For years, farmers in the Pacific Northwest made and sold cheese tosupport themselves, but over time the craft of cheesemaking became aprofitable industry and production was consolidated into largercompanies and cooperatives. Eventually, few individual cheesemakerswere left in the region. In the late sixties and early seventies,influenced by the counterculture and back-to-the-land movements, thenumber of small farms and cheesemakers began to grow, initiating anartisan cheese renaissance that continues today. Along with documentingthe history of cheese in the region, Parr reveals some of the PacificNorthwest's untold cheese stories: the fresh cheese made on theOregon Trail, the region's thriving blue cheese and regionalswiss cheese makers, and the rise of goat's milk and goat'smilk cheese (not the modern phenomenon many assume it to be).