Cheesemaking in depth

Most of this list belongs to the vat: milk that is judged, set with rennet, cut, stirred, heated and drained, then watched for weeks in case it turns into waste after all. One word is far older than the dairy science around it. Der Laib, the whole wheel of cheese as it leaves the press, is the same Germanic word as English loaf, Old English hlāf. German kept it for anything baked or pressed into one round mass, which is why a baker sells einen Laib Brot and a cheesemaker turns einen Laib Käse. English narrowed it to bread, and buried a second copy inside a title: lord goes back to Old English hlāfweard, the keeper of the loaf, the man whose bread the household ate. The German word never climbed that far. It stayed in the bakery and the cheese cellar, which is exactly where a learner meets it.