Cheese name come from Latin word Caseus (casein), one of the enzymes found in cheese, which makes it so irresistible.
According to scientists and archaeologists, based on their research and discoveries, the production or I should say invention of Cheese, came soon after domestication sheep and goat. Different sauces will pinpoint that event to be tweet 8000 and 4000 years ago.
Quite the history the cheese has.
Most probable explanation will tell you, that the cheese accident happened, when our ancestors, hunter – gatherers, where collecting and storing fresh milk, in bags made from sheep stomach. The inside was lined with the rennet, and that combine with sun, made the milk separate into curd and whey.
And there you go! Cheese!
There is legend, talking about Arabic merchant, traveling through desert to the oasis, and carrying on his camel, bags with fresh milk, made of sheep stomach.
And here the story, get remarkably similar. The lining of the stomach bag, and the sun, made the milk curdle.
From there all is history.
In a time, we are living, you cannot imagine not having cheese in your daily life.
But we all know, that almost every country or region, have its own cheese, its own ways of making it so recognizable, like Italian Parmigiano, or French Bree or Camembert, or British Stilton, extremely stinky by the way.
So, as you can suspect, there is many ways of catalog cheese.
By texture (soft, semi-soft, hard),
by flavor (mild, sharp, extra sharp),
by age preparation method (unripen, mold-ripened, bacteria-ripened),
By the type of milk used (cow, goat, sheep, buffalo),
By color,
By country or region. Etc.
I have decided to focus on the texture of cheese. From the fresh ones, never pasteurized, served right away, like farmer cheese, to the hard ones, that taking sometimes years to age, while developing that specific flavor.
FRESH CHEESE (ready to eat) …
Usually only few days old, bright white, with high moisture content. With typical 19-24% fat content, noticeably light in flavor. Some will be pickled in brine, like Greek Feta cheese, some others with very creamy silky consistency.
fresh cheeses: they are not fermented or matured. Mild in taste, they can be eaten at any time of the day, regardless of whether they are sweet or salty. Often herbs, garlic, pepper, onion, nuts are added to them. You can eat them with bread, vegetables, and nuts. Perfect as an addition to casseroles and baked potatoes. Light wines with a fruity aroma are best suited to them.
Prime examples: Cottage cheese (all flavors), Cream cheese, Feta, Mascarpone, Neufchâtel (plain as well the flavored one), Queso Blanco and Ricotta
Cotija – cow’s milk cheese. Always served crumbled. Dry consistency and a little bit salty. Little like feta but often milder in taste.
Cottage cheese – also known as curds and whey. Mild in flavor with slight tang. Creamy consistency.
Farmer’s cheese – unripen cottage cheese, made by adding rennet (the enzyme) to Cultured milk. It had little tangy, dry, and crumbly texture.
Feta – white cheese that is made from sheep’s or goat’s milk, also can be made from cow’s milk. Tasty and salty. Kept in a salty brine, which gives it that specific flavor.
Fresh goat cheese (chevre) – cheese with specific tangy flavor, slightly crumbly. Does not melt, like the cow’s milk cheeses do.
Fromage blanc – cheese that comes from North of France. Creamy soft cheese made with whole or skimmed milk and cream. It is almost completely fat free, with very creamy consistency, like sour cream.
Halloumi – made of mix of goat and sheep milk.Semi hard, unripen fresh cheese, brined. Very mellow in flavor. Have a little rubbery texture and does not melt. Great for pan frying or even grilling.
Mascarpone – is basically Italian version of cream cheese. Lightly sweet and sour taste. Spreadable.
Mild flavor and a texture that softens but does not melt when heated. Panela can be pan-fried or grilled.
Mozzarella – traditionally made in southern Italy, from buffalo milk. The method to make it called “pasta filata” where the curds for mozzarella are heated and stretched. Fresh mozzarella is stored in water and has a very creamy texture.
Paneer – Indian cheese, with crumbly consistency. Cultured milk is pressed into a sliceable cheese with creamy texture that does not entirely melt.
