Last week we looked at the intrinsic value of a hometown garage sale. It brings back memories as well as rousing the sole in lively conversation.
While sitting around gabbing, one can scan the long tables with care. Sometimes a small item keeps drawing one’s attention much like a half-hidden rosebud among the briars.
At the MAHS sale a few weeks back, down along a table, behind boxes of picture frames and prints, a small wooden box kept pestering my curiosity. Picking it up, writing was evident through the build-up of dust and greasy grime.
Using a toothbrush to clean it, we found it was an old Pauly & Pauly cheese box. Taking it apart, there were actually two large boxes and a smaller one inside.
At 25 cents it was a real find, for “Pauly & Pauly” was used only up till 1929 at which time it was changed to just Pauly Cheese Co.
Nicholas Pauly was a renowned wagon maker in the last quarter of the 19th century. His wife, Lucy, started making cheese in her kitchen about 1878. She was the first woman cheese maker in Wisconsin. Nicholas saw the potential. Together with their four sons, they built the cheese-making industry, by 1915 selling 10 million pounds of cheese a year. By 1955 they operated more than 30 factories.
A stack of cheese contained about 10 boxes of squares. Cheese was shaped into twins, squares, daisies, double daisies, horns, midgets and block and barrel. After being paraffined, the cheese was placed in a wooden box which was lined with a scaleboard to keep the paraffin from being scratched off. Our boxes had held Yellow American or Windsor.   
Further along the same table, a plastic round tub held clothespins. Not your modern plastic clips. These smooth-from-use wooden “pegs” were the old kind. First patented model was in 1852. Civil war veterans used them to make dolls, selling them to support themselves, often using pieces of their old uniforms or battle flags for the clothes.
Pioneer girls were often given one to make into a doll. Toys were simple back then. A piece of coal marked the eyes, nose and mouth. Quilt scraps stitched together formed dresses, capes, aprons and bonnets. Even today clothespin dolls are popular. Craft stores sell all sorts of tiny items to decorate and clothe them.
Back to the cheese: Yellow American cheese in the 1800s was considered a cheddar. Here are two examples of how it was used.

Cheese Scallop
Soak a small tea-cupful of stale bread crumbs in fresh milk.
Beat into this one large egg, a tea-spoonful of melted butter and three ounces of grated cheese, pepper and salt to taste.
Strew sifted crumbs on the top, bake till it is a delicate brown.
Recipe Source: Mrs.Welch’s Cookbook, 1884


Cheese Straws

Season some grated cheese with paprika and salt, then dust it over a piece of puff paste.
Fold the paste and  roll two or three times. Cut out in rings with a doughnut cutter or in straws with a jagger [colloquial–knife].
The straws may be braided or baked singly.
Recipe Source: Mrs. Curtis’s Cookbook, 1908

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