🌍 North America
The United States and Canada: cheeses brought by European settlers and missionaries, such as California's Monterey Jack.
North America is a region in the north of the Western Hemisphere that includes the United States and Canada. In North America — the United States and Canada — Indigenous peoples kept no dairy animals before Europeans arrived. Cows, goats and sheep, along with cheesemaking skills, were brought by Europeans from the 16th–17th centuries: Spanish missionaries in the southwest, settlers from England, the Netherlands and France in the east. According to the FAO, almost all milk in the Americas comes from cows.
Many of the region’s cheeses go back to European models, but some are local. California’s Monterey Jack, by a common account, descends from the white cheese of 18th-century Spanish missions and probably got its name in the 19th century. In Canada, especially Quebec, cheesemaking follows French traditions, and fresh cheese curds are an essential part of poutine.
Today the US and Canada are major milk producers, and cheese, ice cream and milk drinks are everyday mass-market foods.
What it includes
- Peoples
- Traditional products
How it connects to milk
🌍 North America → kind of → 🌍 World regions → kind of → 🥛 Milk
Links
- Traditional products
- 🧀 Monterey Jack
- Peoples
- 🧑🤝🧑 Americans
- Traditions
- 🫒 Californian-style black olives, 🫒 Mission
- Part of
- 🌍 World regions
- Wine and milk
- 🌿 Vitis labrusca
Frequently asked questions
Did Native Americans have dairy animals?
No, cows, goats and sheep were brought by Europeans from the 16th–17th centuries.
What cheese originated in the US?
Monterey Jack from California, for example, which goes back to the cheese of the Spanish missions.
What cheese goes in poutine?
Fresh cheese curds that squeak slightly when you bite them.
What to read next
- 🧑🤝🧑 Americans — The people of the United States in North America, descendants of settlers and Native peoples; their home-grown cheese is California's Monterey Jack.
- 🌿 Vitis labrusca — A North American grape species with a "foxy" and strawberry aroma.
- 🫒 Californian-style black olives — Half-ripe olives treated with lye, darkened by air and sterilised in cans.
Similar
🌍 West Africa · 🌍 Southern Africa · 🌍 Himalayas and Tibet · 🌍 Arctic and the North · 🌍 Carpathians · 🌍 Central Europe
Sources
- KQED — Move Over Monterey? Pacifica Lays Claim to Iconic Jack Cheese
- FAO — Gateway to dairy production and products: Dairy animals