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Dairy Logue
by Kathie Canning Dairy R&D Editor
kcanning@stagnito.com
kcanning@stagnito.com
In Search of Dairy Artifacts
Today’s cheese industry
owes a lot to the town of Cuba, N.Y., and that’s something Nico van Zwanenberg
doesn’t want folks to forget. The former cheesemaker is anxious to preserve
Cuba’s — and all of Western New York’s — rich dairy
history for generations to come. In fact, van Zwanenberg leads a committee that
hopes to open a cheese museum in Cuba.
In the early 1900s, Cuba and its surrounding
communities were home to a “big, big conglomeration of tiny little
cheese factories,” van Zwanenberg explains. “Even as recently
as the 1940s and 1950s, there were hundreds of these little
plants.”
From the early 1900s to the middle of the 20th
century, a cheese market operated in Cuba’s Kinney Hotel. A few men
met weekly to set the price for cheese throughout the United States.
As transportation and processing technology improved,
however, many of the plants merged operations. By 1964, says van
Zwanenberg, Cuba could claim just one remaining cheese plant. The plant,
once owned by the van Zwanenberg family, now houses Empire Cheese, a
subsidiary of Ohio-based Great Lakes Cheese.
Although New York still boasts a strong cheese
industry, Wisconsin and California now lead the nation in production. And
Green Bay, Wis., now operates the National Cheese Exchange, the modern
version of Cuba’s old cheese market.
The museum idea “has been a conversation thing
for many, many years,” says van Zwanenberg. “We thought maybe
we ought to do something before this is all forgotten.”
Ultimately, the Cuba Cheese Museum Committee hopes to
showcase not only the history of dairy processing in Cuba, but also the
history of cheesemaking and milk production in general.
The committee is seeking dairy relics from the Cuba
area and beyond. “We are interested in artifacts, slide shows,
movies, pictures, books, magazines, advertising — anything concerning
milk and cheese manufacturing, no matter where it comes from,” says
van Zwanenberg.
If you have a dairy artifact you’d like to contribute for
the museum, contact van Zwanenberg at Nvanz@aol.com, or visit the committee’s
Web site at http://members.aol.com/CubaCheeseMuseum.
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