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The Oxford Companion to Cheese
Winner of the 2017 James Beard Award for Reference & Scholarship
The discovery of cheese is a narrative at least 8,000 years old, dating back to the Neolithic era. Yet, after all of these thousands of years we are still finding new ways to combine the same four basic ingredients - milk, bacteria, salt, and enzymes - into new and exciting products with vastly different shapes, sizes, and colors, and equally complex and varied tastes, textures, and, yes, aromas. In fact, after a long period of industrialized, processed, and standardized cheese, cheesemakers, cheesemongers, affineurs, and most of all consumers are rediscovering the endless variety of cheeses across cultures.
The Oxford Companion to Cheese is the first major reference work dedicated to cheese, containing 855 A-Z entries on cheese history, culture, science, and production. From cottage cheese to Camembert, from Gorgonzola to Gruyere, there are entries on all of the major cheese varieties globally, but also many cheeses that are not well known outside of their region of production. The concentrated whey cheeses popular in Norway, brunost, are covered here, as are the traditional Turkish and Iranian cheeses that are ripened in casings prepared from sheep's or goat's skin. There are entries on animal species whose milk is commonly (cow, goat, sheep) and not so commonly (think yak, camel, and reindeer) used in cheesemaking, as well as entries on a few highly important breeds within each species, such as the Nubian goat or the Holstein cow. Regional entries on places with a strong history of cheese production, biographies of influential cheesemakers, innovative and influential cheese shops, and historical entries on topics like manorial cheesemaking and cheese in children's literature round out the Companion's eclectic cultural coverage.
The Companion also reflects a fascination with the microbiology and chemistry of cheese, featuring entries on bacteria, molds, yeasts, cultures, and coagulants used in cheesemaking and cheese maturing. The blooms, veins, sticky surfaces, gooey interiors, crystals, wrinkles, strings, and yes, for some, the odors of cheese are all due to microbial action and growth. And today we have unprecedented insight into the microbial complexity of cheese, thanks to advances in molecular biology, whole-genome sequencing technologies, and microbiome research. The Companion is equally interested in the applied elements of cheesemaking, with entries on production methodologies and the technology and equipment used in cheesemaking.
An astonishing 325 authors contributed entries to the Companion, residing in 35 countries. These experts included cheesemakers, cheesemongers, dairy scientists, anthropologists, food historians, journalists, archaeologists, and on, from backgrounds as diverse as the topics they write about. Every entry is signed by the author, and includes both cross references to related topics and further reading suggestions. The endmatter includes a list of cheese-related museums and a thorough index. Two 16-page color inserts and well over a hundred black and white images help bring the entries to life.
This landmark encyclopedia is the most wide-ranging, comprehensive, and reliable reference work on cheese available, suitable for both novices and industry insiders alike.
The discovery of cheese is a narrative at least 8,000 years old, dating back to the Neolithic era. Yet, after all of these thousands of years we are still finding new ways to combine the same four basic ingredients - milk, bacteria, salt, and enzymes - into new and exciting products with vastly different shapes, sizes, and colors, and equally complex and varied tastes, textures, and, yes, aromas. In fact, after a long period of industrialized, processed, and standardized cheese, cheesemakers, cheesemongers, affineurs, and most of all consumers are rediscovering the endless variety of cheeses across cultures.
The Oxford Companion to Cheese is the first major reference work dedicated to cheese, containing 855 A-Z entries on cheese history, culture, science, and production. From cottage cheese to Camembert, from Gorgonzola to Gruyere, there are entries on all of the major cheese varieties globally, but also many cheeses that are not well known outside of their region of production. The concentrated whey cheeses popular in Norway, brunost, are covered here, as are the traditional Turkish and Iranian cheeses that are ripened in casings prepared from sheep's or goat's skin. There are entries on animal species whose milk is commonly (cow, goat, sheep) and not so commonly (think yak, camel, and reindeer) used in cheesemaking, as well as entries on a few highly important breeds within each species, such as the Nubian goat or the Holstein cow. Regional entries on places with a strong history of cheese production, biographies of influential cheesemakers, innovative and influential cheese shops, and historical entries on topics like manorial cheesemaking and cheese in children's literature round out the Companion's eclectic cultural coverage.
