Thanks for all of the replies. Looks like the Persians win. In checking the wikipedia entry for Darius the Great, I noticed this tidbit:
So, if you know any Zoroastrians, be sure to thank them for melted cheese.
I don’t know! I’m not a nutritional anthropologist!
pauses, looks around for Debbie
I really don’t mean this to be snide, but wasn’t some type of melted cheese discovered shortly after cheese was invented and then heated by the sun?
RubyStreak mentioned mozzarella as a cheese designed for melting, but I’d submit queso-quesadilla instead. That stuff is incomparable.
Sure, but then the question becomes “Who melted cheese on purpose and added it to their cuisine?”
Americans might not have invented melted cheese, but I bet we invented melted Cheez.
And, we’ve explored every possible way to inject/add it to more food.
When “The Buttery” closed down in Baltimore, the article mentioned a regular customer who used to order a chocolate donut with a slice of American cheese melted on it; he’d eat it with a fork.