Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Democrats are back in array!

The willow is too close to the house.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Giving up is unforgivable. ~Joe Biden

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

I really should read my own blog.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Food / Open Thread: Blessed Are the Cheese-Strainers

Open Thread: Blessed Are the Cheese-Strainers

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From the BBC (h/t commentor Scav):

Truly an ancient art, no-one really knows exactly when humans began making cheese.

But now milk extracts have been identified on 34 perforated pottery vessels or “cheese-strainers”, which date back 7,500 years that have been excavated in Poland.

It is unambiguous evidence for cheese-making in northern Europe during Neolithic times, scientists believe, and the findings have been published in the scientific journal Nature.

“We analysed some fragments of pottery from the region of Kuyavia [Poland] pierced with small holes that looked like modern cheese-strainers,” says Melanie Salque, a postgraduate student at the University of Bristol’s Department of Chemistry….

Ms Salque and her team then analysed lipid residues on the vessels and detected milk residues, which they say provides a link to cheese-making…

“I think we can say that it’s a key Neolithic innovation to be able to produce a storable product from something perishable and hard to handle like milk, and to do it routinely and repetitively, with continual refinement and that within a few millennia after the domestication of cattle, sheep, and goats we can talk about cheese production.”….

Speaking of cheese — what’s for dinner?

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  2. 2.

    KG

    which date back 7,500 years that have been excavated in Poland.

    Obviously a trick by the devil himself to convince us that the Bible doesn’t speak the entire truth of the world only being 6,000 years old, and having started on a Tuesday.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Damn. I have recently become entranced with cheese and the art of making it. Now I find out I am 20,000 yrs behind the curve.

    Thanx Anne. Thanx alot.

  7. 7.

    max

    But now milk extracts have been identified on 34 perforated pottery vessels or “cheese-strainers”, which date back 7,500 years that have been excavated in Poland.

    5500 B.C.(E.). Not that ancient, but definitely interesting because it’s in Poland and not Anatolia or Mesopotamia or Egypt or Iran. Didn’t think they had domesticated cattle (?) that far back in Northern Europe.

    Speaking of cheese — what’s for dinner?

    Tomatoes. Pasta. Something else along with that depending on the mood after I wash all this motor oil off.

    max
    [‘Ninety and humid as fuck!’]

  9. 9.

    gbear

    Beautiful night for a scooter ride so I’m heading up to A Taste Of Scandinavia for the open face grilled chicken and red pepper sandwich (spinach, mushrooms, onions and cheese are also involved) and probably a slice of cake to go. Their cakes are wonderful and it’s only $2.99 for a huge slice (1/6th of a cake)..

  11. 11.

    Suzanne

    Dinner was some frozen yogurt. Leave me alone. I got a Mirena inserted today and I feel like I got kicked in the twat.

    So I we t over to Whole Paycheck and tried some Beyond Meat. It was NUTS. I haven’t had chicken in a while, but it tasted just like a Buffalo wing. Slightly uncanny.

  13. 13.

    Yatsuno

    @Suzanne: The fake meats have gotten surprisingly better over time. It’s just what they have to do with the stuff to make it do so that really concerns me.

    Eating a rather disapponting pain chocolat. I have no idea why I let anyone other than the French do this. But hey I already bought the sucker.

  17. 17.

    Origuy

    @JPL:

    Were cows invented 7500 years ago?

    Cows were domesticated about 8000 years ago. Sheep and goats around 10000 years ago.

  21. 21.

    shelly

    Speaking of cheese — what’s for dinner?

    One of my favorite summer salads. Black beans, sweet corn, cherry tomatoes and avocado, tossed in a lemon vinaigrette.

  22. 22.

    Suzanne

    @jeffreyw: Do you have a recipe or ay tips for making a good red Thai curry? It’s one of my favorite things, yet I failed miserably when I tried to make it myself.

  23. 23.

    MattF

    Pan-fried chunk of salmon, rice + peas on the side. Yum. Gave thanks to FSM for his theological flexibility. Nine to eleven minutes in a pot of boiling salted water, and He’s done.

  24. 24.

    ruemara

    I have the last of some pork bits and some scallions that are going a bit off. I think I’ll make a butt load of onions and scallions, mince the pork a bit so it, um, looks more substantive. Then the real meal of 3 cups of decaf with cream and my prize treat of torani’s SF pumpkin pie syrup. Also, I think I bought a large bag of the worst apples ever. All of them have been mushy, brown on the interiors and flat, watery taste if the flesh was firm enough to try eating. Bring on the fall, at least the apples are good. I am so bloody hungry. Can’t wait for 2 weeks from now when I can spring for some more supplies of food. Tired of egg, bit of veg, some lettuce for lunch and gum until dinner, then gum and coffe.

