California Cheeseheads?

On September 30, the New York Times ran an article titled “Wisconsin’s Crown of Cheese Is Within California’s Reach.” My reaction to this article? That’s garbage. California will never overtake my state’s crown as the King of Cheese.

According to the New York Times, we made 2.4 billion pounds of cheese, whereas California produced 2.14 billion pounds. Following California’s trends over past years, they are set to overtake us as early as next year. But, as any Wisconsinite will tell you, it’s not about numbers in production, it’s numbers in satisfaction. Anyone can crank out more of a product, but sacrifice quality (General Motors…), but when it comes to quality, go to the time-perfected styles of Swiss and German immigrants that came to Wisconsin.

Besides, does UCLA have the earliest cheese-making education program? Nope, that belongs to the University of Wisconsin. Do they have the nation’s only “Master Cheesemaker” certification? Nope. Wisconsin owns that.

Their people also don’t walk around in public with foam cheese wedges on their heads. How can you take Californians seriously in cheese production? Also, you can’t deep fry avocados and like it, but you can deep fry cheese, and still like it.

Some things are just known as Wisconsin products. Brats (the longer name being bratwurst as any Wisconsinite can tell you), cheese, milk (yes, our milk is still better than California’s), Friday fish fries, frozen custard (anyone that has not experienced Culver’s has not lived life), and beer. As Jerry Apps, author of “Cheese: The Making of a Wisconsin Tradition” opens his book, “Say cheese and you say Wisconsin.”