Dairy – FoodWatcher

Chris Roelli’s Cheddar Has the Blues—But That’s a Very Good Thing

We’ve teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

Each type of cheese has a unique history, some lengthier than other…

We've teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

Each type of cheese has a unique history, some lengthier than others, and many with layers of folklore woven in for good measure. Take, for instance, Camembert, allegedly invented by an 18th-century dairymaid named Marie Harel who was inspired by a French priest making Brie in the height of the French Revolution. Or, consider the more easily traced tale of Gorgonzola, most likely named for the town of Gorgonzola, Italy in which it was first produced around A.D. 879. And then, there's the decidedly straightforward story of cheddar with its first recorded making in Cheddar, England in the 12th century. Eventually, cheddar made its way stateside, and by the mid-19th century it was the most widely produced cheese in the United States.

Pam Hodgson is Paving the Way for Wisconsin’s Women in Cheese

We’ve teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

I’ve been surrounded by women with a knack for cooking for as long …

We've teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

I’ve been surrounded by women with a knack for cooking for as long as I can remember. My mom is a chef and caterer, and while her mother wasn’t exactly a gourmand (she loved a canned vegetable moment), Granbobbie made some really amazing dishes in her time, including her famous potato salad. On my dad’s side, I have an aunt who’s been responsible for the Thanksgiving sweet potatoes since before I was born—to be clear, they’re about 50 percent sweet potato, and the rest of the recipe is essentially butter and sugar. I’m told my dad’s mom, my Bestemama, could make a mean batch of lefse that she served with butter and jam. These women shaped me and my sister, and today we carry on their love for cooking in our own homes.

Meet the Fourth-Generation Wisconsin Cheesemaker Churning Out Over 90 Types of Specialty Cheese

We’ve teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

As a kid, I associated Wisconsin with the Green Bay Packers and not…

We've teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

As a kid, I associated Wisconsin with the Green Bay Packers and not much else, thanks to my mom's best friend Jamie, a Wisconsin native and a die-hard fan. Decades later, Jamie still loves the Packers, but I now know that there's much more to Wisconsin than just football: The state's dairy and cheesemaking industry happens to be one of the finest in the world (yes, world!). Makers like Sid Cook of Carr Valley Cheese have been shaping the region's cheesy story for over a century—in fact, Carr Valley's been in business since 1902. I sat down with Sid at their Mauston factory and retail store to learn more about their impressive lineup of cheeses, his journey to cheesemaking, and what the future holds for the Carr Valley crew.

Cheesemaker Andy Hatch Is Dreaming Up New American Classics in Wisconsin

We’ve teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

The world of cheese is made up of many colorful characters. There a…

We've teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series called Meet the Cheesemakers, featuring a sampling of the state’s finest makers and their award-winning creations.

The world of cheese is made up of many colorful characters. There are the knowledgeable mongers who'll help you pick out your new favorite wedge while regaling you with more facts about the cheese in question than you knew existed. There are the cheese cave-dwelling affineurs whose precision and detail-oriented nature produces perfectly aged cheeses of all shapes and sizes. There are the dairy farmers, who are stewards of the land, masters of terrain, and typically have a herd in tow. There are the cheesemakers, who tend to be equal parts artist and scientist, harnessing the power of milk and cultures to craft each wheel. And then, there are the unicorns like Uplands Cheese who do it all—they milk the cows, make the cheese, age it on site, and ship directly to consumers. Farmstead operations like theirs are few and far between, even in America's Dairyland (aka Wisconsin). I sat down with Andy Hatch of Uplands Cheese to chat about what it's like to be a Wisconsin cheesemaker, their artisan cheeses, and camaraderie in the dairy community.

6 Destinations for Cheese Lovers Around the World

This article is a part of Cheese Week—seven days of recipes and stories, all cheese—presented by our friends at Proudly Wisconsin Cheese.

Loving cheese can have a big effect on how you live your life. Maybe your birthday wishlist gets overtaken by s…

This article is a part of Cheese Week—seven days of recipes and stories, all cheese—presented by our friends at Proudly Wisconsin Cheese.

Loving cheese can have a big effect on how you live your life. Maybe your birthday wishlist gets overtaken by specialty knives and fondue pots, or perhaps your grocery budget is monopolized by rare wedges from your local monger. You might order cheese fries as your entrée, or opt for the after-dinner snack board as dessert.

What Is Animal-Free Milk?

Last week, Sprouts Farmers Market, the supermarket chain known for its wide selection of natural and organic foods, announced that it will begin selling animal-free milk at its nearly 400 locations across the country. Animal-free milk—as the name suggests—doesn’t come from cows. It’s not made from almonds, oats, or soy, either. Instead, it comes from a database.

Animal-free milk, also known as cell-cultured milk, is a vegan milk alternative made through a process known as precision fermentation. The process begins by 3D printing milk’s DNA sequence onto yeast or fungi. The printed DNA is then fed plant-based nutrients until it produces a milk-like whey protein. That protein is separated, dried into powder, and used to make—what we call—animal-free milk.

How America’s Dairy Farmers Are Making Cheese Greener (& Better) Than Ever

We’ve teamed up with Dairy Farmers of America and The Nerd Herd to shine a spotlight on the sustainability efforts of their family farm-owners, from farm to table to cheesemakers and beyond.

Between Buffalo and the Finger Lakes, there stands a 143-y…

We’ve teamed up with Dairy Farmers of America and The Nerd Herd to shine a spotlight on the sustainability efforts of their family farm-owners, from farm to table to cheesemakers and beyond.

Between Buffalo and the Finger Lakes, there stands a 143-year-old tree surrounded by vast acres of neon-green pastures. The tree, one of the largest cottonwoods in the state of New York, was planted in 1880 by Frank Tillotson, who had just bought the land to raise dairy cows. He named his emergent business Cottonwood Farms after the tree—a business that is not only still thriving today, but innovating.