Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
Cheese 'print' Login/Join
 
Junior Member
posted
Hey all, hoping someone has an inkling or two about the word 'print' as it refers to a 10 lb block of cheese. The British cheesemakers association I contacted said the word isn't in use there. Their American counterparts didn't know why they used it, they just did. The master cheese-maker I work for has no idea either. The only reference I have been able to find online is in a 19th century text that draws similarity between a cheese print and a butter print.
~Katie
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
I've not heard the term. Please explain the context and meaning.

Good to see someone new here! Please introduce yourself!

Geoff
 
Posts: 6168 | Location: Muncie, IndianaReply With QuoteReport This Post
<Proofreader>
posted
Here is the only thing remotely associated with the word. I don't know that it helps any.
 
Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Kalleh
posted Hide Post
Welcome, Toadflax! I don't know, either. Perhaps some of our UK or Canadian people have heard it?
 
Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
Junior Member
posted Hide Post
Hello Geoff, and everyone kind enough to respond. I'm a Vermonter with a love of language, and this 'print' puzzle has stymied and irked me since I started working for an artisan cheese producer last year. Here is the definition of a cheese print:
Print
A rectangular style of cheese that has been cut from a 40-pound block. Prints are normally 10-pound loaves.

I just can't track down any etymology for the term, nor been able to find that definition on any online dictionary. I suppose it has to do with the creation of four more or less equivalent blocks with the quartering of the 40 lbs but it's only my guess.

Kalleh, the term is not used in England, seems to be exclusive to US cheese producers.
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
the OED Online:

quote:
b. A piece of butter (later also of cheese, etc.) which has been shaped in a mould (cf. butter-print n. 1). Now Sc., Irish English (north.), and N. Amer.

1903 Portsmouth (New Hampsh.) Herald (Electronic text) 12 Mar. A mold.., the bottom or follower of which was a curved board divided into a number of sections, each of which corresponded to a half pound print of cheese.
 
Posts: 2428Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Kalleh
posted Hide Post
Ah, I should have checked the OED.
 
Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of arnie
posted Hide Post
I've never come across the phrase, but the OED definition gives a clue why the word print is used; I've seen pats of butter imprinted with a pattern from a mould; it's quite possible that cheese might be treated in the same way.


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 
Posts: 10940 | Location: LondonReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Kalleh
posted Hide Post
I didn't realize it, but apparently molds are used for hard cheeses. It says, "Used for pressing hard varieties of homemade cheese such as Cheddar, Monterey Jack, Swiss and many more."
 
Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
On page 11 of Cheese Making on the Farm (Farmers' Bulletin No. 166, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 16 pp.,1903), by Henry E. Alvord, it says "The first print cheese was made at the Wisconsin Dairy School during the winter of 1898-99." This was modeled after the success of print butter and was molded into 1-pound blocks. The full text of the bulletin can be found here and on Google Books. A few libraries also carry it. How it went from a 1-pound block to a 10-pound block I don't know.
 
Posts: 2878 | Location: Shoreline, WA, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
Junior Member
posted Hide Post
This is perfect, tinman, what a terrific read and I will be forwarding it to my boss--who, as it happens, learned cheese-making at a Wisconsin dairy. This is exactly the information I've been searching for, thank you!
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Junior Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by arnie:
I've never come across the phrase, but the OED definition gives a clue why the word print is used; I've seen pats of butter imprinted with a pattern from a mould; it's quite possible that cheese might be treated in the same way.


Yes Arnie, it is definitely a derivative usage of the butter-'print.'
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Junior Member
posted Hide Post
This is very interesting, thanks goofy--I may send an email off to an Irish cheese-maker to see what they have to say about this, thank you. Huge help.
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Junior Member
posted Hide Post
The terrible thing is I don't know much about how our cheeses are actually made, Kalleh--I work in the cut-and-package plant and don't see the cheese till it's a finished product--usually a 40 lb block. But molds must be fundamental to the process.
-Katie
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Junior Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Proofreader:
Here is the only thing remotely associated with the word. I don't know that it helps any.

