Philadelphia Cream Cheese

Cream cheese
Country of origin	England
Source of milk	Cow
Pasteurized	Yes
Texture	Soft
Protein content	29.36
Weight	47.6
Aging time	none

Cream cheese is a soft, mild-tasting fresh cheese made from milk and cream. Stabilizers such as carob bean gum and carrageenan are typically added in industrial production.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines cream cheese as containing at least 33% milk fat with a moisture content of not more than 55%, and a pH range of 4.4 to 4.9. In other countries, it is defined differently and may need a considerably higher fat content.

Cream cheese is not naturally matured and is meant to be consumed fresh, so it differs from other soft cheeses such as Brie and Neufchâtel. It is more comparable in taste, texture, and production methods to Boursin and Mascarpone.

Early prototypes of cream cheese are mentioned in England as early as 1583 and in France as early as 1651. Recipes are recorded soon after 1754, particularly from Lincolnshire and the southwest of England.

Recipes for cream cheese can be found in U.S. cookbooks and newspapers beginning in the mid-18th century. By the 1820s, the dairy farms in and around Philadelphia and New York City had gained a reputation for producing the best examples of this cheese. Cream cheese was produced on family farms throughout the country, so quantities made and distributed were typically small.

Around 1873, William A. Lawrence, a Chester, New York, dairyman, was the first to mass-produce cream cheese. In 1872, he purchased a Neufchâtel factory and shortly thereafter, by adding cream to the process, was able to create a richer cheese that he called “cream cheese”. In 1877, he created the first brand of cream cheese: its logo was a silhouette of a cow followed by the words: Neufchatel & Cream Cheese. In 1879, to create a larger factory, Lawrence entered into an arrangement with another Chester merchant, Samuel S. Durland. In 1880, Alvah Reynolds, a New York cheese distributor, began to sell the cheese of Lawrence & Durland and called it "Philadelphia Cream Cheese". By the end of 1880, faced with increasing demand for his Philadelphia-brand cheese, Reynolds turned to Charles Green, a second Chester dairyman, who by 1880 had been manufacturing cream cheese, as well. Some of Green’s cheese was now also sold under the Philadelphia label. In 1892, Reynolds bought the Empire Cheese Co. of South Edmeston, New York, to produce cheese under his "Philadelphia" label. When the Empire factory burned down in 1900, he asked the newly formed Phenix Cheese Company to create his cheese, instead. In 1903, Reynolds sold rights to the "Philadelphia" brand name to Phenix Cheese Company under the direction of Jason F. Whitney, Sr. (which merged with Kraft in 1928). By the early 1880s, Star cream cheese had emerged as Lawrence & Durland's brand and Green’s made World and Globe brands of the cheese. At the turn of the 20th century, New York dairymen were producing cream cheese under a number of other brands, as well: Triple Cream (C. Percival), Eagle (F.X. Baumert), Empire (Phenix Cheese Co.), Mohican (International Cheese Co.), Monroe Cheese Co. (Gross & Hoffman), and Nabob (F.H. Legget).