Stephen B. Oresman, Stamford, CT
I have always been a cheese aficionado possibly because of the breakfast menu when I was growing up as a boy in the 1930’s in New York City. I ate by myself before my parents were up and it was not the more usual American breakfast of cereal (hot or cold), pancakes or bacon and eggs but the more Germanic cheese or herring on toast. While this may not be the choice of today’s nutritionists, I grew up to be 6’2 and am still around.
There were four varieties of cheese available including “Crowley” in its traditional round wheel covered in cheesecloth and wax. The three others were:
“Pabst-ett”, a semi-soft yellow spreadable cheese in a round cardboard box with a smooth texture and a nice taste produced by Pabst when they were forced to shutter their brewery because of Prohibition.
“Liederkranz”, made by Borden, a washed rind soft cheese that was runny when ripe, tannish in color and with a good strong flavor and aroma better than similar textured cheeses such as insipid Camembert or even Brie. It came in a small rectangular wooden box.
“Swiss Knight” a processed medium-soft Gruyere with a good typical flavor, packed in a flat round box with individual foil wrapped pie shaped wedges.
All these three are sadly now gone. “Pabst-ett” was bought by Kraft and immediately discontinued because it competed with Velveeta. Borden stopped making “Liederkranz” and “Swiss Knight” was also discontinued but the company replaced it with similarly wrapped soft tasteless “light” cheese called “Laughing Cow” marketed as a diet snack. Happily, Crowley is still with us.
I became acquainted with Crowley because of my families connection with Vermont. In the 1930s my family started vacationing at the Russell’s in at Russellville, a self-contained hamlet in Shrewsbury township. At that time there were to my knowledge only three “summer people” with homes along with the dairy farmers and some permanent residents.
The Russell patriarch, Uncle Ned, died in the late ’30s and his sons wisely decided that trying to farm the hilly, rocky landscape was not a good idea. Ned’s widow Chelly, a registered nurse who had cared for the first Mrs. Russell, wanted to keep the farm so my Mother agreed to help her start of small farm camp for boys. I went starting in the late ’30s.
The camp had two cows, pigs, a horse and wagon and vegetable gardens for the campers consumption. There were plenty of activities including a swimming hole, a baseball field and a tennis court as well as excursions to lakes Elfin and Belmont, hikes on the Long Trail, riding at Hendy’s stable in Rutland, the Vermont Marble quarries in West Rutland, square dances at the Hortonville Grange in Mt. Holly and of course the Crowley Cheese factory in Healdville.
At that time there were three cheese factories in the area. One in the Northam part of Shrewsbury, the Coolidge one over Saltash Mountain in Plymouth and Crowley. The Crowley factory on the exterior is much as it is today. Inside it was neat and orderly with an aging room where cheese wheels were stored in racks. Cheesemaking was in a large room open to the entrance and office and upstairs there was a beauty parlor run by a Crowley daughter.
Old Man Crowley (that is the only way he was referred to) was a stern commanding presence with as huge walrus mustache. He certainly wouldn’t talk to small boys and over subsequent years certainly didn’t act as a friendly proprietor meeting and greeting customers and I never saw him even overseeing or actually working in the cheese room.
The two Crowley sons dressed in aprons, ran the cheese making operation, that was elegant in its simplicity. There were two long wooden tanks lined with stainless steel plates. The milk and rennet were heated and left overnight in the tanks to set. In the morning the contents were cut with wires and raked with wooded rakes to separate the curds and whey. The whey was run off and the curds salted and packed in wooden forms to make wheels.
The conditions in the cheese room would not meet current standards. The windows were open and not screened and the rolls of yellow flypaper hanging from the ceiling were collecting the flies. When the tanks were emptied the wash water went out into the road down toward the creek.
However, contamination was never a problem. In all the years of eating Crowley I never found or heard about anyone finding a piece of “extraneous matter,” that is the technical term for things in food that should not be there for health, safety or cosmetic reasons. In many years as a manufacturing consultant including quality control studies. I am convinced that diligent responsible workers using time tested and traditional process are as good or better that than, regulations, standards and inspectors.
Our relationship with Crowley continued over the years. In 1946 my parents purchased the Bellany farm with an old center entrance colonial house and multiple barns, adjacent to the Russell property. My mother spent summers there for the next almost 40 years and my wife and children vacationed there as well. There was always a Crowley cheese in the fridge principally to make grilled cheese sandwiches and we took one back to Connecticut when we returned.
In New York City my mother’s principal activity was as volunteer fundraiser with a formidable and national reputation. For many years she was Chairman of the Womens’ Division of the New York UJA raising many hundreds of thousands annually as well as being active and on the Boards of other philanthropies. Her motto about fund-raising was “10% inspiration and 90% perspiration”.
In the three months she spent in Vermont she continued as a volunteer for the Shrewsbury Ladies Aid whose principal fund-raiser was a chicken pie supper and sale. Cooking was not my mothers expertise but as my father had an accounting firm in New York, with numerous clients in the textile and garment industry she was able to obtain lots of new clothing and other goods for sale that made her a major contributor.
She also took on the challenge of trying to get Old Man Crowley to contribute a cheese for the Ladies Aid sale. As she was a good customer as well as were family members and guests who stayed with her, she was confident of success with a request for such a modest amount.
I was never present at these exchanges but they must have been epic – the unstoppable force vs. the immovable object. She was never able to overcome Crowley’s stubborn stinginess and get him to contribute a cheese but she did not complain and we continued to purchase and enjoy Crowley cheese.
Today my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are Crowley fans and continue to look forward to their holiday wheel.