Creamery in Oregon, says "The department of health might have something to say about that. [...] You could probably do it, I don't see why not--provided you could get your hands on the milk."

The use of human milk in culinary applications is taboo or at least very rare almost universally, it seems like. Although there was a Chinese Restaurant in southern Hunan serving a couple of breast-milk dishes in 2003 [4]. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 20:28, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I would say that a specialty cheese like that could make a new standard in rare or immpossible to find, thus making it a luxury.Akupta321 03:07, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

One man's luxury is another man's OMGYUKWTF. :) --Syrthiss 13:39, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Cheese / Chisme/ Gossip

I just removed "Cheese is also sometimes used as a slang term for gossip, deriving from the Spanish word "chisme", meaning "gossip" from the article; I'm not sure when that got in there. There's no question chisme is Spanish for "gossip", but I'm not finding any good sources stating that "cheese" is used in that manner, nor that it was corrupted from chisme. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 20:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

"Bread, butter and green cheese is good English and good Friese."

Something that's been bothering me for a short time: is there anything on the web about cheese made from human milk, and is it worth mentioning in the article? I read on the Half-Bakery that there was such a link, but the author of the comment was unable to find it. ThomasWinwood 05:12, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Look above to the sub-section headed Human cheese. There is a link and discussion there. --Bob 21:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Removal candidate from India selected articles

Cheese is being listed as a candidate in Portal:India/Selected article removal candidates. Sorry guys from other countries, it was probably a mistake to have included the article in Portal:India/Selected articles, as it is not related to India. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 10:30, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I had been wondering about that. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 14:33, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Government cheese?

What wine goes with Government cheese? Are their varieties of Government cheese?

The government cheese I recall was a big block of American and thus lacked the only redeeming quality American cheese has: its individually-wrapped preslicedness and the smooth and shiny texture imparted by the plastic. They don't have government wine, of course, just government whine. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:57, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Cheese lovers

Wanted to add under Cheese in language:

A lover of cheese is known as a turophile.

Alphabetical order

This is a fine compromise. I had thought about doing this myself since cows obviously are the trademark bearers of milk, but I was reluctant not to mess around with the content. Good job. :) —Eternal Equinox | talk 14:16, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Chocolate cheese?

During a trip to Frankenmuth, Michigan I came across Chocolate Mint cheese. Looking on this wiki article I don't see anything about something like this, or how unusual it is, though when doing a google search on 'chocolate flavored cheese' over 6 million results are displayed. I'm not sure if this should be included into the cheese article, or if it even merits it, but I personally would be interested in learning more about it. From what I understand there are a lot of 'unusual' flavors out there so maybe a small section for those would be appropriate perhaps for those of you who have more information on this kind of thing than I do. --ImmortalGoddezz 03:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Quick note (not to say there might not be something to it) -- Googling for 'chocolate flavored cheese' without double-quotes around the phrase returns all the pages that have those three words anywhere in the page. The vast majority of which aren't about chocolate-flavored cheese. Googling for "chocolate flavored cheese" return 332 hits, 24 of which are unique. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:57, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually you're right and that's an error on my part as I am lazy in googling in most cases. But while googling "chocolate cheese" you come up with 172,000 hits for it. I suppose there are a lot of phrases you can use to get the same results, or thereabouts, but I've noticed that quite a few of the links that I've investigated like this. It mentions chocolate cheese capturing '10 percent of the cheese market in Taiwan within 6 months of its release.' which to me seems mildly notable (though I could definitely be wrong since I don't know much about cheese or its markets). I just brought this up because I'm interested in it and would like to learn more. :) --ImmortalGoddezz 05:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

That linked article is almost certainly enough to justify starting a chocolate cheese article, or similar. Probably not enough to merit a specific mention on this overview page, though, hard to say... there are a lot of flavored cheeses in the world ([Prästost] is often cured in whisky for example) and they can't all be mentioned. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 14:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Cheeze redirect

What is the use of the Cheeze redirect? I thought we weren't supposed to have redirects from misspellings. Is cheeze some British variant or some nonsense?--Josh Rocchio 15:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should redirect it to Cheez Whiz instead? Redirects are cheap and we don't tend to worry too much about excessive or borderline questionable ones. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 15:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Or Velveeta =]? Cheeze whiz seems more appropriate.--Josh Rocchio 04:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

origin of the English name (caseus)