Panela – Mexican cottage cheese made from cows’ milk, which is pasteurized. Fresh, smooth taste, with a soft and creamy texture and a delicious fresh milk flavor.
Quark – fresh cheese, that originated in Europe. Mild and creamy cheese, without the tangy taste of yoghurt.
Queso Fresco – Mexican “fresh cheese”, mad from raw cow’s milk. The flavor is mild — fresh, bright, milky. Queso fresco has a recognizable salty-sour kick, and while it is creamy by nature of its freshness, it is not rich or buttery tasting.
Ricotta – Creamy, spreadable cheese with a milky sweet flavor. The best ricotta has a fluffy, smooth texture and is not grainy. Traditionally, it is made from sheep, cow, goat, or Italian water buffalo milk whey left over from the production of other cheeses.
SOFT WHITE RIND – White and fuzzy… Blue
Blue cheese food photography recipe idea 
This group includes cheeses that develop a layer of white or bluish mold or a kind of moist red goo on the surface instead of a solid crust. Usually the French ones. Their rind is covered with a white mold wile and the cheese itself is elastic, dense, light yellow in color. Remarkably, the blue mold will only grow when is being exposed to air. When blue cheeses are first pressed into molds, they have spotless white centers. But at some point, in the aging process, the cheesemakers pierce the skin of the wheel, introducing air, which allows the mold-growing process.
The short maturation period provides the products with a creamy and soft texture and a delicate aroma. In the case of cheeses overgrown with white mold, the mild and mushroom taste becomes spicy with time and the fluffy rind darkens and becomes porous.
Blue D’auvergne – The name of it comes from the mountainous land in which it is produced. Beneath the thin surface the ivory flesh reveals unevenly blue-green veins of mold.
Brie – This is one of the most famous French cheeses from the province of Brie. Its rind is thin and covered with a fine blanket of white mold. The creamy flesh of the cheese has a distinct milk and mushroom flavor and a pronounced nutty flavor.
Camembert – this example is the most famous representative of blue cheeses. It is made from raw cow’s milk in the Normandy region. It is characterized by a soft flesh and a skin covered with white mold. It has a wonderful aroma and mild flavor.
Cantal – This is one of the oldest French cheeses made in Auvergne. It is classified as a semi-hard cheese and contains 45% fat. It is a traditional farmer’s cheese made of Salers’ milk (the region of France, where the specific breed of cows is grazing) The peculiarity of its production is the pressing of the cheese twice. During this process, the already pressed curd milk is ground again, then salted and finally put into the mold. Cantal cheese has a velvety, exceptionally mild flavor with a distinct hazelnut aroma. It is often served after a meal with light fruit wine.
Chaource – It is a traditional cheese overgrown with white mold. It comes from the Champagne region. The young cheese has a delicate, just-forming crust with a milky aroma. As the skin matures, it thickens, and red spots of mold develop on its surface. Chaource combines sweetness with the aftertaste of fresh fruit.
Coulommiers – a variety of soft French rennet cheese made from cow’s milk. Contains 40-50% fat. The taste of this cheese is quite delicate, milky, slightly mushroom. The harder the inside, the closer to the skin, the more it flows. Snow-white skin.
Danablu – Original Danish semi-hard cheese with blue mold and an extraordinarily strong, salty taste. Made of pasteurized cow’s milk. It contains 50% of fat.
Emmental – produced in the France – Comté region. It is a hard cheese with ivory or pale-yellow flesh. Some Emmental varieties are made only from Franche-Comté, Vosges and Savoy milk and are called “Grand Cru”.
Gorgonzola Bleu – a soft, matured, blue cheese from the northern Italian region of Lombardy. Its name comes from the village of Gorgonzola, where it has been produced since 879 (but as usually, there are other cities that demand that they be called the “hometown” of this cheese).It is produced from cow’s milk and is dotted with greenish veins of Penicillium glaucum. There are two types of Gorgonzola cheese available for sale: natural, drier cheese with a noticeably greater amount of mold and cream cheese, which is made with milk enriched with cream.
