slowing its aging, and extending its edible lifetime The Sources of Cheese Diversity So these are the ingredients that have generated the great diversity of our traditional cheeses: hundreds of plants, from scrubland herbs to alpine flowers; dozens of animal breeds that fed on those plants and transformed them into milk; protein-cutting enzymes from young animals and thistles; microbes recruited from meadow and cave, from the oceans, from animal insides and skins; and the careful observation, ingenuity, and good taste of generations of cheesemakers and cheese lovers This remarkable heritage underlies even today’s simplified industrial cheeses The usual way of organizing the diversity of cheeses into a comprehensible system is to group them by their moisture content and the microbes that ripen them The more moisture removed from the curd, the harder the cheese’s eventual texture, and the longer its lifespan A fresh cheese with 80% water lasts a few days, while a soft cheese (45–55%) reaches its prime in a few weeks, a semihard cheese (40–45%) in a few months, a hard cheese (30–40%) after a year or more And ripening microbes create distinctive flavors The box on p 60 shows how cheesemakers create such different cheeses from the same basic materials Cheese Flavors from Proteins and Fats The flavor of a good cheese seems to fill the mouth, and that’s because enzymes from the milk and rennet and microbes break down the concentrated protein and fat into a wide range of flavor compounds The long, chain-like casein proteins are first broken into medium-sized pieces ...group them by their moisture content and the microbes that ripen them The more moisture removed from the curd, the harder the cheese’s eventual texture, and the longer its lifespan... mouth, and that’s because enzymes from the milk and rennet and microbes break down the concentrated protein and fat into a wide range of flavor compounds The long, chain-like casein proteins are... The box on p 60 shows how cheesemakers create such different cheeses from the same basic materials Cheese Flavors from Proteins and Fats The flavor of a good cheese seems to fill the mouth, and