Missouri’s Cheese Caves Are a Thriller

Image it now: A whole bunch of ft beneath the floor, transformed limestone mines are house to hundreds and hundreds of kilos of cheese. If there’s a heaven, this could be it. Nevertheless it’s off limits to mere cheese-loving mortals.

Andrew M. Novaković, professor of agricultural economics at Cornell College, explains that Missouri’s cheese caverns have been as soon as monumental man-made caves that have been dug for mining functions. “As soon as the mining operations performed out, the remaining system of caverns have been acknowledged as a possibility for climate-controlled storage with huge holding capability and entry,“ says Novaković. “The caverns have extraordinarily tall ceilings which are capable of accommodate massive tractor trailers and may run into the hundreds of thousands of sq. ft, meant for big tools to simply drive in and round to drop their hundreds.”

It’s no secret: Individuals love cheese. And regardless of a latest nod towards milk options, a research from the IDFA confirmed cheese consumption reached an all-time excessive in 2022 with consumption at practically 42 kilos per particular person — a half-a-pound improve over the earlier yr. Our historical past with the product runs deep and the explanation we launched caves as a method of storage is fascinating. 

The historical past of presidency cheese

In 1977, lengthy earlier than we had charcuterie boards dominating each Pinterest web page with gooey Brie triangles and feather wheels of Manchego, then-President Jimmy Carter fulfilled his promise to prop up the dairy business, permitting farmers to ramp up milk manufacturing with out threat, and the worth of milk shot up.

By the Nineteen Eighties, America has a severe surplus of cheese, because of Carter’s dairy debacle. It seems like a dream come true, however cheese will get moldy and goes dangerous. A couple of concepts have been floated round to alleviate the load, one in every of which was to easily dump it into the ocean. In the end, then-President Ronald Regan created the Momentary Emergency Meals Help Program that allotted blocks of “authorities cheese” to these dealing with meals insecurity. 

Novaković says that, “When it grew to become crucial to ‘use it or lose it’ with these cheeses, the federal government determined, fairly logically, that one of the simplest ways to make use of it was to make what most of us name American cheese, or processed cheese.” Right here’s the way it works: Standard laborious cheese is cooked and melted, typically with some additions for taste or preservation. Novaković says, “The result’s a really standardized and conveyable ‘loaf’ of American cheese. This made it simple for the federal government to distribute that previous surplus cheese to varied native meals distribution businesses.”  

Authorities cheese is usually a polarizing matter. Take a spin round Reddit and also you’ll discover of us who covet the flavour, contemplating its style and melting capability superior to all others. Don’t attempt to inform these devotees that there’s a better option for topping a burger or utilizing in a grilled cheese sandwich. That stated, authorities cheese has additionally grow to be the brunt of quite a lot of jokes. “You’re going to finish up consuming a gentle weight-reduction plan of presidency cheese and…dwelling in a van, down by the river,” was a wildly common skit from the world’s-worst motivational speaker, Matt Foley on Saturday Evening Dwell.  

The excellent news is that authorities cheese lastly had choices for allocation, however the dangerous information is that they wanted a spot to retailer the mounds and rounds. Enter: cheese caves. 

Missouri is named “the Cave State” because of the plentiful and porous limestone forming greater than 7,000 caves. Novaković explains that, “A big number of meals are saved in these caves as a result of they’re so amenable to local weather management; the pure underground temperature is within the low 60s with reasonable humidity. The overwhelming majority of storage in these amenities is business, however the authorities does use them for some meals storage.” 

The Hunt Midwest SubTropolis in Kansas Metropolis is positioned in a 270-million-year-old limestone deposit that lies 150 ft beneath floor. At this time, the enterprise labyrinth is house to cave-aged cheeses, espresso, and extra meals.

Farther south, deep within the Ozarks, a rumor continues to swirl that beneath town of Springfield has a sprawling cave of cheese, unfold by Fashionable Farmer, for instance. Pure caves comparable to Crystal Caves or Incredible Caverns (claiming to be the one ride-through collapse North America) are de rigueur for the world, and a well-liked attraction for subject journeys and vacationers. However this rumored cave — the cheese cave — is definitely a 3.2 million-square-foot warehouse often called Springfield Underground, which opened in 1946 as a limestone quarry. Is there cheese? Sure. However what sort and the way a lot stays a thriller as the corporate rents space for storing to non-public purchasers and debunks the parable that authorities cheese is hiding inside.

“The USDA isn’t a tenant of Springfield Underground and we would not have a pound of government-owned cheese,” Christina Angle, CFO for the Erlen Group, informed Meals & Wine. “That stated, Springfield Underground is a vital a part of our nation’s provide chain for a lot of of our tenants’ merchandise, together with cheese.”

How do I go to a cheese cave?

There aren’t any identified Missouri cheese caves open to shoppers. You will have to cross the pond to the world-famous cheddar cheese caves to see and style underground cheese getting older firsthand. It is certainly superior to authorities cheese.