Provel cheese
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Provel® is a white cheese-based processed food that is popular in St. Louis, Missouri. Provel is produced with cheddar, swiss, and provolone. It is soft at room temperature, with a gooey and almost buttery texture. The low melting point makes it the traditional topping for St. Louis-style pizza, for example Imo's Pizza. It is also often served on salads, chicken and the Gerber sandwich. Although popular in the St. Louis area, Provel is rarely used elsewhere.
According to St. Louis Post-Dispatch food critic Joe Bonwich[1], Provel was invented specifically for St. Louis-style pizza more than a half-century ago by the downtown firm Costa Grocery (now Roma Grocery in Chesterfield, Missouri, in collaboration with the Hoffman dairy company of Wisconsin (now part of Kraft Foods)). Bonwich states that Provel was developed to meet perceived demand for a pizza cheese with a "clean bite": one that melts well but breaks off nicely when bitten. Neither of Bonwich's sources at Kraft and Roma had a definitive answer for the origin of the name, although one popular theory is that it's a combination of the words provolone and mozzarella, two of the cheeses for which it is substituted.
Critics argue its processed method of production and flavor make its relation to other cheeses analogous to spam's relation to steak. Provel, like Velveeta, is not labeled as cheese because it does not meet the moisture content requirements that the FDA holds for a food to be considered cheese. Fans consider Provel a delicious mildly smoked flavor that is softer than mozzarella, but that still maintains a cohesive consistency that doesn't form messy strings when it is cut.
The trademark on the Provel name is currently held by the Churny Company, Inc., 114 Waukegan Rd, Glenview, IL. Churny is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kraft Foods.