The Companion also reflects a fascination with the microbiology and chemistry of cheese, featuring entries on bacteria, molds, yeasts, cultures, and coagulants used in cheesemaking and cheese maturing. The blooms, veins, sticky surfaces, gooey interiors, crystals, wrinkles, strings, and yes, for some, the odors of cheese are all due to microbial action and growth. And today we have unprecedented insight into the microbial complexity of cheese, thanks to advances in molecular biology, whole-genome sequencing technologies, and microbiome research. The Companion is equally interested in the applied elements of cheesemaking, with entries on production methodologies and the technology and equipment used in cheesemaking.
An astonishing 325 authors contributed entries to the Companion, residing in 35 countries. These experts included cheesemakers, cheesemongers, dairy scientists, anthropologists, food historians, journalists, archaeologists, and on, from backgrounds as diverse as the topics they write about. Every entry is signed by the author, and includes both cross references to related topics and further reading suggestions. The endmatter includes a list of cheese-related museums and a thorough index. Two 16-page color inserts and well over a hundred black and white images help bring the entries to life.
This landmark encyclopedia is the most wide-ranging, comprehensive, and reliable reference work on cheese available, suitable for both novices and industry insiders alike.
872 pages, Hardcover
Published November 22, 2016
32 people are currently reading
253 people want to read
About the author
Catherine Donnelly
8 booksCatherine Donnelly was an award-winning copywriter with a Dublin advertising agency, before leaving to write. She was an occasional columnist for the Sunday Independent and a regular contributor to Irish Tatler magazine, before writing The State of Grace. She is currently working on her second novel.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 12, 2021
This book is an absolute brick. It's essentially a dictionary of cheese terminology--not light reading by any means--but the sort of thing people study for their cheesemonger examinations. For me, this was a pleasure read. It took me over three weeks to make it through, and for the last stretch, I challenged myself to make it through 50 pages a day. Though it's nearing 10 years old, most of the information is still relevant (oh, but I wish Teleme cheese was still around, as I would so love to try it). This really is a fascinating book and one that I'll be keeping around for reference.
November 26, 2017
Most everything you ever wanted to know about cheese. Won't recommend to read the book per say, just keep it as a reference. It may come handy when you really need to know what is a Ragusano or who are the members of the Specialist Cheesemakers Association. Should the word 'fascèra' come up in dinner conversation, you will be well-informed. :)
December 30, 2018
Such an excellent, exhaustive encyclopedia on cheese. I read this thing like a novel and love it to death.
March 19, 2018
Great reference on Cheese. Very full of information and a great reference.
December 26, 2019
An amazing reference tome on everything cheese.
August 31, 2021
What a marvel! A highly interesting encyclopedia on everyone’s favorite dairy products. You start by looking up a certain cheese or a term related to cheesemaking and you end up learning that donkey cheese is considered one of the best cheeses for people allergic to dairy but due to the low milk productivity of jennies (which is apparently the correct word for a female donkey) is only produced in one corner of Serbia and costs about 500$ per pound! Or you learn that dairy maids were considered proverbially healthy due to their work-related exposure to cow pox which granted a kind of immunity to smallpox which in turn left them less disfigured than the usual dweller of, well, all the centuries before Jenner came up with a smallpox vaccination. (One can see, I recently browsed through the letter D)
Highly recommended to everyone with an interest in cheese, 5 out of 5 stars.
Highly recommended to everyone with an interest in cheese, 5 out of 5 stars.
January 24, 2022
Cheese-lovers everywhere, rejoice! Read all about your favourite cheeses. This book’s got the lot (including a lot of chemistry I don’t understand, but I know what I like!).
September 23, 2024
All I can say is, WOW. This book is full of pretty much anything any normal person would ever need to know about cheese.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews