A Smatter of Smearcase

"I sometimes buy ‘cottage cheese’ of our milkman. My grandmother called it ‘smear-case.’ I spell it just as she pronounced it. She used to mix it with egg and sugar and spices to make some kind of a pie with a sweet crust that was ever so good.” These were the reflections of Zenas Dane that appeared in Dakota Territory’s Bismarck Daily Tribune in 1886. Smearcase may be an odd name for a food, but the word is a derivative of the German schmierkäse, from schmieren to smear and kä