Hey proofreader, thanks for your input, we're talking about a different incarnation of the word 'print'.
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
<Proofreader>
posted
quote:
Hey proofreader, thanks for your input, we're talking about a different incarnation of the word 'print'. Posts: 7

But at the time I had no idea at all what a "cheese print" could possible be, and that's the limit of my investigation. Actually, I was cloxse but in the wrong medium.
 
Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Junior Member
posted Hide Post
proofreader, good point-! One of the joys of language. :-)
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
What's the name of the cheese producer for which you work?
 
Posts: 6168 | Location: Muncie, IndianaReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of bethree5
posted Hide Post
My guess would have been the rind imprint I look for on a block of parmigiano to make sure it's the good stuff (Reggiano). Interesting! I hope we can count on you for future cheese factoids, toadflax! Has this work affected your taste for cheese? (People from Hershey PA have told me they can't bear to eat chocolate.)
 
Posts: 2605 | Location: As they say at 101.5FM: Not New York... Not Philadelphia... PROUD TO BE NEW JERSEY!Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Kalleh
posted Hide Post
And, being from a Wisconsin farm myself, where we raised Holstein cows, there's always the cheeseheads. Wink
 
Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
<Proofreader>
posted
Speaking of "print", what state had its name imprinted on all currency used within its border?
 
Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Kalleh
posted Hide Post
quote:
what state had its name imprinted on all currency used within its border?
Not sure, but in trying to find it I came across a word I'd not seen before: obverse. It is the opposite of reverse. Have you seen it used?
 
Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
<Proofreader>
posted
Of course. I've also come across perverse, which is pornographic poetry.
 
Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of arnie
posted Hide Post
quote:
I came across a word I'd not seen before: obverse. It is the opposite of reverse. Have you seen it used?

It's common enough when referring to coins. 'Heads' is the call, as opposed to 'tails'.


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 
Posts: 10940 | Location: LondonReply With QuoteReport This Post
Junior Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by bethree5:
My guess would have been the rind imprint I look for on a block of parmigiano to make sure it's the good stuff (Reggiano). Interesting! I hope we can count on you for future cheese factoids, toadflax! Has this work affected your taste for cheese? (People from Hershey PA have told me they can't bear to eat chocolate.)


I have to say I eat more cheese than I used to, but I never used to eat that much. We tend to gnosh more at work and less at home.
How about "truckle," my absolute favorite cheese word? A Middle English word that means 'pulley,' now refers to
a barrel-shaped wheel.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: toadflax,
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Junior Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh:
And, being from a Wisconsin farm myself, where we raised Holstein cows, there's always the cheeseheads. Wink


I lived in a suburb of Green Bay for many a long, long year....
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Junior Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Proofreader:
Speaking of "print", what state had its name imprinted on all currency used within its border?


Clueless. Is the answer forthcoming?
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
<Proofreader>
posted
During early 1942, the US government was worried that the Japanese were intent on invading the Hawaiian Islands. Given the American strength, or lack of it, in the South Pacific, they could have likely conquered the islands, or at least several. In the event that happened, all US currency being circulated in the islands was stamped with the words "HAWAII" in several spots, and a special seal added. This would have allowed devaluation of any money the Japanese might have seized, and the imprint was used on bills until late 1944. Hawaiian bills are highly sought today by collectors.
And I know, it wasn't a state then. It was a territory.
 
Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Kalleh
posted Hide Post
quote:
I lived in a suburb of Green Bay for many a long, long year....
I do hope that doesn't mean that you're a Packers fan.

My brother lives in GB. I'll be going up to visit him soon.
 
Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
Junior Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Kalleh:
quote:
I lived in a suburb of Green Bay for many a long, long year....
I do hope that doesn't mean that you're a Packers fan.

My brother lives in GB. I'll be going up to visit him soon.


No worries, formative years in Green Bay had quite the opposite effect on me. :-) I lived in De Pere, went to St Norbert College, roughly a hundred years ago.
 
Posts: 12Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Kalleh
posted Hide Post
Whew! While I grew up in Wisconsin too (Janesville), I am a tried and true Chicagoan and root for the Bears. My Wisconsin family, needless to say, is not happy about that. Wink
 
Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata  
 


Copyright © 2002-12