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<\/a>Up next is Monroe, WI aka the “Limburger Cheese Capital of the USA”.\u00a0 The town is situated in the bountiful expanse of Green County where they claim to have some of the best cow’s milk in the country.\u00a0 With great cheese come the cheesemakers, many of them Swiss immigrants. <\/em>Of the 34 cheese factories in Southwest WI, Green county has a total of 9, the most in any one county in Wisconsin<\/a>.\u00a0 If you think that’s a lot, wait ’til you hear this.\u00a0 Green County used to have more than 100 small cheese plants, all of which produced the very odorific cheese called Limburger<\/a><\/a>.\u00a0 As the years passed, people had less affection for the cheese so 100 turned into 1, Chalet Cheese Cooperative<\/a>, the only plant producing this cheese in the country.\u00a0 Cheesemaking in Wisconsin began in 1840 and continuing that tradition with much vigor was our destination of the day, Roth K\u00e4se<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Roth family has been in the cheese business since 1863 in Switzerland\u00a0but only starting\u00a0at the Monroe location in 1990.\u00a0 Compared to\u00a0the facilities\u00a0at Uplands<\/a> and Bleu Mont<\/a>, Roth K\u00e4se is at a more massive scale, producing dozens of\u00a0cheese varieties.\u00a0 Also quite impressive\u00a0are\u00a0the over 100 national and international awards<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>\u00a0they have received.\u00a0 They are best know for their\u00a0\u00a0gruy\u00e8re, raclette, gouda, and havarti.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n The tour started at the charming Alp and Dell store then towards the back to see the entire process in the factory.\u00a0 First we had to put some gear on for sanitation purposes.\u00a0 Each of us wore plastic covers for our shoes, a white lab coat, and a hairnet.\u00a0 For those with long facial hair, they had something for that too.\u00a0 Since the big game is today I thought you might like to see this snapshot of the\u00a0employee shoe rack.\u00a0 Go Packers!<\/p>\n “Go Pack”<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0It was interesting to see the entire production starting from the large vats of milk, to the shaping of the curds, curing, then finally to packaging.\u00a0 One thing I wanted to note was the extreme focus on cleanliness.\u00a0 Everytime we left an area, automic contraptions along the wall hissed out some soapy mixture and water to clean the floor.\u00a0\u00a0Apparently, the detectors thought that Keith was dirty because his pants got sprayed a lot.\u00a0 We saw room after room after room of cheeses.\u00a0 Surprising when you’re at a cheese factory isn’t it?\u00a0 After that loveliness we got to see the hall of awards.<\/p>\n After having paid so much attention to our guide, we were rewarded with a nice cheese pairing activity and a fondue lunch.\u00a0 To top it off we were serenaded a yodeling expert who also happened to be our chef.<\/p>\n The Cheeses:<\/strong> \u00a0Valfino, Moody Blue, Buttermilk Blue, Gran Queso, Grand Cru Gruy\u00e8re Reserve, <\/em>and some Horseradish and Chive Ostenborg Havarti<\/em><\/p>\n Pairings (to savor):<\/strong>\u00a0 Honeycrisp apples, dried Montmorency\u00a0tart cherries, dates, dried pineapple, quince preserves, apricot preserves, sea salt roasted almonds, baby dill pickles, stone ground mustard, kalamata olives, Wisconsin Grade A medium amber maple syrup, Wisconsin raw white clover honey<\/em><\/p>\n Pairings (to drink):<\/strong>\u00a0 Wollersheim Winery<\/a> Dry Riesling, New Glarus Brewing Co.<\/a> Spotted Cow, Labrot & Graham Woodford Reserve Kentucky Bourbon, and a private label kirsch from Switzerland<\/em><\/p>\n Alpine Fondue:\u00a0 <\/strong>made with the Grand Cru Gruy\u00e8re Reserve<\/em>, Grand Cru Gruy\u00e8re Surchoix<\/em>, and the MezzaLuna Fontina<\/em> (see the recipe HERE<\/a>)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/rothkase1.jpeg\" "\\"rothkase\\"")
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<\/a><\/p>\n![<\/a>.\u00a0 As the years passed, people had less affection for the cheese so 100 turned into 1,](\"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/gopack1.jpg\"){kind=link}
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![<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Up next is Monroe, WI aka the “Limburger Cheese Capital of the USA”.\u00a0 The town is situated in the bountiful expanse of Green County where they claim to have some of the best cow’s milk in the country.\u00a0 With great cheese come the cheesemakers, many of them Swiss immigrants. Of the 34 cheese factories in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134,32,44],"tags":[715,221,220,219,255],"class_list":["post-2662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cheese","category-driftless-area-towns","category-made-in-wisconsin","tag-cheese","tag-cheese-factory","tag-fondue","tag-monroe","tag-roth-kase-driftless-area","no-featured-image"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2662"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2864,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2662\/revisions\/2864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/rothkase2.jpeg\"){kind=link}