Cheese Quote of the Week . . .

"Well, many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese -- toasted, mostly . . . "
-- Robert Louis Stevenson


Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Honorary Cheeseheads


Earlier this week, we flew into the Milwaukee airport on our way back from Denver. As all experienced Midwestern cheese lovers will note, our route back to Chicago takes us past the awesome Mars' Cheese Castle. And, as many Midwestern cheese lovers know, you can only get good cheese curds in Wisconsin (Jack adds that Wisconsin produces 1,852,405,000 pounds of cheese annually). How could we miss this opportunity?

Wondering what a cheese curd is? For you poor, benighted souls who have never tried this delicacy, here's the definition Mars' Cheese Castle provides: "bite-sized chunks of cheese which have not been fully salted nor pressed into bricks of cheese."

But that dry definition hardly does these squeaky little morsels justice. We have no idea why they're squeaky, but they are (especially when they're fresh). And in spite of the fact that they aren't "fully" salted, they are, in fact, very salty compared with some other cheeses.

You can get a variety of cheese curd flavors -- yellow and orange cheddar, garlic herb, spicy, you name it. We're simple souls, however, and prefer the plainer flavors. In fact, they're addictive: so small you tend to keep popping them like jelly beans, sort of rubbery, salty and (did we mention this?) squeaky.

Our Wisconsin curds are almost gone now -- they survived a remarkable four days (perhaps a record in our household). Guess we'll have to plan another trip up north soon . . . good thing we're heading up to the Milwaukee Airport again in August!

Oh -- and for you deprived folks in other states, Mars' does ship - overnight!

3 comments:

  1. You would certainly be welcome to visit Manitowoc, where Steve's sister would be happy to take you on a tour of dairies in Manitowoc and Door Counties. She is partial to Pine River Dairy (we just used some of their mozzarella to make pizza) but there are many more.

    Steve

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  2. Love the idea of a cheese blog and will follow with interest, but a little disappointed that you didn't start your review with Stinking Bishop!

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  3. God point, nicolajr -- although wonder if we can get that here in the States?

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