Pacific Northwest Cheese: A History

A history of cheese in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, Pacific Northwest Cheese: A History  uncovers the rich tradition of cheesemaking from the earliest fur traders to modern-day small farmers.

In this rich and engaging history, Tami Parr shows how regional cheesemaking found its way back to the farm. It’s a lively story that begins with the first fur traders in the Pacific Northwest and ends with modern-day small farmers in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

For years, farmers in the Pacific Northwest made and sold cheese to support themselves, but over time the craft of cheesemaking became a profitable industry and production was consolidated into larger companies and cooperatives. Eventually, few individual cheesemakers were left in the region. In the late sixties and early seventies, influenced by the counterculture and back-to-the-land movements, the number of small farms and cheesemakers began to grow, initiating an artisan cheese renaissance that continues today.

Along with documenting the history of cheese in the region, Parr reveals some of the Pacific Northwest’s untold cheese stories: the fresh cheese made on the Oregon Trail, the region’s thriving blue cheese and regional swiss cheese makers, and the rise of goat’s milk and goat’s milk cheese (not the modern phenomenon many assume it to be).

Tami Parr is the author of Artisan Cheese of the Pacific Northwest and the creator of the Pacific Northwest Cheese Project website (pnwcheese.com). Her writing has also appeared in The Oregonian, Northwest Palate, and Edible Portland. She lives in Portland, Oregon.