One of the first things I wanted to know was whence the name, but it appears way down the page. I don't want to edit as I'm not a wiki 'foodie' but could there perhaps be summary info at the top of the article incl. eg origin of the name. I assume there'd have to be a common format for all the food articles though... Hakluyt bean 20:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Not really much of a common format; in some other featured food articles the etymology is in fact handled in the lead. There are two problems with doing that here though -- the lead is already too long, and the "in language" section is quite a bit more extensive than other food article's similar sections. Ideally what I'd like to see would be:

• the current last para of the lead moving into a more complete "cooking with and eating cheese" section elsewhere in the article, and
• a summary of the etymology placed into the now-shorter lead

—Bunchofgrapes (talk) 20:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that would be great. The first half of the cheese in language section is pretty good. A hint of it at the beginning might do it justice. Hakluyt bean 20:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. Whew. I'm sure the new bits could use some copyediting, hint hint. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 03:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I've only noticed this quite late, but I still want to say that I think it wasn't a very good idea to move the etymology of the word to the introduction/summary. The etymology is enough of a subject to have its own heading. The summary was great before, even though the expansion of the heading about cooking with cheese wasn't a bad idea. I think the tymology should get its heading back. --Nin 05:17, 15 September 2006 (UTC) (I am probably not returning to this talk page; I just left my opinion on this subject.)

The etymology section is still there, in full. The lead has only a brief summary. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:01, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Inherent Bias

This article is written from a completely non-neutral perspective. I demand that all viewpoints be represented equally.71.11.241.105 23:31, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. -- Omicronpersei8 (talk) 23:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

In any case, we would need a little more information before we could comply with you demands. What viewpoints are under-represented? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 23:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Cheese under Nazi Germany, for one. There's no mention of that anywhere in this article.

OK. Go away. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 14:53, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Casu marzu

Why is there no mention of Casu marzu cheese? For those that don't know what it is, it is a form of Pecorino Sardo filled with maggots. By the way, those thinking of commenting it's fictional nature should save time and not do it because it is in-fact real. - 02:32, 11 August 2006 (UTC)~~

Casu marzu is certainly real. Having written most of the cheese article and most of the Casu marzu article myself, it was my judgement that there was no benefit (outside possible shock value) to linking to such a little-known (on a global scale) cheese from this overview article. Filling the article with mentions of "interesting" rather than representative cheeses would turn it into a list of trivia. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 19:43, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

OK. - 20:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Categorization

The categorization of cheese in the article seems to me right now very limited, and parochial (as it just sticks to the common american categorization of cheese). I just tried to point out the main principles of classification that are used, alone or mixed, in the world, to categorize cheese. The French one, for instance, is complex and is a mix of three of these basic types [5] [6] (official web site of french milk producers union) : 1) soft dough with washed rind (Munster, e.g); 2) soft dough with mold rind (camembert, for instance); 3) pressed and unheated dough (Cheddar, Cantal); 4) pressed and heated dough (Emmental, Beaufort,what is called in the US "swiss like" cheeses), 5) mold dough (pâte persillée) (Roquefort, "blue" cheeses); 6) fresh cheese; 7) goat's milk cheese and 8) processed cheese. This classification is close to official. What is more, 3) and 4) kind of cheese are commonly classified according to their affinage (old Cantal vs young Cantal). A classification of this kind is sometimes used in Italy [7]. I find this categorization extremely accurate, as it is based mainly on the basic methods of cheese making. But I'm certainly biased !

The categorization that I proposed tries not to be parochial, and to sum up this great diversity of classifications. It really goes to the basic principles of the categorizations used. You can find it on these (italian) sites [8], [9].Gedefr 20:21, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

My edit was really just a copyedit of yours -- spelling, grammar, syntax -- and fiddling with the headers, which don't make sense they way you have them right now. I am at a loss as to why you reverted it. Other than the headers, I tried not to change what you were saying at all. Did I fail? I have no opinion as to how best to categorize cheeses; I don't think there is any one correct way, but I was trying to adhere to those commonly seen in English-language sources. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:16, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

My mistake. I overlooked your copyedit.Gedefr 22:32, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

when squirrels attack 69.246.70.243 00:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Export table values

France exported $2,658,441 of cheese in 2004? Im not a cheese expert, nor do I care to be, but I know that that figure is wrong. Surely it must be in 000's of $, not $.

