Hi I’m John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss on YouTube and did you
know that Gouda cheese is Dutch? It’s named after the Dutch city of Gouda. Or, "GHOUDA".
It's been made in the city’s surrounding area for at least 1000 years. And then, it
would be brought into the city to be sold and traded there.
That’s the first of many cheese name origins that I’m going to share with you today in
this video presented by GEICO.
Like many cheese, Camembert is also named after a place: the Camembert region of France.
Or as the French call it, "FRANCE". Sorry, I took 3 years of high school French.
"FRANCE" is the only French word I know so I have to brag about it.
The cheese was invented there in 1791 by the farmer Marie Harel. She had actually trying
to follow the advice of a priest she’d met from Brie.
Which means of course, that Brie is also named after a place.
By the way, my favorite cheese in the world? Brie. My least favorite cheese in the world?
The crust of Brie.
Now we don’t know for sure WHEN Brie was invented, but there are accounts of Charlemagne
enjoying a cheese near Meaux, which is a town in Brie.
They’ve been making feta since around the 8th century BCE in Greece. The word is Greek,
but it's borrowed from a similar Italian word meaning “slice.”
Monterey Jack is named after both a place and a person. The place is Monterey, California,
where Mexican Franciscan friars made the cheese in the 1700s. Then, a businessman named David
Jack started selling it and added his name.
We don’t have a picture of him, but he probably looked like this.
Monterey Jack is often mixed with Colby cheese, which originated in Colby, Wisconsin. It might
have had a different name if it was invented a little earlier though, because it was created
in 1874, just three years after the town was founded. The cheese was first made by Joseph
F. Steinwand -- man, if it had just been invented before Colby was founded, we could call it
Steinwand!
Stilton is named after the UK village of Stilton. But it’s actually illegal to make Stilton
IN Stilton, because Stilton cheese is SO DISGUSTING. No actually, it's because Stilton
is where the cheese was sold, not where it was made, and when geographic protection for cheeses came in,
Stilton wasn’t one of the areas were Stilton could actually be made.
Cottage cheese has been a thing since ancient Greece and Egypt. But, it’s only been called
that since the 1800s because it was often made in cottages.
Cheshire cheese is the oldest British cheese, dating from at least the 12th century. And
it’s named after the English county of Cheshire. Same place the cats come from, I assume.
The French cheese, Munster, which is different from Muenster-with-an-e cheese is named after
the town of Munster, in "FRANCE". The town was named in the 7th century for its monastery,
and the cheese was originally made in the monks’ cellars.
It’s believed that Roquefort cheese has existed since at least the first century in
Rome because Pliny the Elder wrote about it. Nowadays, it’s a law, actually, that a cheese
can only be called “Roquefort” if it was made out of sheep’s milk and aged in the
caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in "FRANCE". Hence the name.
French fans of Mental Floss, how great is my pronunciation of your wonderful homeland?
Alright, on to Cheddar cheese -- finally something I can pronounce -- also named for the caves
it was made in. These are in the village of Cheddar in Somerset, South West England.
Manchego cheese is produced in Spain. It gets its name from the breed of sheep whose milk
is in the cheese: manchega sheep. By the way, the cheese might not have been named after
a place, but the sheep ARE. They come from the La Mancha region of Spain.
Pecorino is also a Sheep's cheese. If fact, it's named for the Italian word for sheep:
pecora.
Another cheese named after an animal: Buche de Chèvre, which is French for “roll of
goat cheese.”
Gruyère is from the the region of Switzerland, Gruyère and it's been made there since at
least the 12th century by residents of the region. It was so popular that they started
selling it in the cheese capitals, France and Italy.
Speaking of Switzerland, you would think that they gave us Swiss cheese. And they did, but
in Switzerland, it’s known as Emmental cheese, after the region where it was invented. Most
of what we call “Swiss cheese” is actually manufactured in the United States.
Provolone is an Italian cheese meaning “large provola.” And Provola is a DIFFERENT Italian
cheese. It’s believed that it was named after a tradition where religious leaders
visiting the convent of San Lorenzo in Capua would be offered a mozze o provatura, meaning
-- that was really good, REALLY GOOD Italian. Anyway, as my fellow Italian speakers would
already know, that means like a sample of the main cheese.
And if the word mozze sounds familiar, it should. Because it would spin off into mozzarella.
The Italian word mozzare means “to cut off.” And the cheese is made by cutting curds and
making them into balls. By the way, is this episode making anyone
else hungry for extra cheese pizza, or is it just me and big zombie?
Parmesan was created to resemble the older Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, which explains
its name. Parmigiano-Reggiano is named after a couple different Italian provinces: Parma
and Reggio Emilia.
“Ricotta” is the Italian word for “recooked.” It’s called that because ricotta is made
of the whey that’s left over after the curds are removed.
Limburger cheese is named after the Duchy of Limburg, where it was first produced in
the 19th century. The Duchy of Limburg was a state in the Holy Roman Empire, which included
modern-day Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. But, nowadays, most of the cheese comes from
Germany.
Gorgonzola is named after the town in northern Italy, whose residents claim to have invented
the cheese. The legend goes that a cheesemaker went to meet his girlfriend one night before
he had the chance to finish making a batch of cheese. So, the next day, he came back
to find that some mold had grown over his batch of cheese. He dumped that batch in with
a new batch so he wouldn’t get fired, and that’s how the blue veins and unique odor
emerged.
And finally, I return to my salon to tell you that American cheese got its name in the
late 18th century because colonists in the Americas started exporting cheddar cheese
back to Britain. So, it was the English who dubbed it “American cheese.” For a while,
it was known here as yellow or store cheese, then about a century later it got nicknames
like “factory cheese,” "rattrap cheese," or "rat cheese." But you know, there's something
about the name “American cheese” that's just a little more appetizing.
Thanks for watching Mental Floss on YouTube, which is made with the help of all these nice
people and made possible by our friends at GEICO, so thanks to them as well. Every week
you can get several cheesy videos here at Mental Floss. Usually they aren't about cheese,
but they always feature cheesy jokes, so don't forget to subscribe and as we say in my hometown,
don't forget to be awesome!