Morbier – Semi-hard cheese made from cow’s milk. It has a round shape, slightly rounded sides and a horizontal black layer of wood ash and salt. It has a characteristic moist, beige skin. Perfect for sauces and casseroles.
Munster – classified as a soft cheese with a creamy texture. It is made of cow’s milk. The name comes from the city where it was made by the French Benedictines for 14 centuries. During the production process, the cheese is continuously rubbed with brine for 2-3 months. This gives the skin a rich color and enhances the aroma. The flesh of the young cheese is creamy, and the taste is fresh and nutty. Ripe Munster achieves an intense bouquet, the rind glows redder, is moister, and the flavor is strong and full of character.
Neufchatel – cheese from Northern France, from the Normandie region. Is most often produced in a heart-shaped form, although it can also be disc, barrel or cube-shaped. It has a dry, smooth, white skin which turns brown with time. The interior is smooth, light yellow, turning brown with time. It has a very pleasant smell and a mild and slightly acidic taste. Spreads very well.
Roquefort – Very sharp cheese, made from sheep’s milk with bluish veins. Produced in the French town of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon. It is one of the oldest and most famous types of cheese.
Stilton – last cheese from the moldy rind category. This one comes from England. It is produced in two varieties: blue and white. It is white cream to amber in color, cut with a mesh of blue veins. It has a hard, rough, wrinkled rind, formed by the action of various types of mold, covered with tiny holes after the cheese is pricked with needles so that air can penetrate the cheese, and a characteristic pear-like smell. The taste should be sharp with a noticeable aroma of herbs and blue mold. Too young a Stilon can be bitter. Funny fact. In England, its illegal to carry this cheese in public transport. Thank to its very intense smell, often it is called the “stinky cheese”
SEMI-SOFT (Fine to thick grey-brown rind or orange & sometimes gummy) …
Those cheeses are all made with whole milk and sometimes with addition of cream, with water content usually between 36% and 45% while they go through an aging process. This gives them their characteristic soft, creamy texture and amazing melting qualities. What semi-soft cheeses share is a short aging period, typically only a few months, which results in a moist, flexible cheese with a creamy consistency.
There are two distinctive styles of semi-soft cheeses:
– dry-rind cheeses are cured without a surface treatment.
– washed-rind cheeses as their surface-ripened, are treated with a bacterial smear and then washed with a solution to encourage the smear to grow. Washed-rind cheeses ripen from the outside in.
Epoisses – an incredibly unique French cheese. Napoleon was thrilled with it, and Jean Brillat-Savarin, a famous French politician who was also famous in the culinary industry, called him “the king of all cheeses”. Époisses de Bourgogne is a creamy white cheese with an exceptionally soft center and a distinctly wrinkled orange rind. At room temperature, it has a similar consistency to brie cheese. When it comes to smell, it is a bit like blue cheese. Since the cheese is first soaked in water with salt, it is very salty, and the taste is more like beef broth than cheese. The surface of the Epoisses de Bourgogne is also often smeared with alcohol, which gives it a characteristic aroma. The intoxicating nature of its smell is evidenced by the fact that in France it was forbidden to transport it by public transport. Pungent smell is often compared to that emitted by a person who has not washed for several or several days. Encouraging?
Fontina – Italian cheese that is made from cow’s milk. The texture of this cheese is soft and elastic but still varies depending on the maturation period. The holes should be light and widespread. The color of the rind varies from light brown to dark, depending on the ripeness. The period to full maturity takes 80 days.
Havarti – Danish cheese has a buttery aroma and can be. The taste is buttery, from somewhat to extremely sweet, and slightly acidic. Its take about three months to mature fully, though when the cheese is older, it becomes saltier and tastes like hazelnut. Quite often is made with dill seeds, to create it that slightly herb flavor.