So you contend that France exported 2 billion dollars in cheese instead of 2 million? And why don't you want to be a cheese expert? Are you some kind of Cheese-ist? Syrthiss 11:49, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Nope, im just a bum who finds wildly innacurate statistics annoying.

Vandalism

Why in the world is this article locked against changes by the newbies (I am not one, if it matters). I mean, locks are usually placed on articles succeptable to vandalism and extreme points of view like abortion and race. Is there a secret group of cheese-haters out there somewhere? If so, I've never met any. (Yumm!) Sys Hax 09:05, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• If you look at the recent edits, User:Aaabbbcccdddeeefffggg has been vandalising the article by replacing it with statements like "Cheese is edible, but it tastes like yellow poop!!!!!!!!!". Presumably, the article has been locked for this reason. Mouse Nightshirt 13:29, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• • 95 % of the edits on this article are related to vandalism. There's certainly no group of cheese-haters out there, but a bunch of guys who find funny to constantly destroy this article . Why they find that funny is a complete mystery to me. Gedefr 14:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Cheese is apparently as inherently funny a word or concept as duck, banana, or kumquat. If you don't believe me, scroll down to the discussion of celebrity cheesemakers -- and try to keep a straight face. --205.201.141.146 20:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Protected designation of origin

It is weird that this article has no mention of Protected designation of origin (PDO/POD), protected geographical indication (PGI) and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG). I can't add such because the article is locked. 69.87.199.176 00:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/qual/en/pgi_01en.htm List of all European designated cheeses
• http://www.formaggio.it/italiaDOP/formaggiitaliaDOP.htm List of Italy designated cheeses

Actually, you raise a valid point. Unfortunately, I don't have the necessary expertise to add such information to the article. May I suggest that you register a Wikipedia account and edit the article when your account gets to 4 days old? Mouse Nightshirt 13:57, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Water buffalo

Please change the first sentence from

Cheese is a solid food made from the milk of cows, goats, sheep, and other mammals.

to

Cheese is a solid food made from the milk of cows, goats, sheep, water buffalo, and other mammals.

Water buffalo are important to the history of cheese and current production; authentic mozzarella is still made from their milk in Italy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.87.194.147 (talk) 15:30, 25 December 2006 (UTC).

Cheese tasting terms?

The article seems to use some cheese tasting terms, but not discuss the subject as such. It might be good to at least offer a good link to somewhere for to learn about the terms used to discuss cheese tasting? 69.87.204.169 02:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

dietery

"It should also perhaps be noted that under certain scientifically controlled dietery studies, people whose diets which particularly consisted of the high intake of dairy foods had shown that obesity had prevailed at a higher rate than of those persons whose diets consisted of only vegetable based fats." This sentence has a spelling mistake, and needs to be re-written in plainer English. 69.87.204.169 02:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

These vaguely referenced "studies" should also be cited or perhaps removed altogether. This phrase was added Nov 19 2006 around 06:26 by Lode. Sbonds 07:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Celebrity Cheesemakers

I have now twice reverted the addition of a section called "Celebrity cheesemakers", which states that "Blur bassist Alex James has recently confirmed [8] that he has been focusing on cheese making ahead of a possible band reunion." I do not believe this nugget of trivia rises anywhere near the level of wanting to be included in this article. Thoughts? —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

-- I believe that the addition of this section represents a valid and necessary infusion of popular culture into the much-maligned art of cheese-making. The deliberate exclusion of this information, whilst undoubtedly well-intentioned, could equally be construed as an attempt to downplay this popular hobby and keep it sidelined and regarded as a fringe activity. Cheese-making is undergoing something of a rennaissance in recent years, and to ignore this growing trend is to undermine one of the core values of Wikipedia: its ability quickly to respond to ever-changing nuances of meaning and culture. As a supporter of the British Cheese Board, I find the interest of an iconic British celebrity figure such as Alex James to be a breath of fresh air in what can, at time, be a staid and misunderstood world. I implore you: please reinstate this entry so that young potential cheesemakers can see that cheesemaking can indeed be both 'cool' and fantastically engrossing. Adam Channell 208.1.253.163 12:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting... Inever heard of celebrity cheesemakers, so maybe we SHOULD add it on here... so others can learn about them

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