The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin

Myron Olson and Jamie Fahrney

unlike some of the bigger guns in a cheesemaker’s arsenal— stainless steel rakes and shovels, wire screens and machetelike curd knives—a cheese trier feels like a precision instrument. Made from surgical steel and clocking in at about nine inches long, the trier looks like a shiny letter T—the top of the letter is a satisfyingly heavy handle that you can wrap a Wst around, while the bottom consists of a hollow cylinder, cut in half to form a trough or U shape. If you’re visiting Chalet Cheese Cooperative in Green Country, Wisconsin, and cheesemaker Myron Olson is feeling expansive, he’ll take you in to where the plant’s swiss is cooled in wooden boxes. Each box can be opened for sampling, and Olson can—and will—insert a trier, turn it 180 degrees, and withdraw a plug of still-warm cheese. The taste is shockingly pleasant—intensely delicate, sweet, mellow, buttery, and touched by just a bit of swiss cheese tang. It helps that the cheese is warm, but the real key lies in the make. For starters, Chalet uses whole milk in its cheeses. “We leave all the fat in it, so it tends to give a smoother mouth feel, a little more smacking of the lips,” Olson says. “When you’re done with it you want to go back and have another piece. When you make a piece of 42 Myron Olson and Jamie Fahrney Chalet Cheese Cooperative, Monroe, Wisconsin phone (608) 325-4343 QW Masters of baby swiss and brick (Olson and Fahrney), limburger (Olson) When you say limburger, right away your connotation is: ‘Oh, it is nasty.’ I have seen all the jokes. I have heard all the things. —myron olson Myron Olson shows o¤ some of Chalet’s limburger cheese. cheese that does that, then you know you have made it.” Fellow master cheesemaker and colleague Jamie Fahrney takes the lead on swiss. “The eye formation—that’s the toughest thing,” he says. “It’s determined by the cooking of the cheese, the pressing, how long it’s left in the warm room—there are so many things, I could go on forever about it. For me, it was a challenge.” Chalet swiss also has less moisture than many competitors—it’s about 39 percent, even though it could be up to 43 percent. More moisture means more money, but Olson would rather have a cheese that ages well. Too much water can lead to an ammonia smell on the back end of its lifecycle. But although the company’s swiss is the mainstay of its business, Chalet and Olson have developed an outsized international reputation for another cheese: limburger. The butt of endless jokes, a regular supporting player on animated comedies from the 1940s and ’50s, and a cheese long regarded as something eaten only by country uncles, limburger is still going strong at Chalet, the last maker of the cheese in the Americas. Although limburger represents only 20 percent of the company’s production, it takes up half the plant’s workforce. “Lot of hand Masters of Green County 43 A fence disappears into the winter landscape outside of Brodhead. Myron Olson and Jamie Fahrney of Chalet Cheese Cooperative in Monroe hold a board full of limburger cheese. They are the only makers of limburger in the country. (courtesy of Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board) labor involved with it,” Olson says. “You have to salt the cheese by hand, you have to smear the cheese [with a bacteria-boosting wash] by hand, and then the wrapping is done by hand, the weighing out is done by hand, labeling is done by hand.” Machines can’t deal with limburger, which is a sticky, fussy cheese to handle; a team of hard-working Green Country residents, however, seem to Wnd it a breeze, packing it, wrapping it, labeling it, and chatting among themselves in one of the plant’s back rooms. Why hassle with such a fussy, ill-regarded cheese? Limburger is deceptively delicious, and surprisingly complicated. In its early stages of development (one to two months of age) it actually resembles a feta—a bright Xavor, and a crumbly texture. At three to four months of age, it resembles a strong brie or camembert—an earthy Xavor, a softer and more buttery texture, and a powerful, but not overwhelming, odor. Only at Wve to six months does the...