Sheep's Milk

What is Sheep's Milk Cheese?

Cheese is a dairy product made by coagulating casein, the protein in milk. It comes from the milk of ruminant livestock, and sheep are one of the three animals whose milk is used most: cow, sheep and goat. Cow milk dominates the market, so unless a label says otherwise, a cheese is usually made from it. Sheep milk cheese is the branch made from ewe's milk.

Herding cultures treated cheese, along with butter, as a way to keep milk from spoiling. The oldest known traces of cheesemaking, clay strainers from around 5000 BC, were found at Kuyavia in Poland. Cheese spread from the Near East into Europe and was eaten widely by the Sumerians, in ancient Greece and in the Roman Empire. Homer's Odyssey mentions feta, and Pliny and Aristotle both wrote about cheese.

Making it starts with lactic acid bacteria, which turn the milk acidic. Rennet or a bacterial enzyme with similar activity is then added, cutting the water-loving part of the casein molecule loose so the protein links into strands and settles out. The milk splits into whey and curd. The curd is drained, cut, pressed into molds or hoops, salted by rubbing or brining, then aged in a cool dark place. That aging step decides what the cheese becomes: lactose turns to lactic acid, protein to amino acids, fat to fatty acids, and added molds or bacteria push it further.

Sheep milk shows up across the range, from pressed hard cheeses that keep well to blue cheeses ripened with mold on the inside, which tend to taste sharp and salty. Hard, semi-hard and extra-hard styles are pressed to drive off whey, so they are often made large.

In France and Italy, cheese comes to the table between the main course and dessert, and it changes how wine tastes after a heavy dish. It also turns up as a starter, as part of a salad, or on a cheese platter ordered on its own at a brasserie or trattoria. Natural cheese melts when heated because the amino acid chains in casein tangle, which is the basis for raclette and fondue.