Crafting innovation: Continuity and change in the “living traditions” of contemporary artisan cheesemakers

Artisan cheese enthusiasts often celebrate the preservation of tradition, while the marketplace in heritage foods pays a premium for products cast as traditional. But ethnographic research with cheesemakers revealed a complex dynamic between continuity and change. Practices that some considered essential to tradition were considered dispensable—even problematic—by others. While external forces compelled some changes, cheesemakers...