Concepts and words
182 cheese words explained in plain language: making terms such as rennet and cheddaring, rinds and moulds, tools such as the girolle and the harp, protected names, and the words for cheese across the world.
A
- Aaruul
- Mongolian dried curd: pieces of soured, pressed milk curd left to harden in the sun.
- Acid-set cheese
- Cheese whose curd is formed by acid rather than rennet, as in paneer, chhena, ricotta and quark.
- Affinage
- The French word for the care and ageing of cheese after it leaves the make room.
- Affineur
- A specialist who buys young cheeses and ages them to their best in cellars of their own.
- Akkawi
- A white brined cheese of the Levant, named after the port city of Acre.
- Alpage
- A high summer pasture in the French Alps, and the cheese made from milk grazed there.
- Alpine pasture
- The grazing land above the tree line where Alpine herds spend the summer and cheese is made in huts.
- Ammoniated
- A sharp smell of ammonia from a soft cheese that has ripened too far or been wrapped too tightly.
- Animal rennet
- Rennet taken from the stomach of young calves, kids or lambs, the traditional way of setting milk.
- Annatto
- A natural orange colouring from the seeds of the achiote tree, used to tint cheddar, Red Leicester and Mimolette.
- AOC
- France's controlled designation of origin, first given to a cheese, Roquefort, in 1925.
- AOP
- The French form of the European protected designation of origin, found on Comté, Brie de Meaux and some forty other cheeses.
- Artisanal
- Cheese made by hand in small batches, usually from milk bought from nearby farms.
- Ash
- Fine food-grade charcoal dusted on fresh goat cheeses or used as a dark line through the middle of Morbier.
- Ayib
- Ethiopia's soft, crumbly fresh cheese, made from the buttermilk left after churning butter.
B
- Bandel cheese
- Small, salty, often smoked discs of cheese from Bengal, a survival of the Portuguese settlement at Bandel.
- Bloom
- The soft white or grey coat of mould that grows on the surface of Brie, Camembert and many goat cheeses.
- Bloomy rind
- A soft cheese covered in a velvety white mould rind, as on Brie, Camembert and Chaource.
- Brevibacterium linens
- The orange-red bacterium on the rinds of washed-rind cheeses, responsible for much of their colour and smell.
- Brining
- Salting a cheese by floating it in a bath of strong salt water, or keeping it in brine until it is eaten.
- Bryndza
- A soft, spreadable, tangy sheep cheese of Slovakia and the Polish highlands, eaten with potato dumplings.
- Brynza
- The Eastern European name for a white brined cheese of sheep, cow or mixed milk, close to feta.
- Bundz
- A fresh, mild sheep cheese of the Polish Tatra highlands and the starting point for oscypek and bryndza.
- Butterfat
- The fat in milk, which carries much of a cheese's flavour and decides how rich and soft it feels.
- Byaslag
- Mongolia's soft pressed cheese, made in summer from cow or yak milk and eaten fresh or dried.
C
- Calcium lactate crystals
- Small white crystals that appear on the surface or cut face of aged cheddar and Gouda.
- Casein
- The main protein in milk, which clumps together to form the curd from which every cheese is made.
- Cave
- A cool, humid cellar or natural cavern where cheese is left to age.
- Chalky core
- The firm, white, crumbly middle of a young soft cheese that has not yet ripened right through.
- Chechil
- A brined string cheese from Armenia, stretched into thin ropes and wound into a braid or knot.
- Cheddaring
- Stacking and turning slabs of warm curd in the vat so they knit, drain and grow acid before milling.
- Cheese board
- A selection of cheeses served together, or the wooden or stone board they are served on.
- Cheese course
- The part of a meal given to cheese, served in France before dessert and in Britain often after it.
- Cheese curds
- Fresh pieces of cheddar curd eaten before pressing, famous for squeaking against the teeth.
- Cheese harp
- A frame strung with fine wires or blades, drawn through the set curd in the vat to cut it into pieces.
- Cheese iron
- A hollow, half-round steel blade pushed into a wheel to draw out a plug of cheese for tasting.
- Cheese knife
- Any of the knives shaped for cutting cheeses of different textures, from soft Brie to hard grana.
