New Occupational Folklife Project Documents “Tillamook: Cheesemakers in Coastal Oregon”

This is a guest post by Nancy Groce, Senior Folklife Specialist at the American Folklife Center. 

The American Folklife Center recently posted a new collection of interviews with contemporary American workers to its Occupational Folklife Project (OFP) website. Adding to several OFP collections on food and foodways, Tillamook: Cheesemakers in Coastal Oregon features in-depth interviews with workers at the Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA), a farmer-owned dairy cooperative in coastal Oregon.

Over the course of a century, Tillamook has become a nationally prominent brand while maintaining its local farmer-owned co-op model. According to Dr. Jared Schmidt, an Oregon-based folklorist who received a 2021 AFC Archie Green Fellowship to document the work life of individuals employed in the wide range of jobs and occupations associated with the Tillamook cheesemaking process, “The result is a sense of cultural heritage and identity rooted in and expressed through dairy.” For the project, Schmidt recorded interviews with Tillamook dairy farmers, factory workers, food scientists, and marketing specialists. Recently, I had a chance to talk to him about his fieldwork and the resulting OFP collection.

Nancy Groce: First, congratulations on completing your Tillamook project and having it posted to the AFC website. It’s the 51^st OFP collection we’ve posted and although we have some other food-related collections, yours it the first one featuring cheese! Let me start by asking a bit about your own background.

Jared Schmidt: I’m a public sector folklorist currently living and working on the Southwest Oregon coast. I have an MA and PhD in Folklore Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a MS in Applied Anthropology from Minnesota State University, Mankato. I’ve been interested in occupational folklore for a long time – in fact, I wrote my dissertation on the work of costumed history interpreters at Old World Wisconsin, a living history farm which interprets the agricultural and immigrant history and heritage of the Badger State.

NG: How did you become interested in Tillamook? Did it have anything to do with attending graduate school in the great dairy state of Wisconsin?

JS: In 2019, I relocated from Wisconsin to Tillamook County, Oregon–which quickly resulted in a lot of jokes that I moved from one cheese making haven to another. The truth is, I fell in love with a woman from Oregon and all it took was one trip to the land of cheese, trees, and ocean breeze and I was hooked.

Tillamook is home to the nationally distributed cheese brand, Tillamook. The massive visitor center located on Highway 101, complete with a giant mural of a cow above the entrance, draws in guests with the promise of free cheddar samples. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tillamook Creamery was Oregon’s most visited tourist destination! It offers a playful environment for people to learn about milk’s journey from local farms to curds, ice creams, and other ‘lactose-centric’ treats.

I must confess to being a regular visitor to the Creamery. I soon became interested in learning more about this co-op not only because of the products but also because of my interest in foodways and the intersection of food, laborlore, and occupational folklife.

Tillamook County is notable because of its location on the Oregon coast. Coming from the Upper Midwest, I did not think “cheese” when Oregon came to mind. It turns out that because of the rain-heavy coastal ecosystem, the geography, and local immigration patterns, there is an incredibly rich dairy history in the region. Many little Oregon towns at one point or another had their own creameries. Although my family were not farmers, as a folklorist diving into this local history and listening to family farming stories, the agricultural history of my new region really intrigued me.

NG: So, do you like cheese?

JS: Fieldwork certainly has its perks, and in this case that included sampling incredible cheeses! Growing up surrounded by dairy farms in rural Southwest Minnesota’s prairie, I was no stranger to cheese-rich meals—notably the Tater Tot Hot Dish my mother makes. And I am a major proponent of shopping and eating as locally as possible. Living here, purchasing Tillamook cheese really is the ultimate “shopping local” because you are not only supporting local dairy farmers, but you’re also participating in the area’s economy and providing jobs to people–some of whom are your neighbors. Also, the quality of the cheese is excellent!

I found the history of the Tillamook County Creamery Association fascinating. Like, how they utilized sailboats during the earliest days to deliver their dairy products to Portland, shipping them up the coast and Columbia River because the journey over mountains would lead to spoilage.

NG: Many of the OFPs collections deal with individual business owners, but you were working with a single company – well, actually, a co-op. How did you explain folklore, oral history, and your project to persuade the Co-Op to OK your research at their facilities and with their members and employees?

JS: I was fortunate to be a resident in the area and familiar with the organization. Once I explained the project to Tillamook management, they were incredibly helpful and assisted me by suggesting employees and co-op members who might want to be involved.

I found once people understood the nature of the project—and that I was interested in their journeys and occupational folklife—they were very keen to share their stories. While I approached my interviews with some general “framework questions,” I let my collaborators lead the flow of conversation while I asked follow-up questions. In the end, each person I spoke with had such different roles, backgrounds, and positions. Every conversation was unique and reflected how multi-layered of a process making cheddar truly is.

For example, I had a great interviewed my neighbor Scott Graebke, who worked on the maintenance team at Tillamook, and who talked at length about the mechanics and robotics of the dairy industry.

Dale Baumgartner, the head cheesemaker at Tillamook for decades, was incredibly informative about how much behind-the-scenes work goes into making even a “baby loaf” (2-pound block) of cheddar. (He also kindly shared tastes from his personal cheese collection – including one 17-year-old cheese that was beyond anything I have ever eaten!)

I had multiple conversations with Kate Lott, Tillamook’s Director of Farm Engagement, who is also a veterinarian, who shares her scientific knowledge about a dairy cow’s diet and best practices to ensure the health of the animal, farmers, and consumers with co-op dairy farmers—and also told harrowing stories about working with dairy cows during thunderstorms.

Jill Allen, Tillamook’s Director of Product Excellence, talked about developing new varieties of cheese–including Tillamook’s English Style Sweet Cheddar, my personal favorite. She also described the enormous amount of work that goes into branding and marketing a local cheese to make it into a national brand.

And I interviewed members of the Dutch American Mizee family, who run a Century Farm and proudly related how dairy farming has shaped multiple generations of their family. Looking forward as well as backwards, they also enthusiastically explained the benefits of their farm’s new state-of-the-art milking technology.

NG: Finally, I need to ask – a side benefit of working on food projects is that you sometimes get to/have to taste the products being discussed. How hard was this?

JS: Not too hard. While I initially ventured into this project to learn about cheese (and I sampled a lot of very good cheese!), I also walked away with a wealth of information about how Tillamook makes their ice cream—including their incredible salted caramel ice cream sandwiches!

I am grateful and indebted to the AGF for supporting my fieldwork. This project has opened incredible doors for me and for my career. I hope my research honors Archie Green’s research and the work of other folklorists engaged in the study of work.