Mormon Cheese

This is Cory - just thought I'd post something from a recent business trip of mine.

I recently went to St. Louis with a group of bakers to tour the Monsanto facilities there. The night before the tours, we went to dinner at a nice restaurant close to downtown STL. After being seated, the waiter brought us our appetizers, starting with a cheese/spread selection with bread. He was going through the different types of cheeses and announced that one cheese was made by Mormons. Perplexed, I asked one of the bakers there (who knows I am a Mormon and was also questioning what he just heard) if I heard that right. He jokingly asked me if I knew about Mormon cheese, seeing that I was a little confused. When the waiter came back, I asked him if this indeed was Mormon cheese. He affirmed that it was Mormon cheese, that the Mormons had been making this delicious cheese for centuries. Things started to click then - I asked him where they made the cheese - he said somewhere in Pennsylvania. Ahh - you mean Amish cheese. Now the waiter seemed confused, not knowing the difference. One of the other bakers sitting at the table then helped the waiter out, saying something to the effect that "it couldn't be Mormons - they were kicked out of the East a long time ago."

In all, the dinner was great and I am relieved. I was worried that I was not fulfilling some responsibility of being a Mormon, now having to make up for 14 years of not making cheese...