If you're like me, then you have some favorite cheeses. I'm a sucker for Double-cream Brie, Smoked Gouda, and Sharp Cheddar. But although I love eating cheese, I don't know a lot of things about it! I took it upon myself to go to the library's online database and do some digging. You won't BELIEVE some of the cool facts about cheese I found!
Fact 1: Cheese can be made from the milk of ANY animal! In the United States, we mostly use cow's milk, but other countries such as Europe and Asia often make their milk from goats, sheep, and buffalo. Herders in Lapland (a region in Finland) even make their cheese from reindeer milk! Want to get even crazier? Camel, horse, donkey, and zebra milk have all been used to make cheese too!
Fact 2: The United States is the world leader in cheese production. (And you thought it was Switzerland, didn't you?) Wisconsin and California produce the most cheese out of all fifty states. Together, they produce about half the cheese in America!
Fact 3: Do you know what makes cheese soft? Moisture! The more moisture inside of a cheese, the softer it is. Soft cheeses include cottage cheese, cream cheese, Brie, Camembert, and other spreadable cheeses.
Fact 4: Even though there are hundreds of different cheeses made around the world, there are four groups that all of cheeses are sorted into: soft cheeses, semisoft cheeses, hard cheeses, and VERY hard cheeses. Sometimes, it can be difficult to know which cheese belongs to which group! For instance, I was surprised to find out that Cheddar (one of my favorites) is classified as a hard cheese.
If you want to learn more interesting facts about cheese, (or ANY topic, for that matter) check out our online resources! For this blog post, I used World Book. You just need your library card number and PIN to log in.
So what are you waiting for? Start learning new things, and while you're at, eat a slice of cheese.
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