Goat

What is Goat Cheese?

Goats were among the first animals domesticated for food, with milk production going back to 8,000 BC. Goat cheese itself has been made at least as far back as 5,000 BC. The earliest documented proof of humans making cheese of any kind dates to 7,500 years ago in Poland.

The animal explains much of the cheese. Goats produce nutrient-rich milk in rugged, arid and mountainous places where cattle and sheep cannot survive. Their resilient digestive systems let them eat bitter plants that cows and horses refuse, and what they eat carries into the milk.

Production follows the same path as other cheeses. The milk is filtered to remove impurities, then a curdling agent is added, either rennet or starter bacteria such as Lactococcus lactis lactis, L. l. cremoris and Streptococcus thermophilus. The curds are molded and separated from the whey, then dried, flavored and cured. Changing the starter, the draining, or the temperature and length of curing shifts the cheese between soft, semihard and hard, and changes the flavor.

Goat milk carries higher proportions of medium-chain fatty acids such as caproic and caprylic, named from capra, the Latin for goat. Those acids give the cheese its tart, goaty taste and make it easier to digest. Goat cheese is high in calcium, vitamins A and K, phosphorus, thiamin and niacin.

Styles vary by region. France makes a great number of goat milk cheeses, especially in the Loire Valley and Poitou, where soft young chèvre is sometimes served hot as chèvre chaud. Cypriot halloumi blends goat and sheep milk. Turkish tulum is ripened in a goatskin casing and eaten as meze with rakı. Norwegian geitost is brown and made from goat milk and whey, and Humboldt Fog from California is mold-ripened with a line of edible white ash through the middle.