4 THE BOOK OF CHEESE 



5. History. --The recorded history of the common 

 varieties of cheese is only fragmentary. Practices at 

 one time merely local in origin followed the lines of 

 emigration. Records of processes of manufacture were 

 not kept. The continuance of a particular practice 

 depended on the skill and memory of the emigrant, who 

 called his cheese after the place of origin. Other names 

 of the same kind were applied by the makers for selling 

 purposes. The widely known names were thus almost 

 all originally geographical. Some of them, such as 

 Gorgonzola, are used for cheeses not now made at the 

 places whose names they bear. Naturally, this method 

 of development has produced national groups of cheeses 

 which have many common characteristics but differ in 

 detail. The English cheeses form a typical group of 

 this kind. 



Emigration to America carried English practices across 

 the Atlantic. The story of cheese-making in America 

 has been so closely linked with the development of the 

 American Cheddar process that the historical aspects 

 of the industry in this country are considered under that 

 head in Chapter VIII. 