- Cheese mites
- Tiny mites that feed on the rinds of aged cheeses, kept deliberately on Mimolette and German Milbenkäse.
- Cheese plane
- A flat Norwegian slicer with a slot in its blade that shaves thin, even slices from a block of cheese.
- Cheese wire
- A taut steel wire, on a handle or a board, used to cut soft and semi-hard cheese without crushing it.
- Cheesecloth
- Loose-woven cotton cloth used to drain curd, line moulds and bind the outside of some cheeses.
- Cheesemonger
- A shopkeeper who selects, cares for and sells cheese, often cutting it to order.
- Chèvre
- The French word for goat, used for any goat-milk cheese and especially the small lactic cheeses of the Loire.
- Chhena
- Fresh, soft, unpressed curd made by souring hot milk with acid, the base of Bengali and Odia sweets.
- Chhena poda
- Odisha's baked cheese sweet: chhena with sugar and cardamom, baked until its outside caramelises.
- Churpi
- The Himalayan cheese of Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling and Bhutan, eaten soft in curries or dried rock-hard and chewed.
- Chymosin
- The enzyme in rennet that makes milk set, now mostly made by fermentation rather than taken from calves.
- Clothbound
- A cheese wrapped in muslin sealed with lard or butter, the traditional dress of farmhouse cheddar.
- Coagulation
- The moment liquid milk turns into a soft solid gel, the first real step in making cheese.
- Cooking the curd
- Gently heating the cut curd in its whey so the pieces shrink, lose moisture and firm up.
- Cream line
- The soft, glossy layer just under the rind of a cheese that is ripening from the outside in.
- Crystals
- The small crunchy white specks found in aged cheeses such as Parmigiano, old Gouda, Comté and cheddar.
- Cuajada
- Spanish for curd: a set sheep-milk dessert in the Basque Country, and a fresh cheese across Latin America.
- Curd
- The solid part of milk that forms when it sets, which is drained, shaped and ripened into cheese.
- Cutting the curd
- Slicing the set milk into pieces so the whey can escape, the step that most shapes a cheese's moisture.
D
- Datshi
- Bhutan's soft cheese, made from buttermilk and melted into the national dish, ema datshi.
- DOC
- An older Italian and Iberian label of controlled origin, now mostly replaced for cheese by DOP.
- Domiati
- Egypt's soft white brined cheese, unusual for having salt added to the milk before it sets.
- DOP
- The Italian, Spanish and Portuguese form of the European protected designation of origin.
- Double cream cheese
- A soft cheese enriched with cream, with at least sixty per cent fat in its dry matter.
- Dry matter
- What is left of a cheese if all its water is taken away: fat, protein, salt and minerals.
- Dry salting
- Salting cheese with dry salt, either rubbed on the surface or mixed into milled curd.
E
- Eyes
- The round holes in Emmental, Gouda and similar cheeses, made by gas from bacteria during ripening.
F
- Faisselle
- A perforated draining mould, and the soft fresh cheese sold still sitting in it.
- Farmhouse cheese
- Cheese made on the farm where the animals are kept, from that farm's own milk.
- Fat in dry matter
- The fat in a cheese expressed as a share of its solids, the figure printed on most European labels.
- Fermier
- The French label for a cheese made on the farm from the farm's own animals' milk.
- Formaggio
- The Italian word for cheese, from the Latin for the mould in which curd was shaped.
- Fresh cheese
- Cheese eaten within days of making, with no ageing: paneer, ricotta, quark, cottage cheese and labneh.
- Fromage frais
- A soft, spoonable French fresh cheese, smooth like thick yoghurt, eaten sweet or savoury.
G
- Ġbejna
- Small round sheep cheeses of Malta and Gozo, eaten fresh, dried or coated in crushed pepper.
- Geotrichum candidum
- A yeast-like mould that forms a thin, wrinkled, brain-like rind on many goat and soft cheeses.
- Girolle
- A Swiss tool with a central spike and a turning blade that shaves Tête de Moine into thin frilly rosettes.
- Grading
- Judging cheeses in the store by look, smell, texture and taste to decide their quality and how long to age them.
