Lecture + Food. "Lessons from the Fertile Crescent & Beyond." Dr. Kindstedt

Join us for this special event co-organized and co-sponsored by the New Mexico Cheese Guild. It will be a captivating exploration of human history through the lens of one of our oldest culinary technologies: cheese! This event traces the 11,000-year journey of dairy pastoralism, from its origins in the Near East to its eventual introduction to the Americas.

Lessons from the Fertile Crescent and Beyond: The Deep History of Cheesemaking and its Arrival in the Indigenous Americas.

Lecture by Dr. Paul Kindstedt (University of Vermont)

What were the crucial prerequisites that enabled dairying and cheesemaking to arise for the first time in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East at the start of the Neolithic around 11,000 years ago? Using the grasslands of the Eurasian Steppe as a focal point, this talk explores the roles of human migration, cultural diffusion, and climatic stressors in the longevity of lacto-fermentation and specifically cheese technology.

This historical framework, in turn, will then be used to examine how these pastoral systems that supported cheesemaking were introduced to the Americas by Spanish colonizer, permanently altering the agricultural landscape of the Western Hemisphere.

After the talk, ticketed guests are invited to a delicious cheese-tasting and an opportunity to meet Dr. Kindstedt.

Dr. Paul Kindstedt is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Vermont and a world-renowned scholar on the history and chemistry of cheese. His work bridges the gap between ancient archaeology and modern food science, offering a unique perspective on how cheese has shaped human civilization.

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Host or Publisher UNM Maxwell Museum of Anthropology