Langres – soft cheese made of heated cow’s milk with a rinsed rind. One of the most recognizable French cheeses from Champagne. It has a very characteristic so-called “Little pool” from the top. This “basin” is formed because the cheese is not turned over during maturation. The consistency is grainy (curd). It has a distinct smell and a slightly spicy flavor
Limburger – It is a semi-soft cheese made with cow’s milk, which with a little persistence can be even spread on bread. The creamy texture is visually smooth but tends to crumble into pieces when processed. The slightly straw-colored interior resembles French brie cheese, while the rind is dark yellow, sometimes even brownish. Quite mild in taste, it is also referred to as grassy and mushroom, with a slight hint of sharpness remaining on the tongue. The most characteristic, however, is the distinct smell, perceived by most people negatively. The cheese is a star of many jokes and funny stories, thanks to this distinct smell.
Livarot – It is a soft, rennet cheese made of cow’s milk, which mature from 6 to 9 weeks. Originating in Normandy, this cheese is characterized by a yellow, elastic flesh with a spicy flavor and an orange crust. Depending on the length of the ripening period, the taste of the cheese acquires a slightly spicy note and an intense aroma.
Port salut – it is a soft ripened cheese, made from cow’s milk according to a traditional French recipe. It has a unique creamy and creamy taste, and its distinctive, soft orange peel gives it distinction.
Saint-Nectaire Fermier – is one of the most classic farmhouse cheeses. It has a delicate fruity flavor. The rind is covered with a natural gray-black mold that smells of damp cellars. This cheese belongs to the semi-soft cheeses. It is pressed twice, made of unpasteurized cow’s milk.
Stinking Bishop – English soft made from pasteurized cow’s milk. It has fat content is 48%. Uniform, creamy, semi-fluid consistency. The color of the cheese ranges from white to beige, yellow and orange, while the rind is grayish. The cheese is famous for its specific, extremely strong smell, reminiscent of stale socks and wet towels. It comes from the production stage, where, during its maturation (4 months), every 4 weeks it is washed in a decoction of local aromatic pears of the same name (Stinking Bishop). This process probably comes from the tradition of the local Cistercians
Taleggio – Italian soft cheese is on the list of the most “aromatic” cheeses in the world. As a result of rubbing the cheese rind with a salt solution, the flesh acquires a sharp taste and a rich aroma, that can be described as very rich and spicy where the dominant flavor is sweet, grassy taste, with a fruity-floral shade and almond aftertaste.
SEMI HARD AND HARD CHEESE
This category at last is set aside for all the types if cheese, that have low to extremely low moisture levels. They are characterized by their strong saltiness and rich umami flavor profile. The duration of the aging process will establish the hardness of the cheese and the “sharpness” of its flavor profile. Because cheese loses the moisture as it ages, naturally occurring hardening and developing the natural flavor of the proteins created by the bacterial cultures.
The semi hard and hard cheeses mature generally for an awfully long time and are mainly produced in the mountainous.
Fun fact: In Poland, all hard cheeses, are refer to as “yellow cheese”.
Asiago – an Italian cow’s milk cheese that takes on few different textures, according to its aging, from smooth for the fresh to a crumbly texture for the aged cheese. It tastes have the slight sharpness, similar in flavor to parmesan, but lighter.
Chaumes – is a soft cheese made from cow’s milk. The Chaumes production region is the Périgord in southwestern France. The method of its production is based on the old and traditional recipe. The soft peel of this cheese has a deep mandarin color. The cheese has a creamy flesh and a unique nutty aroma.
Cheddar – This type of English cheese that is made from cow’s milk and contains about 25% fat. It has a yellow-orange color, spicy, slightly sour, and nutty flavor.
Colby – is an American cheese made from cows’ milk. it is like Cheddar, but it is softer, wetter, and milder
Colby-Jack – is made from a blend of Colby and Monterey Jack cheeses to create a marbled appearance and is called Colby-Jack (Colby Jack) or Co-Jack (Cojack).
