Un-brie-lievable crowd gathers for Cheese Club premiere

Newly-formed Cheese Club’s inaugural event, Serving Cheese from Across the Midwest, garnered mass attention from the student body — a line stretched across the entire lower level of the Joe Rosenfield `25 Center. Club founder Olivia Lee `28 estimated that about 250 to 275 students had turned up, significantly more than the number of RSVPs that they had received.

“We ordered enough cheese for a hundred people, but there turned out to be a lot more interest and we ran out of cheese within 15 to 20 minutes of us starting the event,” Lee said.

The premier event’s menu consisted of a variety of cheeses — Prairie Breeze cheddar (from the aforementioned Milton Creamery), muenster, dill pickle cheese curds, garlic cheese curds, regular cheese curds, aged cheddar, and  colby-jack They also had strawberries and bottles of sparkling cider. The cheese menu, specifically the Prairie Breeze, attracted praise from various attendees.

“I hadn’t heard of the Breeze before. I’m from Wisconsin, so I was a little bit perplexed, but that is the cheese of the night,” said Emmett Krez `29.

“We’re really big fans of the prairie cheese,” said Addie Persian `27. “There’s a lot more people here than I expected, but the cheese assortment is really good and it’s been really fun.”

“We would die for the Breeze,” said Neva Zamil `27. “Double the cheese for next time.”

For Shibam Mukhopadhyay `26, the aged cheddar was especially palatable. “Cheese Club is doing something completely new. Everyone loves cheese. Except for lactose intolerant people, but we’re intolerant of them,” joked Mukhopadhyay. 

While visiting colleges in her senior year of high school, Lee met a student who was a member of their college’s cheese club. The idea stuck with her. In her second year at Grinnell, over dinner with her friends, she realized that they were interested in the idea of developing their own cheese club. 

She began to talk to friends at various events to gauge whether they would show up to club events. Receiving enthusiastic responses, she decided to go ahead with proposing the Registered Student Organization (RSO).

“I love cheese,” said Lee. “My friends and I would always have cheese nights, and we’d bring cheese to Burling while we were studying.”

The mission of the Club, however, goes beyond just eating different types of cheese. Lee said that she wanted the club to help students better understand the contexts of their food, while providing a communal space where students can take a reprieve from studying with their friends. 

She said she plans to make menus for each event that are different and informational, going beyond the grocery store and explaining the history of the production of specific cheeses. Possible longer-term plans include inviting a cheese distributor and a dairy farmer to campus, and visiting Milton Creamery, an Iowa cheese-making centre.

“I’m really interested in food politics and how food shapes cultures and how we communicate with people, the way we share stories,” said Lee.

Cheese Club’s leadership, along with Lee, consists of Kaylee Conto `28, who serves as outreach coordinator, Maia Killory `28, who serves as treasurer, and Sascha Rhein `28, who serves as communications coordinator.

Cheese Club’s next event will be a “Build Your Own Charcuterie Board” event. They also plan to host a “Go Global with Cheese Club” event, in the beginning of next semester, for which they intend to collaborate with multicultural organizations on campus to provide cheese and dishes which utilize cheese.