World's Oldest Cheese Found on Chinese Mummy

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Most aged cheeses mature over a few months or even a few years. The world's oldest cheese sat for a little longer: more than 3,600 years. German researchers discovered the cheese intact on a mummy buried in a sand dune in China's Taklamakan Desert, according to USA Today

The cheese, buried with the mummy in an overturned wooden boat wrapped tightly in cowhide, was from an unknown people traveling during the Bronze Age, roughly between 3000 BCE and 450 BCE. The burial conditions created a vacuum-like environment to preserve the cheese—yellow clumps that resembled kefir, a soft cheese made from a combination of milk, yeast and bacteria similar to cottage cheese Read more...

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