Noëlla Marcellino

Coming Up

Cheesemaking in a monastic house depends on rule, repetition, and attention to sequence. After training at University of Connecticut, Noëlla Marcellino entered Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, where she has been a Benedictine nun / member of Abbey of Regina Laudis (since 1973). The structure of abbey life gave the work a daily frame suited to milk: tending curds, watching surfaces, and learning the visible signs of ripening. Raw milk cheesemaking requires exact work with living material. From 1977, Marcellino worked there as cheesemaker, taking up a practice in which temperature, touch, timing, air, surface, and smell all carry consequence. Advisory work in cheese depends on translating bench knowledge without flattening it. Today, Noëlla remains rooted in Abbey of Regina Laudis while serving as advisor to the United States cheese industry, and as a speaker and competition judge. Those roles carry the abbey cheese room’s concerns—raw milk, ripening, and living cultures—into broader trade settings.

Where They Are Now

Abbey cheesemaking remains the base of the work. Marcellino is a nun at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut. Her cheesemaking work at the abbey began in 1977, and its influence continues through Bethlehem cheese and through the scientific vocabulary she brought to raw milk cheesemaking. The relevant pairing is not decorative: monastic practice supplies repetition and restraint; microbiology supplies names and mechanisms for what the rind and milk are doing. Cheese at the abbey is handled as a disciplined practice rather than a standalone product. The work asks for time, observation, and a willingness to let flavor develop through relationships among milk, air, rind, and place. Marcellino’s study of cheese-ripening fungi gave technical depth to a craft often discussed too loosely, while her life as a nun kept the work tied to service, routine, and shared labor. The useful lesson for cheesemakers is the compatibility of tradition and inquiry. In Marcellino’s case, monastic practice, microbiology, and hands-on cheese experience occupy the same bench. The craft remains old, but the work of reading it can be exact.

Signature

Bethlehem cheese and Saint-Nectaire mark the two named centers of Noëlla’s cheese work: the abbey in Bethlehem, Connecticut, and France, where research into ripening sharpened her understanding of microbial life in cheese. Their relevance is technical as well as biographical: both point to rind, aroma, texture, and character as outcomes of milk handled within a living system.

In Their Words “In obedience, I was asked to try my hand at cheese making.” The statement describes an assignment before it describes an identity. In Marcellino’s case, obedience led to a practical task; the task required repetition; repetition opened into study. Cheesemaking became one expression of vocation, not an ornament added to it.

Honors

Recognition in this profile sits at the junction of craft practice and scientific study. Noëlla's honors include Fulbright Scholarship and French Food Spirit Award. They mark work rooted in Abbey of Regina Laudis, attentive to raw milk cheesemaking, and serious about bringing craft, culture, and science into usable contact.