ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Swiss cheese features

Swiss cheese features are like the holes you see in a slice of Swiss cheese. Imagine that you have a big piece of clay that you can mold into any shape you want. If you take a small ball and push it into the clay, it will leave a hole. That's kind of like what happens when cheese is made.

When cheese is made, there are certain types of bacteria that are added to the milk. These bacteria help turn the milk into cheese by digesting the milk sugar, which produces lactic acid. The lactic acid makes the milk proteins coagulate (or clump together), which eventually solidifies into curds.

During the cheese-making process, some of the bacteria also produce carbon dioxide gas. This gas gets trapped within the curds, creating little pockets of air. Sometimes, these pockets are able to grow larger and merge with each other, causing larger holes to form. These holes are called "eyes" or "blowholes". In Swiss cheese, the eyes are usually round or oval in shape.

So, in summary, Swiss cheese features are the round or oval holes that you see in a slice of Swiss cheese. They are created by bacteria producing carbon dioxide gas during the cheese-making process, which gets trapped within the curds and forms pockets of air.