If you’ve eaten a pizza, sandwich, salad or any food containing cheese while in St. Louis, you’ve probably enjoyed the local favorite Provel.
Haven’t heard of Provel? That’s not surprising, if you don’t spend much time in St. Louis. It’s a very local product that, when manufactured for sale by purveyors outside the St. Louis area, can’t even be labeled “Provel.” It carries instead the moniker “St. Louis-Style Cheese.”
The history of this beloved food is convoluted and much debated, even in St. Louis.
According to an article titled “Provelology,” in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the cheese was patented by a collaboration of one or more St. Louis businessmen and the Hoffman Dairy in Wisconsin in the late 1940s. Hoffman (now owned by the Churny Company, a subsidy of Kraft) is still the only maker of trademarked Provel cheese.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Evansville Courier & Press