The earliest type of cheese was thought to come from the Middle East, where the cheese was a form of sour milk which came into being when it was discovered that domesticated animals could be milked. A legendary story has it that cheese was discovered accidentally by an unknown Arab nomad. He is said to have filled a saddlebag with milk for a planned journey across the desert on horse. After several hours of riding he stopped to quench his thirst, and he found out that the milk he had brought had seperated into a pale watery liquid along with some white lumps. The cause of this can be explained biological terms. The saddlebag was made from the stomach of a young animal, which contained a coagulating enzyme known as rennin. The milk had been effectively separated into curds and whey with the chemical reaction provided by rennin, the intense temperature of the sun, and the up and down motion from the horse. The nomad, unconcerned with technical details, found the whey drinkable and the curds edible.

Cheese was known to the ancient Sumerians around 4000 B.C. . The ancient Greeks credited Aristaeus, the son of Apollo and Cyrene, with its discovery; which is mentioned in the Old Testament.

The knowledge and skill of cheesemaking has reached a high standard during the Roman era. By this time the ripening process had been developed and it was known that various treatments and conditions under storage resulted in different flavors and characteristics. Larger Roman houses had a separate cheese kitchen, the caseale, and also special areas where cheese could be matured. In large towns home-made cheese could be taken to a special center to be smoke. Cheese was served to the nobles and travelled all corners of the Roman Empire as a regular part of the rations of the legions.

During the Middle Ages, monks became innovators and developers, and it is to them we owe many of the classic varieties of cheese marketing today. During the Renaissance period, cheese suffered a severre drop in popularity, where it was considered unhealthy, but it regained favor by the nineteenth century, the period that saw the start of the move from farm to factory production.