- Grana
- Italian for grain: the family of hard, granular, long-aged cheeses that includes Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano.
H
- Handkäse
- A small German sour-milk cheese, once shaped by hand, translucent and pungent, served with onions and vinegar.
- Hard cheese
- Cheese with little moisture, usually long-aged, cooked and pressed, such as Parmigiano, Pecorino Romano and aged Gouda.
- Hay milk
- Milk from animals fed fresh grass and hay but no silage, protected in Europe as a traditional speciality.
- Homogenisation
- Forcing milk through tiny holes under pressure to break up its fat so cream no longer rises.
- Hoop
- The open-ended ring or mould into which curd is packed to give a cheese its shape.
I
- Imeruli
- Georgia's everyday fresh white cheese from Imereti, the essential filling of khachapuri.
- Industrial cheese
- Cheese made at large scale in highly mechanised dairies from milk collected from many farms.
J
- Jben
- Morocco's fresh white cheese of cow or goat milk, mild and tangy, sold wrapped in palm leaves in the north.
- Jibneh
- The Arabic word for cheese, used across the Levant and Egypt, as in jibneh baida, white cheese.
- Junket
- Sweetened milk set softly with rennet and eaten as a dessert, a cheese that never had its whey drained.
K
- Kaas
- The Dutch word for cheese, and the vocabulary of ages, from jong to overjarig, that comes with it.
- Kalari
- A traditional ripened cheese of Jammu, pan-fried in its own fat and eaten in kalari kulcha.
- Käse
- The German word for cheese, found in Bergkäse, Weichkäse, Handkäse and the Käserei where it is made.
- Kashk
- An Iranian dairy product of dried, salted fermented yoghurt or whey, used as a tangy topping.
- Kashkaval
- The yellow cheese of the Balkans and the Black Sea, made from scalded and stretched curd and aged.
- Kesong puti
- The fresh white cheese of the Philippines, made from carabao milk and wrapped in banana leaf.
- Khoa
- Milk boiled down to a thick paste: a base for Indian sweets, and not a cheese.
- Korbáčik
- A Slovak string cheese pulled into thin strands and plaited, sold plain or smoked.
L
- Labneh
- Yoghurt strained until thick enough to spread or roll into balls, the soft cheese of the Levant.
- Lactic acid bacteria
- The bacteria that turn milk sugar into lactic acid, souring milk and starting every cheese.
- Lactic set
- A slow, acid-led set, lasting most of a day, that gives soft, tangy, delicate goat and fresh cheeses.
- Lactose
- The natural sugar in milk, most of which runs off in the whey or is turned into lactic acid during cheesemaking.
- Laitier
- The French label for cheese made in a dairy from milk collected from many farms.
- Lard-bound
- Wrapped in cloth and sealed with lard, the traditional coat of English clothbound cheddar.
- Leaf-wrapped cheese
- Cheese wrapped in leaves, of chestnut, banana, sal, fig, plane or nettle, to protect it and add flavour.
- Lipase
- An enzyme that breaks down fat, giving the sharp, piquant flavour of Provolone, Pecorino and blue cheese.
M
- Meltability
- How a cheese behaves when heated: whether it flows, stretches, browns, oils or holds its shape.
- Mesophilic
- Describes starter bacteria that work best at moderate temperatures, used for cheddar, Gouda and soft cheeses.
- Microbial rennet
- A coagulant made by moulds or other microbes rather than taken from animals, used for vegetarian cheese.
- Mish
- An Egyptian fermented cheese, aged for months or years in salty whey or buttermilk in a clay jar.
- Monastery cheese
- Cheese made, or first made, by monks, most often supple washed-rind cheeses from Trappist abbeys.
- Mother culture
- A starter kept alive from batch to batch, often as yesterday's whey, that carries a dairy's own bacteria forward.
- Moulding
- Placing curd into moulds or hoops so it drains into the size and shape of the finished cheese.
- Mountain cheese
- Large, firm cheeses from high pastures, made to keep through winter, such as Comté, Beaufort and Gruyère.
