Cheese, and many other food products, are designed to be long-lasting ways of preserving perishable foodstuffs. Honey has been found to be delicious after thousands of years in a pyramid. Cheese (the corpse of milk, according to James Joyce) is a way of preserving milk. Dried pasta and noodles was invented as a way or preserving flour for longer periods than simply keeping sacks of flour in a rat-infested warehouse. Salt of course is famous for food preservation - bacon, ham, sauerkraut, kippers (whoops, no that was smoke! but herrings and cod loved it.)