Jared L. Schmidt (Tillamook Bay Community College)
Dale Baumgartner “can’t stop thinking about cheese.” Raised on a dairy farm in coastal Oregon, Dale began working at a rural creamery at sixteen-years-old. During these formative years, he learned the laborious craft of creating cheddar which defined both his career and the quality of Tillamook Creamery as the head cheesemaker for three decades. Drawing on interviews conducted as part of an Archie Green Fellowship, this presentation shares fifty-years’ worth of cheese-centered occupational folklife and how Dale’s career embodies the legacy of Oregon’s creameries which continues to flavor cheeses consumed from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts and beyond.
Part of 07-01 Vocation and Avocation [hybrid], Saturday, October 15, 8:30 am–10:00 am