- Mouthfeel
- How a cheese feels as you eat it: creamy, waxy, crumbly, chewy, grainy, fudgy or dry.
N
- Nabulsi
- A white brined cheese from Nablus, boiled in brine with mahleb and mastic, used in kunafa.
- Natural rind
- A rind that forms by itself as the outside of a cheese dries, often with wild moulds and yeasts.
O
- Oiling off
- Beads of fat seeping from a cheese that has grown warm, or pools of oil on top of melted cheese.
- Oscypek
- A spindle-shaped smoked sheep cheese of the Polish Tatra, pressed in carved wooden moulds.
- Ost
- The Scandinavian word for cheese, as in brunost, brown cheese, and ostehøvel, cheese plane.
- Overripe
- Aged beyond its peak: runny, bitter or ammoniated, with a rind that is sticky, cracked or discoloured.
P
- Pairing
- Matching a cheese with drinks and foods that flatter it, by contrast or by likeness.
- Paneer
- India's fresh pressed cheese, set with acid, firm enough to cube and cook without melting.
- Pasta filata
- Curd that is heated in hot water and stretched until stringy and smooth, as in mozzarella, provolone and sulguni.
- Paste
- The inside of a cheese, beneath the rind, as described by its colour, texture and openness.
- Pasteurisation
- Heating milk briefly, usually to seventy-two degrees for fifteen seconds, to kill harmful bacteria before cheesemaking.
- PDO
- The European label that ties a food's name to one place, where every stage of making must happen.
- Penicillium camemberti
- The white mould that forms the bloomy rind of Camembert, Brie and many soft cheeses.
- Penicillium roqueforti
- The blue-green mould that forms the veins of Roquefort, Stilton, Gorgonzola and most blue cheeses.
- Peynir
- The Turkish word for cheese, found in beyaz peynir, white cheese, kaşar and tulum peyniri.
- PGI
- The European label for foods with a link to a place, where at least one stage of making happens there.
- Piercing
- Pushing steel needles through a young blue cheese so that air can reach inside and the blue mould can grow.
- Pressing
- Squeezing curd in its mould under weight to drive out whey and knit it into a firm, close cheese.
- Processed cheese
- Cheese melted with emulsifying salts into a smooth, uniform product, sold as slices, cubes, spreads and tins.
- Propionibacteria
- Bacteria that make the round holes and sweet, nutty flavour of Emmental and other Swiss-type cheeses.
- Proteolysis
- The slow breakdown of cheese protein during ageing, which softens texture and creates savoury flavour.
Q
- Quark
- A smooth, soft, slightly sour fresh cheese of Germany and Central Europe, set mainly by acid.
- Queijo
- The Portuguese word for cheese, from Serra da Estrela in Portugal to queijo minas in Brazil.
- Quesillo
- Mexico's stretched-curd string cheese from Oaxaca, wound into a ball like a skein of wool.
- Queso
- The Spanish word for cheese, and in Mexico and the United States often a melted cheese dip.
- Qurut
- Hard, salty balls of dried strained yoghurt or sour milk, eaten across Central Asia.
R
- Rasgulla
- Soft balls of kneaded chhena cooked in sugar syrup, the most famous cheese sweet of Odisha and Bengal.
- Raw milk
- Milk that has not been heated above body temperature before cheesemaking, keeping its native bacteria and enzymes.
- Rennet
- The enzyme preparation that makes milk set into a firm curd, the key ingredient in most aged cheeses.
- Requesón
- The Spanish and Latin American whey cheese, soft and mild like ricotta.
- Ricotta method
- Making cheese from leftover whey by heating it with a little acid until its proteins float up as soft curds.
- Rind
- The outer layer of a cheese, formed by drying, moulds, washing, wax or cloth, which protects and flavours it.
- Rindless
- Cheese ripened sealed in plastic film or foil, so it forms no rind at all.
- Ripening
- The change of a young curd into a finished cheese through slow chemical and microbial work.
- Runny
- So soft and ripe that the paste flows when the cheese is cut.
S
- Salting
- Adding salt to cheese, by mixing it into the curd, rubbing it on the rind or soaking the cheese in brine.
