Roman Cheese

• The Latin for cheese was ‘Caseus’ and ‘Caseus formaticus’ was cheese made in a mould (forma).

Sources

• Columella:
  • The ‘De Re Rustica’ (c.65 CE) has a detailed description of Cheese making using Rennet to bind the milk, salting and compressing the curd into a wheel, then maturing the Cheese.
• Pliny the Elder:
  • The ‘Natural History’ (c.77 CE) in Chapter XI line 97 has a description of a great variety of Cheeses.
  • Pliny wrote that cheese was exported from, as well as imported into, Rome.
  • Apparently, the most popular in cheese in Rome came from Pagi, near Nimes.
  • His favourite cheese came from Bithynia, modern Turkey.