Comte – This is one of the most appreciated cheeses in France. It is produced from the milk of cows at the Mountains in the Franche-Comté region. The taste and aroma of Comté depends on the season in which it is produced. In summer, when the cows eat mostly fresh grass in the meadow, the cheese is more yellow, with a more aromatic flavor, and in winter, its color becomes ivory-like, while the taste is distinctly nutty.
Edam – semi-hard cheese, made from cow’s milk or, less often – goat’s milk. Comes from near the Dutch city of Edam. Sold with a red wax coating and cheeses more than 17 weeks old in black. Most of the short-matured edam cheeses sold in stores have a very mild, slightly salty, and spicy flavor, and almost no odor compared to other cheeses. With age, the cheese acquires a stronger flavor and hardens. Edam cheese is round, about the size of a pea. Edam also has a lower fat content than other species.
Emmental – With a slightly nutty, delicate flavor, flexible interior and even eyes.
Gloucester – English hard cheese produced since the XVI century from cows’ milk. There are two types of Gloucester cheese: Single and Double; both types have a natural rind (outer layer) and a hard texture, but Single Gloucester is more crumbly, lighter in texture and lower in fat. Double Gloucester is allowed to age for longer periods than Single, and it has a stronger and more savory flavor. It is also slightly firmer.
Gouda – One of the most famous types of hard cheese. Ripe Gouda is the most delicious (it becomes fully ripe after 10-12 weeks). Some varieties (Old Amsterdam) can mature up to 18 months.
Grana Padano – One of the most famous Italian cheeses. It matures in a well-ventilated cellar at specific temperature. Hard, thick, oiled, yellow-golden leather – darkens with maturation.
Gruyere – Swiss cheese that is made from cow’s milk. The taste of gruyère cheese is very distinctive – mild and slightly nutty. There are no holes inside the cheese itself. There are three basic varieties of this cheese, the taste of which varies according to the maturation period (3, 6 or 9 months). The real gruyère comes only from Switzerland, from the region of the same name. There is a museum of this cheese in Gruyère in Switzerland.
Jarlsberg – type of cheese, mainly produced in Norway, from cow’s milk. It is a firm or semi-hard cheese with a mild, sweet taste. Modeled on the Swiss Emerald, it is softer and sweeter. It is lemon-yellow in color and has large, round holes. It can mature from one to 15 months.
Manchego – the most famous and most popular cheese from Spain to the Lam Mancha Plains (just like the setting of the novel Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes). Made from sheep’s milk. Manchego is a hard, matured cheese. There are small holes in its flesh.
Milleens – is a new cheese. It was established in 1976 on the farm of Norman and Veronica Steele in the Irish Country of Cork. It is a cow’s milk cheese that matured between four and ten months. this cheese has a characteristic rich creamy taste and fragrant mushroom earthiness and notes of herbs. Milleens cheeses are best left at room temperature for a while so that the full flavor can develop before eating.
Monterey Jack -sometimes called ” Jack cheese”. In its original version, Monterey is a semi-hard cheese with a delicate buttery flavor. This is one of the most popular cheeses in America and is also successfully used in Mexican cuisine. Although it is there that the Pepper Jack variety is used more often, i.e. cheese combined with chili peppers.
Muenster (American) – It is an American semi-soft cheese, not to be confused with the French Munster cheese. The taste of this cheese can be very mild to spicy, its color being light yellow with an orange rind – this orange color is of vegetable origin. Cheese melts easily
Parmigiano-Reggiano – Parmesan is a generic name for the original Parmigiano-Reggiano from Italy. To make this classic cheese, large wheels of freshly curdled milk are first soaked in a salt bath for three months, then aged for at least 24 months, but up to three years.
Pecorino Romano – Hard cheese, very firm and light in color. The intensity of the flavor depends on the length of maturation. Contrary to the name (in Italian it means “Roman sheep”), about 90 percent. production is made in Sardinia.
Pepato – cheese produce in Sicily. Semi hard one made with sheep’s milk, always have peppercorns inside. Typically take from 2 to 4 months to mature, but in many Italian stores you can buy young Pepato cheese.
