nouns - When should types of cheese be capitalized?


Does this recipe call for Cheddar cheese or cheddar cheese? Does pizza have mozzarella or Mozzarella on it? Heck, I'm not even sure if this sandwich contains Swiss cheese or swiss cheese.


Is there a convention here, or is it a matter of taste? Does it depend on whether the word was originally a proper noun ("Cheddar"), a proper adjective ("Swiss"), or something else ("bleu")?



Answer



Most writers do in fact capitalise Camembert...



...but usage isn't consistent. I'm not an expert with NGrams, but I think this chart suggests people are less likely to capitalise strong Cheddar when it's followed by the word cheese (i.e. - if the word "Cheddar" in isolation is used as a noun, we tend to capitalise; if it's an "adjectival" usage modifying the word "cheese", we don't).


Obviously certain types of cheese (Boursin, for example) are "trademarks" owned by specific producer companies, so they're much more likely to be capitalised in all contexts.



TL;DR: There's no particular "rule" - or if there is one, it's not consistently applied.


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