The mystery of turning milk into cheese began to vex me when I first read about the Roman armies’ dependence on cheese as a source of food.
Apparently, they would form the precious lactate into waist-high wheels sturdy enough that they could be rolled along the path as men marched. There are some accounts of them even being used as wheels on carts.
I have always been a very open-minded and impoverished hiker when it came to procuring supplies and gear. Preserving milk in the form of cheese seemed an acceptable enough method of getting cheap and tasty protein into my diet on the trail, and I figured it would be an interesting culinary venture. If nothing else, I already had most of the equipment I hoped I would need in the kitchen.
In the end I found this website by a chemist from Ohio who is apparently a cheese-god genius, and it is thanks to him, his experimentation and his compiled information that I am now preserving milk like the Romans.