Provolone – Italian Provolone Dolce is aged for about 2-3 months. Its taste is slightly sweet and mild, but there is always present some level of saltiness. This semi-hard cheese, with a thin but hard rind, yellow in color with a slight sheen, comes in various shapes, mostly spherical. The weight and shape differ on the fantasy of the manufacturer. Provolone is high in calcium and protein, but on the other hand is also high in sodium.
Raclette – Raclette cheese is nowadays mostly understood as a fashionable Swiss dish that is best shared with friends. Few people know, however, that in fact Raclette is primarily a type of alpine cow cheese, which initiated the whole ritual of toasting delicacies on trays. Raclette cheese from the Valais region is a semi-hard cheese with a fat content of 50%. It has a light-yellow color and a smooth, creamy consistency, but always retains its original shape at room temperature. The smell is described as pleasant, fruity, and aromatic, while the taste is milky, slightly acidic, with a sweet, nutty note. Raclette cheese has a thin natural rind with an orange-brown color
Roncal – highest quality Spanish cheese made from whole milk from sheep. This cheese has a compact but brittle structure. The inside of the cheese is light yellow and has small irregular eyes. The top of the quite hard and thick rind of Roncal cheese is embossed with traditional motifs for the region in which it was made.
Rústico – Italian, young Papato cheese present on market before reaching full maturity, spiced with peppercorns (see Papato cheese)
Swiss – Swiss cheeses are made from fresh milk, which is fermented. After forming, they are being kept maturing from a few to even several years. From time to time, they are being rotated, massaged, and washed. They have a specific tangy taste, and many of them have those characteristic holes inside.
Zamorano – from Spanish Zamora province. Hard cheese made with sheep’s milk, from local breed. While is maturing, for 6 months, it is often turning, and brushed with olive oil, which give it specific dark color. Zamorano has a “very creamy, sweet, spicy flavor” with “a bit of spice”. Others describe it as hardy and nutty
And the last, shameful category
The processed cheese
Heap of Sliced American Yellow Cheese on White Background 
Processed cheese was invented in Switzerland in 1911. The innovation is credited to Walter Gerber of Thun. (is a
Processed cheese has a much greater advantage over natural cheese. Much longer shelf life, resistance to separation after cooking (melting), uniform appearance and behavior. Mass production is probably the greatest advantage over cheese made using the natural methods. Above all, dramatically lower costs – for producers and consumers – than for conventional cheeses. This, in turn, enables the expansion of the industrial production scale, lower distribution costs, more stable power supply and much faster production times compared to traditional products.
Opposite to more traditionally made cheese, the list of additional ingredients, used in the factory production of all processed cheese products also known as prepared cheese, cheese product, or single slice cheese, getting much longer and complicated. Food product are made from cheese (sometimes the second unfermented dairy by-products) as well as emulsifiers, saturated vegetable oils, extra salt, colorings, whey, or sugar. As a result, many flavors, colors, and textures of processed cheese exist.
Applying emulsifiers in processed cheese results to a product that melts without separating during cooking, with prolonged heating. Some natural cheeses (especially cheddar and mozzarella) split into an uneven, melted protein gel and liquid fat combination. Emulsifiers (usually sodium phosphate, potassium phosphate, tartrate, or citrate) reduce the tendency for the fine globules of fat in the cheese to sink and pool on the surface.
Because the processed cheese does not separate when it melts, it is used as an ingredient in a wide variety of dishes. Unlike some unprocessed cheeses, heating does not change its flavor or texture.
Processed cheeses are often sold in blocks, pressure cans, and packs of individual slices, often separated by paper, or with each segment individually wrapped in the machine.
I hope that this ultimate cheese list, can help you navigate the world of cheese. There is so much more types, in all corners of the world…but I guess there is no way to tackle all of them in this one post… so if there is anything I’m missing here, or something got omitted here , please let me know.. and do not be a stranger
Havarti the best cheese ever…
i used to love Jarlsberg
Blessed are the cheese makers!
And Yes I love cheese and that looks good🧀😋