Comments on: More Tangled than a Oaxacan Cheese: More Detective Work

By: Rachel Laudan

Rachel Laudan — Tue, 24 May 2011 16:10:27 +0000

Iliana, Thanks for this. I always appreciate your input.

So, what I conclude from this is that your mother was making quesillo in the 1940s. Clearly the family was making it before, but for how long, that is the question. And where. I don’t know enough about the geography of Oaxaca to comment on this. Can’t wait to talk to you more about these traditions.

By: iliana de la Vega

iliana de la Vega — Tue, 24 May 2011 16:04:11 +0000

Unfortuntaley the video in youtube is no longer available

By: iliana de la Vega

iliana de la Vega — Tue, 24 May 2011 16:03:22 +0000

My Grand father had cows, and my Mom use to make “Quesillo” (as it is called in Oaxaca) when she was a young teenager (13, she was born in 1925…you do the math….

The tradition tells that the quesillo is from Etla, but my Grand father has his ranches in San Pablo Huixtepec and Zimatlán…a different area of the Valles Centrales. Where was first, I don’t know.
Some of the quesillo that you can find in Oaxaca City right now is made in Etla, some other in Puebla and a lot of it (the cheapest) as you mentioned is vegetable…not dairy. It’s sad.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 04:23:25 +0000

Thought this might be interesting and appropriate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQo-gyzRNo0
Ojala comprende espanol.

By: Bob Mrotek

Bob Mrotek — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:30:37 +0000

Well, Rachel, I just knew that you were going to bring up cheddar. Why? Because it came from the village of Cheddar in Somerset England :)

Actually, cheese making in California started around 1780 when Padre Junipero Serra brought it to California from Mexico when the Franciscans took over for the Jesuits who were expelled from all of New Spain. The cheesemaking in Wisconsin didn’t really get started until just before the American Civil War. Curiously enough, Cheddar cheese making got started in both California and Wisconsin about the same time by immigrants from England. By the way and for the record, although I was born and raised in Chicago my family comes from Wisconsin and I love Wisconsin cheese. I also love Queso Oaxaqueño from Oaxaca, Mexico…not Italy :)

By: Rachel Laudan

Rachel Laudan — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:35:45 +0000

Hi Bob, I did not know that the original cheese making in Wisconsin was back influence from California. How interesting. They must later presumably have changed their techniques because now they seem chiefly known for cheddar-type hard cheeses.

As to vast eternal plans, I’ve not had the perception that everything in Mexico was attributed to the French, the Italians, the Germans etc. Actually rather the reverse, that whereas the US sees itself primarily as an immigrant nation, Mexico tends to ignore the contribution of immigrants. I’d love to talk to you about this sometime.

On the food front, one thing that is often claimed to be French is the bolillo. I think that’s wrong and would attribute that to the original Spanish settlers.

As to the cheese, we may never know. But another line of evidence comes from the general categorization of milk techniques offered by Anne Mendelson that I’ll be getting to soon.

By: Adam Balic

Adam Balic — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:33:49 +0000

I don’t think that the is an issue with Mexico independently developing this cheese, but point would be on a food historians website to provide some evidence for this?

Origin stories without evidence looks a lot like a lack of confidence and hopefully the Mexican population is beyond that?

By: Bob Mrotek

Bob Mrotek — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:01:20 +0000

Well, Rachel, Wisconsin was not a dairy state either, at first. It was a wilderness until the invention of the nail making machine in the early 1800′s and the introduction of softwood lumber balloon framing construction. Then it became a lumber state. Where did cheese making finally come from in the “Dairy State”? It came from California where cheese making was introduced by whom? By the Spanish missionaries from Mexico, of course. Why must everything Mexican always be claimed by the French, the Italians, the Germans, and everybody else? Would it spoil some vast eternal plan to let Mexico claim Queso Oxaqueño as its very own? The next thing you know the Americans will claim that Taco Bell invented tacos :)