We’ve teamed up with Wisconsin Cheese for an interview mini-series referred to as Meet the Makers, that includes a sampling of the state’s best cheesemakers and their award-winning creations.
While you develop up in a household that owns a enterprise, there are sometimes two outcomes on the subject of your future: you both run so far as you possibly can within the different course and by no means look again, otherwise you fall in line with the generations that got here earlier than you and finally take the reins. After all, each paths have advantage, particularly when there’s scrumptious meals concerned.
Joey Widmer is one such household businessman. He adopted in his father Joe Widmer’s footsteps, and that’s a very good factor—that’s as a result of his household enterprise, Widmer’s Cheese Cellars, includes making Wisconsin’s best Brick and Colby cheeses. As a fourth-generation cheesemaker, Joey is not any stranger to early mornings and handbook labor, nevertheless it wasn’t at all times clear that cheese could be his path. I sat down with him to be taught extra about his household’s dairy-filled historical past and the way he landed in the identical place his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather occupied earlier than him.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.
MADISON TRAPKIN: Are you able to inform me who you might be and what you do?
JOEY WIDMER: I’m Joey Widmer and I am a fourth-generation cheesemaker. I have been making cheese since I used to be about 12 years previous right here at Widmer’s, born and raised above the cheese manufacturing unit.
That’s quite a lot of generations of cheesemaking! What does Wisconsin’s cheesemaking neighborhood imply to you?
The Wisconsin cheese making neighborhood means so much to me—the persons are so pleasant and accommodating. It is not like we’re actually aggressive in opposition to one another. All of us have totally different merchandise that we provide and produce to {the marketplace}, and you may talk so much with the opposite cheesemakers and bounce concepts off of them.
Widmer’s presents quite a lot of cheeses as of late, however it began with Brick. How did that cheese come to be?
Brick cheese was invented in 1877 by a Swiss immigrant named John Jossi and the rationale they name it brick cheese is as a result of they really use a brick to press the curds right into a block.
Photograph by Dusan Harminc
I wager lots of people suppose it’s named for the form of the cheese fairly than the cheesemaking course of.
It’s a good way to make cheese. When my great-grandfather—he is additionally a Swiss immigrant immigrant—came to visit, he purchased our manufacturing unit in 1922. He began making nice cheese in our plant and [brick] was the primary cheese that he made. He used the identical strategies that John Jossi used with the bricks, and he began with washed-rind brick cheese…[that’s] a European-style cheese [with] a stronger taste and aroma. For that cheese, we put it in a room and we wash it each day with the tradition micro organism that provides it the floor rind. He realized that not everyone likes a robust, smelly fashion of cheese, so then he got here up with a gentle brick, [which is] the identical cheese nevertheless it has annatto coloring and we do not add the tradition micro organism and wash it so it would not get that robust, smelly taste or aroma.
So how precisely do the bricks come into play?
You really use a brick to press the curd collectively and [into] roughly a five-pound block.
Very cool. What number of bricks does Widmer’s have?
We’ve about 450 bricks right here on premises, and people are the unique bricks that my grandfather used. Some have been taken out of circulation because of put on and tear, however most of them are the unique kind of baker’s bricks derived from a plant out of Ohio. There’s quite a lot of cleansing that has to enter sustaining the bricks, so it’s extremely labor intensive to make it that means. We’re the one ones that I do know of which are really utilizing a brick for urgent.
Do you retain utilizing them to stay to custom or is there one more reason?
Sure, we’re attempting to stay to our conventional strategies of cheesemaking as a lot as doable. All people else is form of going automated and breaking away from that custom, however we really feel that our area of interest is to stay to conventional strategies as a lot as doable and protect the historical past.
Photograph by Dusan Harminc
You’re a fourth-generation cheesemaker—did you at all times know your path would result in cheese?
I did not at all times know that I wished to make cheese. I noticed a few of the struggles that my dad went by way of and in a way [that] form of scared me, however on the similar time, he took quite a lot of pleasure in what he did and I noticed that something worthwhile in life goes to be difficult.
In some ways you’ve stayed true to custom by holding the household enterprise alive and sticking to sure manufacturing strategies, however you’ve additionally innovated alongside the way in which—are you able to inform me about this evolution at Widmer’s?
My grandpa did begin with the washed-rind cheese, however a technique that he adopted the palate of different clients is he got here up with the delicate brick cheese that was simply the delicate, creamy model of the unique kind of brick cheese. Now we additionally provide totally different taste varieties [of Brick] like Jalapeno Pepper and Caraway Seed. My great-grandfather additionally began making cheddar as a result of cheddar was so universally recognized all through Wisconsin. As we noticed increasingly more cheeses being developed with totally different cultures and taste components, we determined so as to add to our Wisconsin Originals. Within the late 2000, I consider 2019, my dad and I got here up with Matterhorn Alpine Cheddar, which is our authentic cheddar recipe, however then we added alpine cultures to that. It ended up being a very good cheese and it really received a primary place greatest of sophistication in the USA cheese contest final yr within the cheddar class, aged six months to a yr.
Simply this previous yr, we began making a Butterkäse, [which] form of performs upon my household’s heritage of being from Switzerland. It is a cheese that was invented on the German-Swiss border within the 1870s, and it has an identical course of to our brick course of, however simply totally different cultures. So these are a few of the ways in which we have innovated simply, you understand, sticking to custom, but in addition arising with different cheeses just like the Butterkäse and Matterhorn.
What does the long run appear to be for Widmer’s?
I do not know what the long run seems like precisely for Widmer’s, however I do know that we want to keep true to what we’re doing at the moment—producing conventional cheeses in a conventional method and utilizing conventional recipes that have been handed down for 100 years [across] 4 generations. I really feel like once I stand up, I am enthusiastic about going to work and beginning my day and attending to create an important cheese product and understanding that in Wisconsin there is a neighborhood of dairy farmers and cheesemakers which are additionally beginning their day at 3 or 4 a.m. Figuring out you are not the one one getting up that early and being part of that arduous working neighborhood of people, I believe that is necessary and it makes you need to stand up each day and do your job to the perfect of your skill with enjoyment.
What’s your favourite taste of Widmer’s Cheese? Inform us within the feedback under!
Our associates at Wisconsin Cheese are dedicated to showcasing all of the wonderful cheeses the state has to supply—and there is quite a lot of them. Wisconsin has extra flavors, varieties, and types of cheese than anyplace else on the earth. From Italian classics like Parmesan and ricotta to Wisconsin Originals like Colby and Brick, this cheese-obsessed state has a little bit one thing for everybody. Discover out extra about Wisconsin Cheese by visiting their website.