8 ms·
The Origin of String Cheese
- nimblegorilla 12y agoI'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-braided-middle-eastern-watertown-massachusetts-arax-market.html http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/06/armenian-string-cheese-br...
- ipsin 12y agoYeah, 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 12y 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.
- Thriptic 12y agoIpsin is most likely referring to the ubiquitous kraft string cheese or comparable products popular among kids.
- cm2012 12y agoIts 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.
- pbhjpbhj 12y agoUSA style string cheese (£15 to £26.50/kg non-offer price) is much more than the cost of mature cheddar (£5 to £12/kg) in my local Tesco supermarket, not an inexpensive snack by a long shot. That top end price is the same price as smoked salmon, the UK stereotypical expensive appetiser. It tastes really plastic-y to me.
- cm2012 12y agoIt's about $4 a pound (£5.60 per kilogram) in my local supermarket - way less than smoked salmon and about a third of your price. Note that this is not on sale!
- exhilaration 12y agoTrader Joe's has fresh mozzarella cheese sticks that are very different than the plasticy stuff passed off as string cheese.
- freiheit 12y agoThe 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 12y agoArmenian here, yep we were doing it 'just a little bit' earlier ;)
- alanfalcon 12y agoIs 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 12y agoMore 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 12y agoMaybe 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.