It’s World Cheese Day on Friday, June 4.

Cheese making is as ancient as pre-recorded history with some experts speculating that the magic of cheese started around 8000BCE following the domestication of livestock.

In fact, archaeologists have found evidence of cheese around the world including strainers coated in milk-fat molecules in Kuyavia, Poland dated around 5500BCE, murals in Egypt dated at 2000BCE, and an artefact of preserved cheese in Xinjiang, China believed to be more than 3,000 years old!  

The most popular cheese of all time is the mozzarella, also popular for being standard pizza topping, and was first created near Naples from the rich milk of water buffalos.  

Today, cheese dishes can be found everywhere in the world — melted, deep fried, chilled in ice cream, in pastas like spaghetti, fettuccine carbonara and lasagna.  

(Photo courtesy of leading British retailer, Marks & Spencer)