The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin

Carie Wagner and Tom Blauert

every piece of cheese has a story behind it. Each wheel, wedge, block, or bag of shreds is the end product of labor, microfauna, marketing plans, purchasing agreements, distribution networks, R & D, and good old-fashioned milk. As much as—or more than—any other master cheesemaker, Carie Wagner has seen every facet of the big picture. At this point (in a career that has encompassed hands-on cheesemaking, R & D, and quality control), she currently works in purchasing at Foremost Farms USA. As cheese producers go, Foremost is a respectable size. “We produce about Wve hundred million pounds of cheese a year,” she says. “Which means we’re taking in . . . about Wve billion pounds of milk. We have plants that take a million pounds of milk a day alone.” Wagner’s dairy science and corporate background is built upon a lifetime of dairy knowledge—like many of her master cheesemaker peers, she’s known cows all her life. “My parents still milk cattle,” she says. “I was really close to both sets of grandparents. They were kind of this old German self-suªcient farm. They had cattle, they raised a lot 137 Carie Wagner and Tom Blauert Foremost Farms USA, Various plants (Wagner), Appleton, Wisconsin (Blauert) http://www.foremostfarms.com/ QW Masters of havarti, asadero, cheddar, and monterey jack (Wagner), mozzarella and low-fat mozzarella (Blauert) Of all the things I’ve worked with, I’ve always been pretty passionate about cheesemaking. —carie wagner Tom Blauert in front of the whey factory of the Foremost Farms USA plant in Appleton. of dogs, poultry, a lot of hogs, so not only did they milk, but they processed all their meat and made a lot of sausages. We grew up with things kids won’t eat today—blood sausage and veal sausage.” When her parents had to take jobs o¤ the farm, Wagner actually ran the family farm in high school. At the urging of her parents, she went to college at the University of Wisconsin– River Falls. “I put myself through school, and that’s actually how I got into making cheese,” she says. While attending River Falls, Wagner—leader of the food science club—helped set up the school’s dairy plant as one of the Wrst two student managers. “We had a vat that didn’t have an agitator on it, so we actually hand stirred,” she says, a little ruefully. “We had a little bulk tank on a trailer, and I would drive the truck up to the farm. I remember backing in, Wlling it up with milk, backing it up into these doors. . . . Thinking back, I was pretty fearless back then. Or just stupid,” she adds with a laugh. The small-scale making at the dairy plant proved to be the foundation of a long career in cheesemaking. “I just kind of did the whole process,” she says. “I don’t think the vat that didn’t have agitation lasted very long because it wasn’t a good use of our work, but it did give you an appreciation for stirring, and good upper body strength. But we hand cut, and we did stu¤ more on a small scale so we could see what was going on.” 138 Masters of Northeastern Wisconsin Carie Wagner grades a piece of Foremost Farms cheddar. The chief of the University of Wisconsin–River Falls plant, Renee May, brought Wagner into the world of cheesemaking with a combination of warmth and persistence. “She’s patient. I always had trouble putting the homogenizer together, and she’d bend down beside you and say things go this way, things go that way,” Wagner says. “We always had a lot of fun in our class, and you just learned and grew so much and so smoothly that you didn’t even know it was happening. “Back then I didn’t realize how much I was learning hands-on, day to day,” she says. “I’d have to drive to Ellsworth to pick up our starter culture. I had these stainless steel pails, and I’d just take some pails of culture, put covers on them, and then bring them back and measure them out. She taught us about—as we went through their culture program—why we had more acid on this one, or why that one went faster. At the time, you’re probably kind of listening, but I didn’t really...