Our two-year-old was happily snacking on a cheese stick in the minivan and Domestic Senior Management said “Whoever invented cheese sticks was a genius.” Google and Atlantic magazine to the rescue with “The Secret Life of String Cheese” (2014):
For these early pizza joints, [in the 1950s] Baker Cheese would make six-pound loaves or 20-pound blocks of cheese that restaurants would then cut and slice for their pizzas. But then Baker Cheese started getting requests for consumers who were addicted to the hot white melted mass of cheese on their pizzas. They wanted smaller units that they could eat as a snack.
“My grandfather was an innovator by nature,” Brian said. “He wanted to see if he could seek to do something with the product and packaging for these one-pound packages of mozzarella. Mozzarella was already shredded and cubed, but we didn’t want to compete and invest in that market.”
So Frank started experimenting in the factory with these one pound packages. Normally, mozzarella is molded into a shape from a continuous flow of cheese that is then shaped into a block or square. Frank wondered what would happen if he took this continuous flow of mozzarella and simply chopped them into strips?
“He would cut off strips and hand stretch them and roll them up and cut them into ropes, into little three, four, five inch pieces,” Brian said. “He’d soak them in the salt brine—this highly concentrated salt water—and he realized by doing it this way, cheese would have ‘stringing’ characteristics.”
That was in 1976. But it wasn’t until the a few years later, when string cheese had become cylindrified from its original twisted rope state and retail opportunities abounded, that string cheese catapulted from a local oddity to a national craze that caught on with the younger set. A key part of that was packaging, Brian said. Rather than stuffing 15-16 sticks into a one pound bag, they started making the individually wrapped mozzarella tubes we know today.
“With the one pound bags, parents would get [the entire bag] but have to throw them out because it would start to spoil,” Brian told me. “But we invested in vacuum packing to extend shelf life. Pretty quickly, kids thought it was cool and the adults liked it, too.”
A success for both Internet and traditional media!
Mozzerrella, by weight, is one of the cheapest cheeses. You may pair it well with lettuce torn into individual leaves. Sliced fresh radishes work for the adults. Baby cut carrots present a choking hazard, but are loved by all. Everybody may safely love Wasa-branded Swedish flatbread crackers.
“Domestic Senior Management” — I love it! It’s even better than John Mortimer’s “She Who Must be Obeyed.”