The Culinary Historians of San Diego present “The Whole Schmear: The History of Cream Cheese in America” by Rabbi Jeff Marx, at 10:30 a.m. November 18, 2023, in the Neil Morgan Auditorium of the San Diego Central Library, 330 Park Blvd., San Diego. The event is free and open to the public. A tasting will follow the presentation.

The “great American cream cheese myth” is that the Jews introduced cream cheese to America, but in reality, the opposite is just the case. American Yankees developed the cheese decades before the Eastern European migration. Accounts found over the past 100 years provide contradictory claims and often put forth local lore as fact.

But now the truth can be told! Rabbi Jeff Marx explores how the Industrial Age transformed the making of cream cheese. He takes a look at how cream cheese went from English to French, introduces the original manufacturer and the shrewd salesman who created the Philadelphia brand, and concludes with the story of two brothers from Lithuania who brought the Yankees’ cream cheese to the Lower East Side of New York City.

READ MORE
Brittany Levine Beckman, “Everything you’ve assumed about cream cheese is probably wrong,” Mashable, 24 Jul 2019

ABOUT RABBI JEFF MARX
A graduate of Brandeis College, Rabbi Jeff Marx was ordained in 1983 and served as the spiritual leader of the Santa Monica Synagogue from 1985 – 2021. In addition to his training as a family mediator, he holds Masters degrees in both Jewish Education and Hebrew Letters, and an honorary doctorate in Jewish Education from Hebrew Union College. His published academic publications have centered on the lives of Jewish immigrants at the turn of the 19th century.

Website: https://larabbi.com/

About the Culinary Historians of San Diego

Culinary Historians of San Diego (CHSD) is a nonprofit charitable organization that provides free lectures at the San Diego Public Library. Topics about food and how it relates to history and culture are presented by speakers from around the nation.