Wisconsin Longhorn

Since we began this chapter with all-American Cheddars, it is only fitting to end with Wisconsin Longhorn, a sort of national standard, even though it’s not nearly so fancy or high-priced as some of the regional natives that can’t approach its enormous output.  It’s one of those all-purpose round cheeses that even taste round in your mouth.  We are specially partial to it.

Most Cheddars are named after their states.  Yet, putting all of these thirty-seven states together, they produce only about half as much as Wisconsin alone.

Besides Longhorn, in Wisconsin there are a dozen regional competitors ranging from White Twin Cheddar, to which no annatto coloring has been added, through Green Bay cheese to Wisconsin Redskin and Martha Washington Aged, proudly set forth by P.H.  Kasper of Bear Creek, who is said to have “won more prizes in forty years than any ten cheesemakers put together.”

To help guarantee a market for all this excellent apple-pie cheese, the Wisconsin State Legislature made a law about it, recognizing the truth of Eugene Field’s jingle: 

    Apple pie without cheese
    Is like a kiss without a squeeze.

Small matter in the Badger State when the affinity is made legal and the couple lawfully wedded in Statute No. 160,065.  It’s still in force: 

Butter and cheese to be served. Every person, firm or corporation duly licensed to operate a hotel or restaurant shall serve with each meal for which a charge of twenty-five cents or more is made, at least two-thirds of an ounce of Wisconsin butter and two-thirds of an ounce of Wisconsin cheese.

Besides Longhorn, Wisconsin leads in Limburger.  It produces so much Swiss that the state is sometimes called Swissconsin.

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Chapter Five

Sixty-five Sizzling Rabbits

That nice little smoky room at the “Salutation,” which is even now continually presenting itself to my recollection, with all its associated train of pipes, egg-hot, welsh-rabbits, metaphysics and poetry.

     Charles Lamb, IN A LETTER TO COLERIDGE

Unlike the beginning of the classical Jugged Hare recipe:  “First catch your hare!” we modern Rabbit-hunters start off with “First catch your Cheddar!” And some of us go so far as to smuggle in formerly forbidden fromages such as Gruyere, Neufchatel, Parmesan, and mixtures thereof.  We run the gamut of personal preferences in selecting the Rabbit cheese itself, from old-time American, yellow or store cheese, to Coon and Canadian-smoked, though all of it is still Cheddar, no matter how you slice it.

Then, too, guests are made to run the gauntlet of all-American trimmings from pin-money pickles to peanut butter, succotash and maybe marshmallows; we add mustard, chill, curry, tabasco and sundry bottled red devils from the grocery store, to add pep and piquance to the traditional cayenne and black pepper.  This results in Rabbits that are out of focus, out of order and out of this world.