{"id":9332,"date":"2009-06-28T15:20:26","date_gmt":"2009-06-28T19:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=9332"},"modified":"2021-02-26T16:09:57","modified_gmt":"2021-02-26T21:09:57","slug":"stinky-cheese-stands-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/stinky-cheese-stands-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruminations: The [Stinky] Cheese Stands Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here at culture<\/strong>, we celebrate some seriously impolite smells: the rich pieds-de-Dieu<\/em> (God\u2019s feet) odor of a washed rind, or the powerful barnyard whiff of a raw-milk blue. But there\u2019s a once-common cheese with a nose so strong that, even as we embrace these sophisticated stink bombs, it\u2019s nearly been effaced from America\u2019s culinary landscape.<\/p>\n

Limburger<\/a> – the once iconic stinky cheese of America – I knew only from cartoons. All Jerry had to do was show you the label, and you\u2019d know that the lump he was about to stuff up Tom\u2019s snout meant pain. Conversely, Mighty Mouse actually eats it to gain his super-mouse powers and defeat Frankenstein\u2019s cat.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got Limburger<\/a> in my roots: Mom\u2019s from Michigan, with German on both sides of the family\u2014Limburger being a place in the German-speaking region of Belgium. So I ask her about the cheese.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my God,\u201d she says, \u201cmy folks would keep a jar<\/em> of it in the refrigerator. Grandpa Sparky liked to eat Limburger<\/a> and head-cheese sandwiches. When he opened the jar, it smelled like,\u201d – wait for it – \u201cvomit<\/em>.\u201d And, she recalls, \u201che used to smear it on radiators as a fraternity prank. Yeeeeuch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, I had to try it. But that\u2019s not so easy; Limburger<\/a> seems to have fallen off the radar. The jar my mom described was probably Kraft Mohawk Valley Limburger Spread, which has been out of production for about a year. I wasn\u2019t interested in derivatives anyway; I wanted the real deal, an actual, breathing brick of it. Fortunately, I live near Formaggio Kitchen, a little upscale shop this magazine recently anointed as \u201cthe epicenter of Boston\u2019s thriving cheese culture\u201d (\u201cBoston\u2019s Bounty<\/a>,\u201d by Clare Leschin-Hoar).<\/p>\n

So I give them a call.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, do you guys carry Limburger<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n

Callow-voiced youth: \u201cNo, but we have a wide variety of washed-rind cheeses . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo thanks,\u201d I reply. Okay, what about the excellent Wine and Cheese Cask – another jewel in Boston\u2019s cheese crown, just down the street from me?<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, do you carry Limburger<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCheese lady\u2019s not in yet. Sounds more like a Cardullo\u2019s thing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course – Cardullo\u2019s is the specialty delicatessen in Harvard Square, the source of everything you think they don\u2019t make anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, do you carry Limburger<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNope. Try the Whole Foods at Fresh Pond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seems obvious – our local organic supermarket, a food palace. Confident, I drive over.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had some last week. Don\u2019t know when it\u2019ll be in again. Try the Whole Foods on River Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Fresh Pond is a palace, River Street is a fortress. Still . . .<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t carry it. Have you been to Fresh Pond?\u201d<\/p>\n

Foiled, I make my way back toward the apartment, passing the Wine and Cheese Cask en route. Lucky for me, cheese lady Linda Brown is in this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cGot any Limburger<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cY\u2019know,\u201d she muses, \u201cthe only place I ever see it is Market Basket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, understand – I\u2019d just done the Cambridge foodie shopping circuit. All these places know their stuff – they keep Harvard cocktail parties stocked, and a more patrician clientele I can\u2019t even name. Although it\u2019s just a couple blocks away, I\u2019ve literally got to cross the tracks into Somerville to get to Market Basket. It\u2019s a riot, as always, because the place is cheap; most folks are pushing carts, buying tripe in bulk and laundry-soap-sized boxes of Kool-Aid. They\u2019re here to feed their families, not a cocktail party. The sawdust on the floor is not for show, and the aisles are packed with old Italian ladies, working Caribbean mothers, and young Chinese grad students. Of course, they\u2019ve got enough Limburger<\/a> to stuff my mattress.<\/p>\n

I get home and I chow down. It\u2019s good as a sandwich, traditional style, with brown mustard and red onion on pumpernickel. More sweatsock than Camembert<\/a>, less armpit than expected, and not barf-scented at all. Drink a beer with it, but no kissing.<\/p>\n

As I sit there chewing, I feel a little stupid. Grandpa Sparky was a furnace salesman, not a college professor. I didn\u2019t need to get fancy to find my cheese roots. The whole time it was right under my nose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One man’s search for the infamous Limburger cheese yields more than stinky cheese<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":9336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[590],"tags":[],"coauthors":[68,620],"class_list":["post-9332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ruminations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRuminations: The [Stinky] Cheese Stands Alone - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One man's search for the infamous Limburger cheese yields more than stinky cheese\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/stinky-cheese-stands-alone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ruminations: The [Stinky] Cheese Stands Alone\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One man's search for the infamous Limburger cheese yields more than stinky cheese\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/stinky-cheese-stands-alone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"culture: the word on cheese\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-28T19:20:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-02-26T21:09:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/summer-2009-ruminations-limburger-750x368.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"368\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Will Fertman, Illustrator Amos Goldbaum\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Will Fertman, Illustrator Amos Goldbaum\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/stinky-cheese-stands-alone\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/stinky-cheese-stands-alone\/\",\"name\":\"Ruminations: The [Stinky] Cheese Stands Alone - 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