  26. 26.

    JPL

    @lamh36: That is so cool. She really was a hero. She hasn’t returned to the school yet but I’m sure when she does, they will receive her with a hero’s welcome.

  28. 28.

    shelly

    ” for prehistoric N. European spices (The Dreaded Garlic Mustard!, ”
    ***********

    Read that about the Garlic Mustard. Early man must have had a tepid palate if they thought garlic mustard was ‘spicy.’

  29. 29.

    MikeJ

    Think I’m gonna have a chicken wrap, but I haven’t bought wraps or anything to put inside them yet. I should go to the store some time.

  30. 30.

    Anne Laurie

    @scav: I wanna know when people started eating horseradish. My super-taster Spousal Unit considers onion a spice, but he’ll happily eat “Norwegian Dristan” by the spoonful!

  32. 32.

    jeffreyw

    @Suzanne: Sorry, I hardly ever do curries, the yellow chicken tonight was done with a Jamaican curry powder from a jar I’ve had in the cupboard for a long time, bought on a whim ages ago. Pretty tasty though not very photogenic. I think I can count on one hand the number of curries I’ve ever done.

  33. 33.

    imonlylurking

    Roommate is making chicken for dinner while Bob snoozes on my foot. It’s one of those ‘he’s finally quiet so don’t move’ moments.

    Twin Cities meetup on Saturday! Nobody commented on the thread Betty posted so I’m making an executive decision-Shamrock’s (for the parking and for the more varied menu.) I’ve never been there which is also a plus. Time-I’ll be there at 5 or so, with some helium balloons from the dollar store. I’ll call tomorrow to see if reservations will be necessary. Email me at my username (at yahoo.com) so I can get a head count.

  34. 34.

    JPL

    The NRA has been quiet about the incident that happened in Decatur. Since the school had a police officer, in the building could that be why? hmm

  36. 36.

    22over7

    Put a marinated pork tenderloin on the grill, made some rice, will stir-fry some green onions and veggies when the pork is done.

  37. 37.

    scav

    @Anne Laurie: & @shelly: oddly enough, rummaged further about the garlic mustard (I’m wrestling with an infestation so eating the enemy has an attraction), I seem to remember reading the flavor is stronger in older leaves but especially the roots. Roots in general I get though — especially if one considers winter and the lack of other options. Self-storage. Thistles/artichokes are still my gold standard for they must have been really really bored and strangely persistent.

  39. 39.

    shelly

    Thistles/artichokes are still my gold standard

    And oysters. Maybe they observed sea birds trying to crack them open.

    And I wonder when they worked out that brining olives was the one way to make them edible.

  42. 42.

    lamh36

    Man, that 911 call from the School Clerk in ATL that talked down that gunman is amazing. This man was armed with an AK47 and 500 rounds of ammunition.

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/08/22/antoinette_tuff_911_call_listen_to_the_full_tape_of_ga_school_clerks_call.html

    “Tuff: Let me talk to them and see if we can work it out so that you don’t have to go away with them for a long time.

    Shooter: I’m already on probation…

    Tuff: No It does matter! I can let them know that you have not tried to harm me or do anything with me or anything, if you want to

    Shooter: (inaudible)

    Tuff: but that doesn’t make any difference you didn’t hit anbody.

    Shooter: You don’t know that!

    Tuff: Let Me Ask You This ma’am, he didn’t hit anybody, he just shot outside the door, if I walk out there with him, so they won’t shoot him or anything like that? He wants to give himself up, is that okay? They won’t shoot him?

    911 Operator: Yes Ma’am

    Tuff: he’s on the ground with his hands behind his back. tell the officers don’t come in with any guns-don’t come in shooting or anything so they can come on in and I’ll buzz them in.

    Tuff: (presumably to gunman) so hold on, just sit right here, I’m gonna buzz them in. Okay, so you’ll know when Theyre coming, okay? Okay so just stay there calm, don’t worry bout it. I’m gonna sit right here so they’ll see that you didn’t try to harm me. It’s gonna be alright, sweetie. I just want you to know that I love you.

    @lamh36:

  43. 43.

    Anne Laurie

    @scav: Huh — just looked up garlic mustard & discovered it’s one of the “invasive species” that stand in for our lawn (at least the new leaves are pretty & it doesn’t try to colonize the raised beds). Not gonna be eating our crop, though — we’re on a double Superfund site, which is one reason for the raised beds!

  44. 44.

