Limburger

What is Limburger Cheese?

Limburger comes from the Herve area of the historical Duchy of Limburg, whose capital was Limbourg-sur-Vesdre, today in the French-speaking Belgian province of Liège. Cheese has been made there since the 15th century. Herve is now the protected European name, and Limburger is what the same style is called when it is made elsewhere. The Land of Herve sits between the Vesdre and Meuse rivers, close to where Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany meet.

It reached North America in the 19th century. The F.X. Baumert factory in Antwerp, New York, made the first American batch in 1854, and Rudolph Benkerts made his in a cellar from pasteurized goat's milk in 1867. Within a few years 25 factories were turning it out. The Oak Grove Cheese Company in New Hamburg, Ontario, made it as a German-Canadian marker. Only one American producer is left, Chalet Cheese Cooperative in Monroe, Wisconsin.

It is a soft washed-rind cheese made from raw cow's milk, sometimes flavored with herbs and usually sold as a brick. Ripening happens in cellars in the Herve countryside, some of them cut into the chalky rock, over about three months.

The interior is pale yellow under a glossy reddish-brown coating. In the first month it is firm and crumbly, closer to feta. By six weeks the edges soften while the center stays firm, salty and chalky. At two months it turns creamy and smooth, and at three months the famous smell arrives. Young cheese tastes sweet, and it turns spicy with age.

The classic way to eat it is the Limburger sandwich. Spread the ripe cheese thickly, more than 0.5 cm (0.2 inch), on firm 100 percent rye bread with a thick slice of onion, then drink strong black coffee or lager with it. Chunks up to 1.5 cm (0.6 inch) work too. Descendants of Swiss and German immigrants in Wisconsin and Ohio still order it, often with brown mustard, and some versions add bologna, lettuce, tomato or roasted walnuts. Rinsing or removing the rind tones down the odor.