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Frog City Cheese
106 Messer Hill Road Plymouth Notch, VT 05056 802-672-3650 802-672-1629 fax frogcity@vermontel.net www.frogcitycheese.com If you would like to receive
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Producers of the famous
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Cheese Factory
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Salting the curd
Tom has been a cheese maker for 20 years and previously made Brie and Camembert at his previous business, Blythedale Farm in Corinth, Vermont. Though new to cheese making, Jackie has brought her organizational skills and attention to detail from her career in education to this new business venture. Tom and Jackie both are native Vermonters with strong agricultural heritages. Frog City Cheese allows them to continue in the
footsteps of their ancestors in working with raw milk, farmers and creating a fine quality product from this beautiful place. They hope to honor Vermont's agricultural heritage, the history of the Coolidge family and the town of Plymouth by recreating the old recipe.
Milk delivery
Tom will be developing other cheese varieties that will expand and diversify the business. They will be added to this site as soon as they are available.
through several viewing windows. Please call ahead for days and times. Customers will also enjoy visiting our retail shop which carries a variety of Vermont-made cheeses and other specialty foods. We focus on specialty products from Vermont and New England.
The factory and retail store are open every day from 9:30-5:00 until the end of October. Visitors can watch the cheese making process Dressing the molds
Stirring the curd
Gift baskets available on our products page
© Copyright 2005 -2006 Frog City Cheese
Granular curd cheese or stirred curd as it is also known is made from raw cow's milk. This cheese was typically hand-made in New England farmhouses during the colonial period and is rarely made today. This cheese has been described as tangy, rich, open bodied, old fashioned and uncomplicated. Steven Jenkins of The Cheese Primer observes it is a "moist cheese with a network of apertures and levels of tanginess that are more pronounced" with age. Plymouth Cheese is being produced in Gems (2 lb small wheels) and Favorites (4 lb wheels) and 40 pound wheels.
The present day process still includes many of the precise hand processing techniques, which make the cheese what it is. After cultures and rennet are added the milk is precisely heated before the curds are cut and then stirred mechanically in the cheese vat. After the mixture "cooks", the whey is drained and the curds are moved to a draining table with buckets. The curds are stirred by hand and salt is hand mixed into the recipe. Finally, the curds are hand packed into dressed molds and place into a mechanical press where the rest of the whey will be squeezed out.
The next day the cheeses are removed from the molds and placed on racks in the drying room. They remain there for 5-7 days and are placed in coolers for aging. At 2 months the cheese is considered 'Young' and ready to eat. It will become tangier as it ages and labeled 'Mature' between 8 - 12 months. Cheeses aged 12 or more months are described as 'Select' and are available in limited quantities. Infused cheeses are made regularly and in limited quantities. See our products page for details
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Plymouth Cheese Points
- A granular curd cheese
- A raw cow's milk cheese
- Made w/ vegetable rennet
- A moist creamy texture
- Develops more complex flavors as it ages
- Not a cheddar cheese, better than cheddar!
- An old-fashioned relative of cheddar
- Hand-crafted in small batches
- Made only at the Plymouth Cheese Factory since 1891.
Why Frog City?
Our business name comes from the early 1800 settlement of Frog City, once located on Rt. 100 south of Plymouth Notch. President Calvin Coolidge's great, great-grandfather prospered there with his family. He gave most of his adult children land in Frog City, however the first son received land in Plymouth Notch, hence the birthplace and childhood home of the late president. The president's father, Colonel John Coolidge was one of the founders of the Plymouth Cheese Factory in 1890. His grandson, John Coolidge, carried on the tradition of producing Plymouth Cheese from 1960 to the early 1990s. Frog City Cheese is honored to be carrying on this tradition by producing this native Vermont cheese. This is our way of staying connected to the heritage of this cheese and honoring the original producers, the Coolidge's and local, Plymouth farmers.