What is the oldest cheese?
The oldest known cheese was found with mummies in the Tarim Basin in China and is about 3,600 years old. Cheese-making itself likely began more than 7,000 years ago.
In the early 2000s, archaeologists found lumps of a yellowish substance on mummies buried at the Xiaohe cemetery in northwest China. Analysis published in 2014 showed it was a kefir-like cheese made with bacteria and yeasts, about 3,600 years old. In 2024, scientists extracted DNA from the cheese and identified the microbes used to make it.
Even older evidence of cheese-making comes from pottery. Clay sieves found in Poland, about 7,000 years old, contain traces of milk fat, suggesting they were used to separate curds from whey. A solid cheese about 3,200 years old was found in an ancient Egyptian tomb in 2018.
Old cheese varieties
Some cheeses still made today have very long histories. Gorgonzola and Parmigiano-Reggiano have been made in Italy for many centuries, and Roquefort in France has been mentioned in records from the Middle Ages. Cheddar has been made in England since at least the 1100s.
Did You Know?
Some aged cheeses, like Parmigiano-Reggiano, must age for at least 12 months, and some wheels are aged for more than three years.