They Said "Homemade"

One day I was riding my bike in Gravesend when a handwritten sign on the door of a storefront caught my eye. It said that they still made mozzarella. This I had to see. I entered and asked for the owner. Carmela Casamento took over Eagle Cheese (est. 1942), when she arrived from Palermo in her early twenties. She's over 70 now and Eagle Cheese will soon transform into a pasticerria.

I was too late to appreciate what the place looked like when the shelves were stocked with Italian specialties and imported provolone hung from the ceiling. There used to be lines out the door during the holidays to order baskets of cheese. Carmela took orders - sometimes for hundreds of dollars - like a cheese florist and her beaming customers left looking like they just won first prize in a lottery.

Eagle Cheese makes what we would certainly call today artisanal cheese; varieties of fresh and smoked mozzarella and ricotta. Carmela sold her mozzarella wholesale to pizzerias throughout New York City and delivered personally. I can't imagine how competitive the pizza business is and here's this sweet lady who uses adjectives like "beautiful" to describe her cheese delivering to pizzerias in the Brooklyn of the '60s, '70s - up until today?! That's got to be a tough racket - but she is Sicilian after all. 

Brooklyn has a robust manufacturing heritage born of the Industrial Age and small family run businesses coexisted with large manufacturers to serve the ethnic communities forming here. While manufacturers introduced innovations in packaging and distribution, mom-and-pops cross-pollinated to produce Brooklyn's own creations and style distinct from what may be found back in China, Mexico, Italy, Russia, etc. Today's artisanal food movement takes as inspiration businesses that came before like Eagle Cheese. 

We say "artisanal." They said "homemade."

I am grateful that Carmela specially arranged a private demonstration of the art of making mozzarella. Alfonso (an employee for over 35 years) and Javier (and employee for over 10 years) gracefully molded the curd into balls of mozzarella like balloon twisters. To me it was a miraculous, though labor intensive process.

They made me feel right at home.