Cheese slaw is a cousin to pimiento cheese and cheese relish. It’s served as a dip, spread, condiment, and sometimes even a side dish.
It’s called slaw because that’s exactly what it looks like, even though it doesn’t include cabbage. Instead, short strands of coarsely shredded cheese are tossed with tasty, zesty things and bound with mayo. To add to the visual pun, the caterer who made cheese slaw famous in her community used a hollowed cabbage head with fanned outer leaves as its serving vessel.
Lib’s Famous ‘Slaw’
That beloved caterer was Elizabeth Jackson Wilhelm, better known as Lib, who prepared her famous cheese slaw for countless events in and around Roanoke, Virginia. Cheese slaw had been part of local menus before she started catering, so although she didn’t necessarily invent it, her signature version is what put the dish on the map. Lib Wilhelm’s Cheese Slaw is memorialized in Oh My Stars! Recipes that Shine!, a landmark cookbook from the Junior League of Roanoke Valley.
The cookbook version of Mrs. Wilhelm’s recipe calls for mayonnaise. However, in a 2020 article published in The Roanoker, the longest continuously published city magazine in Virginia, her daughter-in-law, Elaine “Lainy” Wilhelm revealed that even though Lib loved Duke’s mayonnaise, she used Miracle Whip in the cheese slaw she served at parties. My goodness, that certainly takes (mostly) good-natured Southern mayonnaise debates to a whole new level of intrigue…