    Gravenstone

    @Anne Laurie: I like a dab of horseradish on occasion. Picked up a creamed variety I’d never seen before, and it damn near blew by head off. Does wonders for clearing the sinuses, among other things..

  50. 50.

    Josie

    @Suzanne:

    I get some stuff at the grocery store called May Ploy Red Curry Paste. It’s probably not good enough for a purist, but it tastes pretty good to us and is really easy. You just fry it in a little coconut oil and add coconut milk to taste and put whatever you want in there to cook – shrimp, fish, chicken or whatever. The heat depends on how much of the paste you use compared to the coconut milk.

  52. 52.

    Suzanne

    @Josie: I’ll give that a try. I adore Thai food but haven’t been eating it as much as I’d like because I’ve been trying to cut back on the eating out for both my waistline and my wallet.

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    @shelly:

    And I wonder when they worked out that brining olives was the one way to make them edible.

    Some olives are actually edible without brining, and even the “inedible” ones mostly just taste bad. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody knew that soaking stuff in brine was good to preserve it, tried it with some nasty tasting but edible olives, and discovered they were much tastier afterward. And it’s possible that it was the result of a deliberate experiment. We like to think of these things as being happy accidents, but people back then were just as creative and interested in trying new things as we are today, so they probably tried all kinds of crazy things to try to make their food taste better. It’s hard to think of any other explanation for people eating cinnamon or saffron, for instance.

  55. 55.

    scav

    @Suzanne: My sister swears by the ingredients etc here importfood.com/ if access is a problem and I thoroughly enjoyed the curry pastes (all sorts of colors) and other ingredients I received as a gift. They have Mae Ploy and the various ground chili pastes are also grand.

  56. 56.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    Don’t bother, I’ve already replied. Basically, we’re bad people for assuming bad will on the part of people who abuse us when we disagree with them. We should always assume that of course self-proclaimed civil libertarians support voting rights even though we’ve never been given that same benefit of the doubt by them.

  59. 59.

    Keith G

    @Mnemosyne: Interestingly enough, the “Bad People” formulation is another Mnemosyne Production conjured out of thin air. I did not say or imply that you are bad….but…wait….

    Yep, I just reread it. No dice.

    I will assume that you once again were in a hurry and you thought you read something that was not there. You do that a lot. Slow down.

  60. 60.

    TheMightyTrowel

    mmm cheeese straining ceramics…. actually this is in no way surprising. we find ceramics like these dating to ca 6000 BC in se europe and central europe and they’ve always been assumed to be for dairy processing. It’s just that now scientific techniques have gotten good enough that we can test that assumption. Cattle were indeed domesticated ca 8kya and very quickly adopted westwards. For a time it was thought that maybe cattle were domesticated separately in europe, but dna tells us that’s not the case. they were part of the initial spread of neolithic out of se europe and into central and northern europe (the linear band ceramic for any nerds) along with the construction of recantular/trapezoidal long houses and ard agriculture on loess soils. Ceramic making was part of this set of technologies and practices that people adopted/brought with them as well.

    Things to be aware of when reading popular archaeology: despite big headlines for ‘the earliest x’ or ‘the oldest y’ they are invariably neither the earliest or the oldest. By the time there is enough of whatever happening for some of it to have been preserved in an archaeologically visible way it’s already been going on for a long time. Also, a lot of this depends on preservation – most things break down over time so the fact that this is a find from poland rather than anywhere else is more about the sorts of ground conditions material were deposited in (same reason we have prehistoric textiles from northern europe but not from southern europe – it has nothing at all to do with what people were doing and much more to do with the local environment).

  62. 62.

    BruinKid

    I hope everyone’s watching Rachel Maddow right now, as she’s reporting from North Carolina to talk about the bugfuck insane levels of voter suppression the Republicans are engaged in down there.

  63. 63.

    Mnemosyne

    @Keith G:

    I did not say or imply that you are bad….but…wait….

    “Paleo progressives”? Does that ring a bell? Or were you thinking about dinner and actually meant progressives who follow the paleo diet?

  64. 64.

    Mnemosyne

    @Keith G:

    I posted a further (though shorter) reply back in that thread so we don’t bother people who want to discuss their dinners.

  66. 66.

    Mnemosyne

    Speaking of dinner, I think I’m going to make Penne with Stuff I Found in the Fridge. We’ll see how it goes.

    (Since I have stuff in the fridge like salami and roasted vegetables, I think I’ll be fine.)

  71. 71.

    Anne Laurie

    @Divf: They may not, but I’m an Old and that’s the quip I remember!

    (Heck, if I called it ‘Norwegian Sudafed’ we’d probly get busted by the DEA… :)

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