'Milk is one of the simplest things in nature,” says Jim Stillwagon, an eccentric cheesemaker standing in his cluttered kitchen somewhere in the Pyrenees. “When a child vomits on your shoulder, those are the earliest vestiges of cheese.”

Stillwagon’s strange philosophical musings on curd set the tone for Shelf Life, a new documentary about the parallels between cheese aging and human aging. Produced by Robyn Metcalfe and directed by Ian Cheney (whose films include King Corn and The Search for General Tso), Shelf Life premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June, where it won the award for Best Cinematography in a Documentary Feature.

Filmed in more than six countries over three years, Shelf Life takes us inside the work spaces of artisan cheesemakers and specialists to observe them at their craft: through the halls of underground cheese vaults in Vermont. Under the microscope with a cheese microbiologist in California. Behind the scenes of the World Cheese Awards in Wales. Into a children’s classroom in Japan for a cheese-making lesson. And to the cheese-laden dining-room table of an award-winning cheesemonger in Chicago (see “Five Questions for Alisha Norris Jones,” below).

Cheesemaker Jim Stillwagon in his kitchen somewhere in the Pyrenees. (Photo courtesy of Wicked Delicate Films)

Wonderfully diverse in scope, we even get to visit an archeologist’s dig site in Egypt to learn about cheese in the afterlife, observe a traditional hand-pulled cheese practice in Tbilisi, Georgia, and descend into the shadowy basement stacks of a cheese librarian in Switzerland. Metcalfe calls this remarkable cast of characters “the poets of the cheese business.”

Shelf Life captures the vast and complex universe of cheese, acknowledging its place in the food system without getting into its politics—even when there’s a lot to say: The global cheese market is estimated at around $187 billion, according to one report, but this monetary worth comes with a sizable carbon footprint. According to a joint study by the Environmental Working Group and the firm Clean Metrics, dairy-based cheese is the third-highest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, trailing behind beef and lamb.

Some have advocated for vegan cheese as a potential solution to environmental troubles. But dairy-based cheeses play an important role in local economies and culinary traditions worldwide, enriching people’s stories and ways of life—something Shelf Life celebrates.

Although film is a relatively new medium for Metcalfe, her connection to the food industry goes back to her grandfather, Roy Diem, who worked with entrepreneur Bob Wian to build the first Bob’s Big Boy. Metcalfe grew up spending time at the restaurant, famous for its double-decker hamburger. She went on to study historical food systems at Boston University, where she earned her Ph.D., and taught modern European food history at the University of Texas, Austin. At one time, she conserved rare breeds of livestock in Maine.

Metcalfe has authored several books on the food supply chain, including Food Routes: Growing Bananas in Iceland and Other Tales from the Logistics of Eating (featured in Civil Eats’ 2019 summer book guide). She also founded Food+City, a nonprofit storytelling platform that delves into how cities are fed, and the Food+City Challenge Prize, a pitch competition funding food-tech startups around the world.

We spoke with Metcalfe recently about why she made the documentary, the future of vegan cheese, and how aging builds character both in cheeses and humans.

What inspired you to make a documentary about cheese—and why now?

The first urge to pursue this subject came from an unanswered question I had as I finished a book called Humans in Our Food. My interest in food, oddly, is not so much about the food; it’s about the systems that bring the food to the table. Often, they feel industrial and disconnected from humans.

One of my curiosities was, what are the food stories we’re not hearing? Who’s missing and unseen? I sensed that it was the people building pallets, working in food service, driving trucks, packing, and all of that stuff. I wondered if what we imagine about them is true—for example, that they’d all rather be doing something else. Or that they’re working for very little money, are pretty much exploited, kind of a sad picture, and not very smart. Some people think, “Well, if you were really smart, you would not be doing that work.”

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