Move Over, Muenster

Some families have a family crest. Some have a family beach house that Grandpop bought back in the ’40s. We have a family cheese.

No, we’re not farmers or cheesemakers.

I come from a big, close extended family in Northeast Philly. My grandmother Elaine had four kids, and none of them has ever lived more than a 15-minute drive from her. Each of them had a few kids, and now we kids are having kids—seven great-grandchildren for my grandma, to be exact.

The younger generation is a bit more spread out throughout Philly’s collar counties, and it can be tough lining up schedules, but some combination of Elaine, proximity, and this cheese—which we call Sweet Munchee or Sweet Muenster—has kept all of us together. Three big barbecues each summer, Hanukkah and Halloween parties, birthday parties, Eagles games, and lately, a few funerals and shivas.

We disagree, sometimes too vocally, about lifestyle, politics, parenting, and sports.

Yet, on Sweet Munchee cheese, we can agree. Some people refer to it as a kids’ cheese because it satisfies even the pickiest eaters. I was a classic picky kid. Now, as a professional food writer, I eat pretty much everything and especially enjoy a carefully sourced cheese plate. I rarely eat processed cheese, and yet Sweet Munchee is a different story.

It’s mild, sweet, and always sliced paper thin so that you don’t feel bad piling it on top of a bagel or standing around folding slice after slice into your mouth while gossiping about some upcoming wedding. Everyone loves the stuff. It’s what we grew up with.

And now, it’s gone.

The rumor started when my Uncle Kerry tried to place his regular Yom Kippur order. We “break the fast” with breakfast on this Jewish holiday: bagels, lox, cream cheese, and Sweet Munchee cheese. My uncle makes hot cocoa in glass pitchers, and even though it’s a weeknight everyone comes over and pretends it’s not a work/school night for a few hours.

The deli told him Sweet Munchee was discontinued. He called around and found one last block at Dattilo’s, a neighborhood Italian grocery and excellent hoagie maker. They promised to hold it for him.

Our family was devastated to learn about this tragédie du fromage. I was never sure what company made this cheese, so I couldn’t call to protest. I suspect it was Saputo based on the many comments I read on Facebook and Reddit from fellow Sweet Munchee lovers all over the U.S. who couldn’t get it anymore.

WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE EACH OTHER, BUT WE WON’T HAVE THIS CHEESE AGAIN—AND THAT FEELS LIKE AN ENDING.

My family texted each other as if someone was sick in the hospital. I keep thinking about the stages of grief: Denial—I Googled and checked Twitter. Surely, those silly local delis had heard wrong and this was just a supply chain issue. Then: Anger—Everyone loves this cheese. How could they? And right now, I’m somewhere between Bargaining—writing an article to try to get attention for my beloved Munchee—and Depression.

My uncle secured what we all assume is the last block of Sweet Munchee in the entire Philadelphia region and served it on Yom Kippur. Like a funeral scene, we all talked about this friend that we’d lost and how no party will ever be the same without it.

He sent each of us home that night with a small package of thinly sliced cheese in plastic wrap—our final bites of Sweet Munchee. We will always have each other, but we won’t have this cheese again. And that feels like an ending.

With borderline high cholesterol, I don’t usually eat much cheese at home. I tucked the Sweet Munchee safely into the dairy drawer of my fridge and, to be honest, I forgot it was there. Life keeps us busy.

Standing in the kitchen one night after putting our daughter to bed, my husband suggested that he would use a few slices of Sweet Munchee on burgers over the weekend.

Burgers, he said.

Might as well throw it away, I said.

It’s going to grow mold before you eat it all, he said.

I’ll spare you the details of our marital spat, but I will say that I stood alone in the kitchen angrily eating slice after slice of cheese, and we both went to bed mad that night.

He knew it wasn’t about the cheese. I knew it wasn’t about the cheese. Cheese is more than cheese. Food is more than food. It’s family and tradition. It’s nostalgia and comfort.

These days, we’ve shifted to eating Cooper Sharp with our bagel brunches. It’s not the same, but it’s creamy, mild, and has Philly roots. And as long as we’re all together—eating and laughing—it’ll have to do.