The Origin of String Cheese

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/11/the-secret-life-of-string-cheese/383001/?single_page=true

by zvanness • 12 years ago

36 13 12 years ago

I'd be surprised if string cheese was invented in 1976. Armenian string cheese seems like something that has been around for a long time: http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/06/armenian-string-cheese-br...

ipsin• 12 years ago

Yeah, it really is kind of shocking how bad American string cheese is. It's kind of an extruded cheese stick, with very little stringiness.

Armenian-style string cheese, on the other hand, is rather salty with a wonderfully dense braid, and the black caraway seeds add to the taste. The only downside for me is that it tends to spoil faster than I can eat it.

nkozyra• 12 years ago

"American string cheese" is, like many products in such a large country, extraordinarily varied such that it seems weird to lump them all together.

cm20122• 12 years ago

Its quite tasty for what it is - a quick, convenient, and inexpensive snack. You have to be quite the food snob to call it shockingly bad.

exhilaration• 12 years ago

Trader Joe's has fresh mozzarella cheese sticks that are very different than the plasticy stuff passed off as string cheese.

freiheit• 12 years ago

The article is talking about a specific "string" cheese packaged in individual serving sizes (frequently seen in children's lunches) and specifically references it being originally based on another stringy cheese (mozzarella) with a much longer history.

armenarmen• 12 years ago

Armenian here, yep we were doing it 'just a little bit' earlier ;)

alanfalcon• 12 years ago

Is a mozzarella stick basically just a deep fried string cheese? If I lived before 1976 would I have been deprived of this artery clogging wünderfood?

cdr• 12 years ago

More likely just plain mozzarella. In most restaurants, you're likely getting a factory pre-made frozen and reheated product from a box - certainly that was the case at the chain pizza place I worked at in highschool. "Stuffed crust" pizza was made with string cheese (at least at the time), though. I've seen blocks of mozzarella chopped up at a fair to fry, but no idea whether that's what everyone does. The "stringiness" of melted mozzarella (as on a pizza or in a fried stick) actually mostly depends on the freshness, or so I've been told.

kfor• 12 years ago

Maybe not in restaurants, but just frying up some string cheese is indeed the easiest way to make your own at home. Tip: freeze them on a cookie sheet after (double-)breading them, that way they won't melt as soon as you throw them in the fryer.

The Origin of String Cheese

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