Cheese, as everyone knows, is one of the constitutive elements of milk, from which it is taken by a real decomposition for enjoyment at our tables.

There are two kinds of cheese . Pure cheese , that is to say, which is made only from curdled milk, and a second kind, which, along with the first ingredient, also contains the buttery part of milk, or butter.

The first kind of cheese is coarser, dryer and with a strong tendency to sharpness; it is left to the inhabitants of the countryside. All the cheeses that have a certain reputation, and which are sold in towns, are of the second kind. They are moist, rich, delicate and are not generally sharp. They have a very pleasant smell and taste, at least as long as they are recent, and are commonly known as rich or butter cheeses . Several of the kingdom’s regions produce excellent cheeses . Roquefort is incontestably the best cheese in Europe. Brie, Sassenage and Marolles are as good as the best cheeses made abroad. The cheese from the mountains of Lorraine, Franche-Comté and the surrounding areas are perfect imitations of Gruyere. The cheese of Auvergne is as good as the best cheese from Holland, etc.

All doctors who have written on the subject have rightly made the distinction between fresh or newly made cheese , on the one hand, and old or strong, sharp cheese , on the other. They have also highlighted some less essential differences, resulting from the diversity of animals supplying the milk from which the cheese is made, such as aroma, taste, saltiness, etc.

Classical writers claimed that fresh cheese was cold, moist and provoked wind, but that it caused thirst less than older cheese. Fresh cheese was also said to be less binding on the stomach. It contained fewer coarse elements, was nourishing and even fattening, but difficult to digest, and caused gallstones, constipation and other ailments .

Old cheese , according to these authorities, was warm and dry, and consequently hard to digest. It was also liable to cause gallstones, especially when it was very salty. This was mainly why Galen, Dioscorides and Avicenna all warned against eating this kind of cheese , but also because it contained harmful elements, and constipated the stomach, where it turned to black or atrabilious bile. They admitted, however, that when eaten in small quantities it could help digestion, especially of meat, although it was itself difficult to digest.

Most of these claims are unconfirmed by the facts. Cheese , unless it is completely degenerated by putrefaction, is very nourishing. The part of milk that is made into cheese is its most nutritious ingredient.

Fresh cheese seasoned with a little salt is therefore food that contains a great deal of matter that is close to the vital, nourishing juices, and whose insipidness can be usefully corrected by adding salt to it. People in the countryside, as well as people who do hard physical work everyday, draw benefit from cheese , which becomes still better for the health, like everything else, through regular consumption.

Mature cheese , that is to say, cheese which has undergone the beginning of a spontaneous alteration, whose progress would bring it to a true state of putrefaction is, as already mentioned, less nourishing, and more irritating to the body. It is best suited to fitter, robust constitutions.

Finally, cheese that is almost rotten, a state in which it is sometimes eaten, should be considered less as food and more as seasoning – irritamentum guloe ( stimulant of the appetite ) – often helping the stomach digest when it is already full of different meats. It can therefore be eaten beneficially at the end of a meal. This sort of cheese is mainly referred to in the famous line of verse that everyone knows:

The consumption of cheese is however not without its drawbacks. Fresh cheese eaten in large quantities causes indigestion in people who are not used to it. This is true above all of the soft and delicate cheeses that are eaten very fresh, mixed with cream or milk, and which are generally called cream cheeses . In this respect, these cheeses hardly differ from full-cream milk. See Milk. Again, mature Cheese eaten in large quantities provokes thirst, produces an uncomfortable heating of the stomach and the intestines, makes the saliva thick and sticky, and provokes small mouth ulcers. Such effects can be avoided by eating such cheese in moderation and can be cured by drinking a few glasses of cold water.

Old, sharp cheese has all the bad qualities of highly irritating seasoning. It is almost caustic.

In general, fragile individuals suffering from nervous disorders or subject to skin complaints should avoid eating cheese. It has often been observed that the salt content, which is often very high, and the active ingredients developed by the kind of fermentation it undergoes, affect the skin particularly.

Cheese is a kind of food for which some individuals feel a natural repugnance, the cause of which is quite difficult to determine. Lémery the Younger ( Traité des Alimens ), tells us that a certain Martin Schoockius wrote a special treatise, De Aversione Casei (On the Aversion to Cheese) , to which he has the discretion to recommend all interested and thinking readers, and we will have the same consideration for them.