‘Cheese’ got a ticket to ride

When Guillermo Miranda’s grandmother flew in from Mexico to visit his family several years back, she packed light on clothes and heavy on cheese. Wrapped in salmon-pink butcher paper, over 100 pounds of homemade queso de cincho filled his Abuelita’s checked bag, resulting in a hefty overweight baggage fee.

The curiosity sparked by that visit became the foundation of Miranda’s scholarly exploration into traditional Mexican cheesemaking and the role that food and informal economies play in preserving identity. These ideas would be tenets to his research focus as an undergraduate student at UCLA and in the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program.

Read the full story by Madeline Adamo.