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- Title:
- Queseo Beginnings
- Description:
- While Cebu had a decreased population in the 50th year of Spanish colonisation, it still was known for its cheeses. Perhaps the salty, banana-leaf-wrapped QUESEO still made in mountain towns of Cebu City descends from Fr. Juan Medina’s era. Before his time, around the 25th year of colonisation the King underwrote the import of 25 cows and 2 bulls from Mexico to begin Philippine breeding farms, first near Manila. The Augustinians had 2,000 head in Cebu but by Medina’s time, they were only 500. Indians came to like eating beef that they had disliked at first. Wild dogs disturbed calves. Cattle were introduced from Spain to Mexico where they had been unknown. After 1540 the cattle brought from Mexico to Peru spread to Argentina. Tame carabao were imported from China but they were bred not for meat but milk. Carabao milk was thicker and more palatable than cow milk at the time. Husbandry has always been a challenge in many parts of the Philippines.
- Subjects:
- Queseo Cheese Animal Culture Milk
- Exhibition:
- Juan Medina 50
- Source:
- From America Pintoresca. El Ancora Editores, 1987 in Seeds of Change. Herman Viola and Carolyn Margolis, editors. (Smithsonian Institution, 1991
- Type:
- Image;Still Image
- Format:
- image/jpeg
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "Queseo Beginnings", Philippine Food History, Felice P. Sta. Maria
- Reference Link:
- felicepstamaria.net/items/coll100.html