<P> When he had so done he sat down and milked his ewes and goats, all in due course, and then let each of them have her own young . He curdled half the milk and set it aside in wicker strainers . </P> <P> A letter of Epicurus to his patron requests a wheel of hard cheese so that he may make a feast whenever he wishes . Pliny recorded the Roman tradition that Zoroaster had lived on cheese . </P> <P> By Roman times, cheese - making was a mature art and common food group . Columella's De Re Rustica (circa 65 CE) details a cheese - making process involving rennet coagulation, pressing of the curd, salting, and aging . Pliny's Natural History (77 CE) devotes two chapters (XI, 96 - 97) to the diversity of cheeses enjoyed by Romans of the early Empire . He stated that the best cheeses came from pagi near Nîmes, and were identifiable as Lozère and Gévaudan and had to be eaten fresh . </P> <P> Most cheeses were initially recorded in the late Middle Ages . Cheddar was recorded around 1500 CE, Parmesan was founded in 1597, Gouda in 1697, and Camembert in 1791 . Cheeses diversified in Europe with locales developing their own traditions and products when Romanized populations encountered unfamiliar neighbors with their own cheese - making traditions . As long - distance trade collapsed, only travelers encountered unfamiliar cheeses . Charlemagne's first encounter with an edible rind white cheese forms one of the constructed anecdotes of Notker's Life of the Emperor . Cheese - making in manor and monastery intensified local characteristics imparted by local bacterial flora while the identification of monks with cheese is sustained through modern marketing labels . This also led to a diversity of cheese types . Today, Britain has 15 protected cheeses from approximately 40 types listed by the British Cheese Board . The British Cheese Board claims a total number of about 700 different products (including similar cheeses produced by different companies). France has 50 protected cheeses, Italy 46, and Spain 26 . France also has at least 1,800 raw milk cheese products and probably more than 2,000 when including pasteurized cheese . Furthermore, French proverb states that there is a different French cheese for every day of the year . Late French general and statesman, Charles de Gaulle, once asked "how can you govern a country in which there are 246 kinds of cheese?" Meanwhile, the advancement of cheese art in Europe was slow during the centuries after Rome's fall . It became a staple of long - distance commerce, was disregarded as peasant fare, inappropriate on a noble table, and even harmful to one's health through the Middle Ages . </P>

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