Cheeses in art: Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels, Clara Peeters, c. Cheese cake stuffed apples is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein.

Over a thousand types of cheese exist and are produced in various countries. For a few cheeses, the milk is curdled by adding acids such as vinegar or lemon juice. Cheese is valued for its portability, long shelf life, and high content of fat, protein, calcium, and phosphorus. Cheese is more compact and has a longer shelf life than milk, although how long a cheese will keep depends on the type of cheese. The word cheese itself is occasionally employed in a sense that means “molded” or “formed”. Head cheese uses the word in this sense. Cheese is an ancient food whose origins predate recorded history.

There is no conclusive evidence indicating where cheesemaking originated, whether in Europe, Central Asia or the Middle East. Earliest proposed dates for the origin of cheesemaking range from around 8000 BCE, when sheep were first domesticated. The earliest evidence of cheesemaking in the archaeological record dates back to 5500 BCE and is found in what is now Kuyavia, Poland, where strainers coated with milk-fat molecules have been found. Cheesemaking may have begun independently of this by the pressing and salting of curdled milk to preserve it. Observation that the effect of making cheese in an animal stomach gave more solid and better-textured curds may have led to the deliberate addition of rennet. The earliest cheeses were likely quite sour and salty, similar in texture to rustic cottage cheese or feta, a crumbly, flavorful Greek cheese.