Cheesy Combustabules

Tunick, Michael H.  The Science of Cheese.  New York: OUP, 2014.

Do you eat cheese?  Depending upon where you live, you are likely to eat some sort of cheese.  And the variety of cheese is staggering!  France alone has 400 varieties.  Take a look at the following link of the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPN3KTtrnZM

  - for some of the variety of cheese eaten in England.

Michael Tunick (a research chemist at USDA) provides a brief history of cheese alongside an examination of the cheese-making process with the chemistry that creates the cheese you crave.  The chapters consider various cheese types such as cheddar, surface mold ( Camembert and Brie), or cheeses with eyes (Swiss) along with discussions of texture, amino acids, aroma, and ketones.  In other words, the author slips in the unique chemistry of the types of cheese while letting the reader enjoy the process.  

But chemistry and cheese descriptions are not all that The Science of Cheese has to offer.  Michael Tunick provides statistics (did you know that the Greeks manage to eat more cheese than anyone else? -  68.4 lbs. per person - p. 225), nutritional information, odd facts ( Edam cheese was used as a cannon ball in a naval battle in 1841 - p. 129), and even the worth of processed cheese. Plus each chapter opens with a cheese related quote and the author includes a Periodic Table of Cheeses!

So if the reader is interested in cheese, food chemistry, or just something different, give The Science of Cheese a nibble.