- Sandesh
- A Bengali sweet of fresh chhena kneaded and cooked with sugar or date-palm jaggery, pressed into moulds.
- Shanklish
- Balls of aged, strained yoghurt cheese rolled in za'atar or chilli, from Syria and Lebanon.
- Sirene
- Bulgaria's white brined cheese of sheep, cow or goat milk, and the word for cheese in Bulgarian.
- Slow Food Presidia
- Projects run by the Slow Food movement to protect endangered traditional foods, many of them cheeses.
- Smear
- A sticky, orange to red rind of bacteria and yeasts, built up by washing the cheese with brine.
- Smoking
- Exposing cheese to wood smoke, which colours its rind, adds flavour and once helped it keep.
- Squeak
- The rubbery squeal that very fresh cheese curds, halloumi and paneer make against the teeth.
- Starter culture
- The chosen lactic acid bacteria added to milk at the start of cheesemaking to sour it at a known pace.
- Stravecchio
- Italian for extra old, the label for the longest-aged grades of grana, Asiago and Montasio.
- Sulguni
- Georgia's brined stretched-curd cheese from Samegrelo, springy and salty, smoked or fresh.
- Surti paneer
- A soft, rennet-set paneer from Surat in Gujarat, sold in its whey.
- Syneresis
- The shrinking of curd as it squeezes out whey, driven by cutting, heating, stirring and acid.
T
- Terroir
- The idea that a cheese carries the taste of its place: soil, pasture, climate, animals and local know-how.
- Thermised milk
- Milk warmed gently, below pasteurisation temperature, to reduce bacteria while keeping some raw-milk character.
- Thermophilic
- Describes starter bacteria that thrive in heat, used for cooked Alpine and Italian cheeses and mozzarella.
- Tomme
- A general French and Italian name for a modest round mountain cheese, often made from skimmed milk.
- Topli nu paneer
- A Parsi fresh cheese, set with rennet in small cane baskets and served at weddings.
- Transhumance
- The seasonal moving of herds between lowland and mountain pastures, and the cheese culture that follows it.
- Triple cream cheese
- A very rich soft cheese with at least seventy-five per cent fat in dry matter, such as Brillat-Savarin.
- Truckle
- A tall cylindrical cheese, especially a clothbound cheddar, taller than it is wide or about as tall.
- TSG
- The European label for a food made by a traditional recipe or method, wherever it is produced.
- Tulum
- A Turkish cheese packed and ripened in a goat- or sheepskin bag, crumbly, rich and sharp.
- Tvorog
- The fresh, crumbly curd cheese of Russia and Eastern Europe, used in syrniki and paskha.
- Tyrosine crystals
- Hard white clusters of the amino acid tyrosine that form inside very old cheeses.
U
- Umami
- The deep savoury taste of aged cheese, coming mostly from free glutamate set loose by long ageing.
V
- Vat
- The open tank or kettle in which milk is warmed, set, cut and cooked to make cheese.
- Vegetable rennet
- A milk-setting extract from plants, such as cardoon thistle, fig sap or the berries of Withania coagulans.
- Vegetarian cheese
- Cheese made without animal rennet, set instead with acid, microbial rennet, fermentation chymosin or plants.
W
- Wagashi
- A fresh West African cheese made by Fulani herders, set with the sap of the Sodom apple plant.
- Washed curd
- Removing some whey from the vat and replacing it with water, giving a sweeter, more supple cheese such as Gouda.
- Washed rind
- A cheese whose rind is washed with brine, beer, wine or spirit as it ages, giving a sticky orange crust and strong smell.
- Wax
- A coating of food-grade wax that seals a cheese against air and mould, red on Edam, black on old Gouda.
- Wheel
- A round, flat cylinder of cheese, the classic shape of Comté, Parmigiano, Brie and Gouda.
- Whey
- The thin, greenish-yellow liquid left when milk curdles and the curd is lifted out.
- Whey cheese
- Cheese made from whey rather than milk, by heating out its proteins or boiling it down until it caramelises.
Y
- Yak cheese
- Cheese from the milk of yaks or yak and cow crosses, made across the Himalaya, Tibet and Mongolia.