Cheese

Cheese is one of the oldest manufactured foods and, as is true of other fermented products, the first curdled or spoiled milk that was enjoyed in this fashion was most likely discovered accidentally. Most researchers seem to agree that the discovery of utilizing rennet to curdle milk first occurred as a result of fresh milk being stored in pouches made from the stomachs of animals. It is assumed that producing cheese by way of bacterial milk fermentation was an unplanned invention as well. Once it was discovered that these products had a pleasing flavor and—possibly more important, in ancient times—that both curdling and fermenting were ways of preserving milk, these process were duplicated intentionally, and cheese making began.