From Milk to Cheese: General Features of Four Typical Dairy Products from the Mediterranean Area

The stability and maintenance of food plays a fundamental role in the preservation of its nutritional and organoleptic properties: therefore, since the dawn of civilization, mankind developed different forms of food conservation. The simplest one was possibly represented by simple cooking/roasting on different heat sources, but later relatively more sophisticated forms were developed: so drying, salting, and freezing have become part of the daily food preservation although this latter is nowadays practiced mainly on an industrial scale. Cheese possibly represents a very ancient of conserving fresh milk, via its transformation from a rapidly perishable commodity into a durable and palatable finished product. In this review, we give a condensed overview on the preparation of cheeses from the Mediterranean area that have reached a diffusion and appreciation throughout the world. Also, understanding the bio-molecular and chemico-physical processes underlying food preparation plays a pivotal role, therefore some insights in this particular aspect is also illustrated. Because of the conciseness of this contribution, we do not go into deeper details about the chemico-physical aspects of cheese making; however, extensive works on this subjects from our and other laboratories are found in the literature cited.