<P> We soon reached his cave, but he was out shepherding, so we went inside and took stock of all that we could see . His cheese - racks were loaded with cheeses, and he had more lambs and kids than his pens could hold...</P> <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> By Roman times, cheese was an everyday food and cheesemaking a mature art . Columella's De Re Rustica (circa 65 CE) details a cheesemaking process involving rennet coagulation, pressing of the curd, salting, and aging . Pliny's Natural History (77 CE) devotes a chapter (XI, 97) to describing the diversity of cheeses enjoyed by Romans of the early Empire . He stated that the best cheeses came from the villages near Nîmes, but did not keep long and had to be eaten fresh . Cheeses of the Alps and Apennines were as remarkable for their variety then as now . A Ligurian cheese was noted for being made mostly from sheep's milk, and some cheeses produced nearby were stated to weigh as much as a thousand pounds each . Goats' milk cheese was a recent taste in Rome, improved over the "medicinal taste" of Gaul's similar cheeses by smoking . Of cheeses from overseas, Pliny preferred those of Bithynia in Asia Minor . </P> <P> As Romanized populations encountered unfamiliar newly settled neighbors, bringing their own cheese - making traditions, their own flocks and their own unrelated words for cheese, cheeses in Europe diversified further, with various locales developing their own distinctive traditions and products . As long - distance trade collapsed, only travelers would encounter unfamiliar cheeses: Charlemagne's first encounter with a white cheese that had an edible rind forms one of the constructed anecdotes of Notker's Life of the Emperor . </P>

Where does the protein in cheese come from