The History of String Cheese: When Was It Invented?

String cheese is a popular snack usually made of mozzarella cheese, during the manufacturing process aligns the proteins in the cheese, and this makes it stringy. But do you know when was it invented? Here are all you want to know.

String Cheese Has Many Potential Origins

Although many companies now make string cheese, its origins are debated. Cooking Chew cites braided “string” cheese, which has been enjoyed for centuries, while others assert that Baker Cheese Company was the first to seriously market the product. Lapham’s Quarterly reports that it originates from Leobarda Castellanos Garcia, a 14-year-old girl in 19th-century Mexico. In addition, Culture Cheese Mag writes about Armenian string cheese. But Snack Stack notes that the food has “countless variations and no single origin story.” Additionally, Slovakian, Armenian, or Mexican string cheeses, which are occasionally spiced and braided, are listed as possible string cheese origins by Cooking Chew.

According to the in-depth piece in The Atlantic, string cheese was invented by Baker Cheese, based in Wisconsin, which began selling cheddar cheese in 1916. The story states that the 1950s changed America’s relationship to cheese, when the introduction of pizza to American travelers and soldiers returning from Italy after World War II created a booming demand for mozzarella. Baker Cheese then began to focus on mozzarella and would sell “six-pound loaves or 20-pound blocks of cheese” to restaurants and pizzerias, before receiving requests for “smaller units” that customers could easily eat as a snack, as opposed to a pizza topping.

How American String Cheese Began to Boom in Popularity

Switching from cheddar to mozzarella proved to be a wise move, but coming up with an idea to satiate the need for a “cheese snack” is what truly put The best of the best is Baker Cheese. Frank Baker therefore considered chopping the cheese into strips rather than molding it into a block or square, The Atlantic continues. He began to “hand stretch them and roll them up and cut them into ropes … soak them in the salt brine … and he realized by doing it this way, cheese would have ‘stringing’ characteristics,” The magazine was informed by Frank’s grandson.

In the 1970s, Baker Cheese first offered the cheese to local bar patrons to try as a snack, but eventually, when the business started wrapping the sticks individually, the cheese gained popularity with kids. This helped parents quickly pack a single serving into a child’s lunch box or grab one as they were leaving the house, while also extending the product’s shelf life. The Green Bay Gazette notes that the individually-wrapped sticks boomed in popularity in the ’80s, and by the ’90s, “string cheese was about 50 percent of [Baker’s Cheese] production.”

String Cheese Might Have Also Began in Mexico

As previously stated, another string cheese origin theory revolves around Leobarda Castellanos Garcia, a 14-year-old girl living in Mexico in 1885. The Tennessee Tribune lays out the legend that she invented quesillo, which Cheese.com also refers to as “String cheese in the Oaxacan fashion.” It is commonly used in quesadillas, enchiladas, and sandwiches. It is made of strings before being formed into a ball, has a mild flavor and melty texture similar to American string cheese.

According to Lapham’s Quarterly, Garcia intended to make a queso fresco, but inadvertently made a “gummy” cheese. Her parents then realized that the end result was not problematic, and after some tweaking, created a new product that utilized different “curdle times and temperatures” in creating a cheese that’s very different from quesco fresco, but delicious all the same.

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