The History of Cheese

Sometime around 7,000 B.C., an Arab nomad filled a pouch made of a sheep’s stomach with milk, jumped on his horse and took off on a journey across the desert. Hours later he stopped to quench his thirst — to his surprise, he discovered that the milk had turned to … cheese!

Legend or not, this is a pretty good indication of how cheese was discovered. Milk would mix with the rennet found in an animal’s stomach and, warmed by the sun and vigorously shaken, would separate into whey and curds — the building blocks of cheese.

In ancient times, cheese was considered sacred. Egyptian priests were entrusted with the secret of transforming milk, and archaeologists have discovered tombs painted with the techniques of cheese making. Romans and Greeks thought cheese a luxury food—destined for the tables of the rich—and eventually it became a daily staple for the Roman Legions, who brought the delicacy to the far reaches of the Empire.

But it was the monks in the Middle Ages who perfected the art of cheese making as we know it today. Curious by nature, the monks experimented with ripening and aging techniques to create excellent, more refined cheeses—including brie and camembert.

One such monk, Marie-Alphonse Juin, left his abbey in Entrammes, France, in 1893 with the recipe for Port-du-Salut cheese. Arriving at Oka Abbey in the Deux-Montagnes region of Quebec, he began teaching his fellow monks how to craft cheese in the French tradition using local ingredients. The result? The renowned OKA cheeses, which continue to be made in the same Abbey cellars over 100 years later.

Today, Agropur is proud to have inherited Frère Juin’s secret recipe—and prouder still to have opened the door to fine cheese making across the country.

It has taken almost 10,000 years to get here, and it’s worth every bite.