16th Century Cheese Guide Is Weirdly Useful

Cheeses come in many complex and unique varieties—and the English knew it as far back as the 1580s.

A new transcription of the oldest known English book about cheese—titled A pamflyt compiled of Cheese, contayninge the differences, nature, qualities, and goodnes, of the same—reveals a host of insights and suggestions for the cheese lovers of the late 16th century. While the 112-page manuscript was never published and its author remains unknown, it was prized by its previous owners, including members of parliament and a royal doctor. Clearly, cheese was rightfully venerated even 445 years ago.

“I’ve never seen anything like it: it’s probably the first comprehensive academic study of a single foodstuff to be written in the English language,” author and food historian Peter Brears said in a University of Leeds statement. The University of Leeds acquired the vellum-bound manuscript at auction in 2023, before its value was widely recognized. “The Pamflyt shows that cheeses of different kinds were being considered, and also studied from a dietary point of view.”

For example, one section explains that milk from camels, donkeys, and horses are suitable for making cheese, but cheese from dog’s milk will make a pregnant woman give birth early. It also specifies that the author is not aware of anyone who uses women’s milk to make cheese. And while “dairy intolerance” was probably an unfamiliar term in the 16th century, the text demonstrates that people were nevertheless familiar with the idea that cheese didn’t sit well with certain individuals, explained Alex Bamji, associate professor of early modern history at the University of Leeds.

One passage reads:

He that will judge whether cheese be a convenyent foode for him, must consider the nature of the body, and the temperamente of the cheese and both considered he shalbe hable to judge whether he is like to take harme be cheese or not.

Additionally, “there’s a lot of discussion about when you should eat cheese,” Bamji added. “Generally the view was that it was best towards the end of a meal, which a lot of us still subscribe to today. ‘Cheese doth presse downe the meate to the botome of the stomake,’ it says, where the digestion is best.” The text also discusses the implications of eating cheese on religious fasting days.

Other parts include the suggestion to use fish guts to curdle milk, and a technique to make hard cheese that’s still used today. Scholars even identified the names of three of the book’s owners: a physician to Queen Elizabeth I, a member of parliament who noted that he wanted the book returned after it had been ‘perused,’ and a member of another parliamentary family.

As for the author, “there are a number of names in the running,” Brears admitted. “I look forward to somebody undertaking a Ph.D. on it, because there are clues to its author that demand study in depth: handwriting style; evidence of regional dialects; which modern locations are actually being referred to… There’s so much more to be learnt from this manuscript.”

It’s safe to say this 16th-century manuscript is truly a grate piece of dairy history.