Just Cheesy: The Podcast! In the Brie-ginning

Cheesy and Fondue go all the way back to the beginning of time. We learn about the worlds first cheese from Neolithic Europe to Bronze Age China. We find out that cheese may have helped humans survive. And of course, we tell a very cheesy joke!

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Why is cheddar the most dangerous of all the cheeses? Because it is very sharp!

Show Notes 

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11698

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0202807&

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/3500-years-ago-someone-packed-cheese-for-the-afterlife

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/tarim-basin-mummy-cheese-microbe-kefir

https://time.com/5371503/ancient-egypt-tomb-old-cheese/

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/science/article/2024/09/30/in-china-the-world-s-oldest-cheese-reveals-its-sec

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Just Cheesy the podcastpresented by Just Cheesy Productions.
Hi there. I'm your host, Fondue.
I'm Cheesy.
This week, we're going all theway back to the beginning of time.
We learn about the world'sfirst cheese. From Neolithic Europe
to Bronze Age China, we findout that cheese may have helped humans

(00:24):
survive. And of course, wetell a very cheesy joke. Welcome
to Just cheesy the podcast,episode 195 99. In the beginning
this week, we're basicallytime traveling and we're going back
around 7, 500 years ago.
Holy cow.
That's right. You're eatingyour Kraft Single, thinking this

(00:46):
can't possibly be 8,000 yearsold. Well, you're right. The Kraft
single isn't, but cheese is.Let's talk about the Neolithic era.
According to a 2012 article inNature, scientists found traces of
dairy fat in pottery acrossnorthern Europe. And this suggested
that people were alreadyfermenting milk into something more
digestible. But a realbreakthrough came later.

(01:08):
Really?
In 2018, researchers had astudy that analyzed fatty acids in
pottery and the shards fromthe Dalmatian coast of Croatia in
sites that I can't pronounce.According to PLOS One and coverage
on phys.org, the lipid andisotope testing showed clear signs
of cheese making well over7,000 years ago.

(01:29):
Holy cow.
And the key clue? Residue onceramic sieves. Imagine early cheesecloth,
but made of clay. They foundthat while early pots had milk residue,
the later ones had showedunmistakable signs of cheese or other
fermented products. And if youthink about it, they were working
with milk storage. Lesslactose, longer shelf life. Cheese

(01:50):
was pretty much an ancientsurvival food. Early Europeans were
mostly lactose intolerant. Asadults, they were. But by fermenting
milk into cheese, they couldeat dairy without.
Without what?
Well, without digestive disasters.
Farts.
Right. And according to thestudy, this lowered infant mortality
and gave people portableprotein on a stick. Cheese literally

(02:12):
helped communities survive and grow.
Wow.
Neolithic cheese is not a sponsor.
Nope.

(03:08):
But if it was, the ad would goright here. Fast forward to Bronze
Age China. We're talking about3,500 years ago in a place whose
name I will unintentionallybutcher. Xinjiang, China. In 2014,
archaeologists were excavatingthe Xiaohe cemetery and they uncovered

(03:29):
something remarkable.
Really?
At that cemetery, mummies wereburied with what looked like little
pebble sized lumps placed likenecklaces around their necks. Those
lumps were cheese.
They were.
According to Science Focus andNational Geographic, they weren't
just random curds either.
Really?
They were necklaces of cheesestrung around the dead as offerings.
Wow.
Amazingly, researchersextracted the DNA and proteins from

(03:52):
these lumps.
Really?
They identified them as kefirstuff. Fermented cheese with microbial
DNA. And I can't say the wordsof what they were called.
Nope.
They even reconstructed about92% of its genome.
Wow.
This discovery shed light onhow these types of cheese cultures
spread and evolved. The timesin scitech Daily allude to the fact

(04:13):
that the strains found werecloser to the ones from Tibet and
Asia, not the Caucasus. Andthis is a region between the Black
Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Wow.
And apparently this challengesthe assumptions about Kiefer origins.
Really?
The fact that these cheesenecklaces were actually intentionally
buried suggests that thepeople of the time prized cheese

(04:34):
highly. And maybe it was as asustenance for the afterlife.
I'd take cheese with me, too.
Right. Let's not forget aboutancient Egypt.
Okay.
According to Smithsonianmagazine, and confirmed by chemical
analysis, cheese residue wasdiscovered in alabaster jars at a
site dating around 3200 years ago.

(04:54):
Wow.
And possibly even older. About4000 years ago, two murals depict
cheese making. Of course,Egypt's people clearly valued cheese
as a food, ritual, andoffering, just like us. Maybe that's
why we eat cheese shaped likewedges. They do look a little bit
like a pyramid. Okay, butrealistically, the important point
is, by the Bronze Age, cheesehad already gone from a survival

(05:17):
strategy to a cultural staple.It was feeding populations in Europe,
carried in tombs in China andplaced on altars in Egypt. Yeah,
cheese was global beforeglobalization was even popular.
I'm ready for a joke fondue.
Okay. What is a mummy'sfavorite cheese?
I don't know.
String cheese. It matches itswardrobe. Was that good?

(05:40):
No, it was silly.
It was a little silly and alittle bit cheesy. Thanks for listening
to Just Cheesy, the podcast,episode 199 in the brie-ginning
Thank you.
Join us next time for thesecond part of this this episode,
where we journey frommonasteries to medieval markets to
modern cheese pioneers.

(06:00):
and stay cheesy everybody