Limburger

Limburger is an aged cheese made from cows' milk. It has a rind that is usually somewhat mottled in appearance, the color ranging from white and yellow to brown, and a paler, softer interior. It has a strong odor and is often eaten with other strong flavored food and drink. The taste can vary from pungent to mild.

Limburger cheese originated in Limburg, Belgium. It is also made in the United States and Germany.

It is illegal to manufacture this cheese in Wisconsin without a master cheesemaker's certification. Currently only one factory, the Chalet Cheese Co-op in Monroe, Wisconsin, produces Limburger in North America.

The bacteria used to ferment Limburger cheese and other rind-washed cheeses is Brevibacterium linens; this same bacteria is found on human skin and is partially responsible for human body odor. A likely reason for this is that the monks of Limburg who created the cheese would originally mix the milk and curds into cheese by stomping it with their feet.

In popular culture

• The pungent odor of Limburger cheese was a frequent gag in Looney Tunes and other cartoons.

• The cartoon character Mighty Mouse could be weakened by a substance called "Limburgerite", a parody of Superman's weakness, kryptonite.

• The films of Abbott and Costello included occasional references to limburger's pungent odor.

• Guinness beer launched an animated television commercial in 2005 in which their two trademark scientists, the "Guinness Brewmasters", arrive at an NFL tailgating party (presumably thrown by fans of the Green Bay Packers, who are known as cheeseheads). Trying to fit in with the other cheeseheads, the two scientists wear limburger cheese heads and cause the rest of the crowd to flee in their disgust of the bad smell.

• Mark Twain authored a short story, "The Invalid's Story," in which a package of limburger cheese, placed atop a casket, emits a smell mistaken by some for the corpse's stench.

• In Bob and Ray's sketch about a retiring baseball player who gets (and gives) no respect from the younger generation, Ray talks about some "young punk" ballplayer having stealthily smeared some Limburger on the inside of his cap liner, and "It took me a month to track that down!"

• The cartoon Biker Mice from Mars boasts a villain called Lawrence Limburger, who is depicted with an awful foul breath.

• The song "Dance This Mess Around" from the B-52's: "Why don't you dance with me? I'm not a Limburger. Just a limburger." People from Limburg (in Holland and in Belgium) feel this as an offence because they think it is about them. They don't know this cheese as "Limburger", but under different local names.

• From Damon Runyon's story "A Sense of Humour": "...and shake hands with Joe, and when I shake hands with him there is more laughter, because it seems Joe has a hunk of Limburger cheese in his duke, and what I shake hands with is this Limburger. Furthermore, it is some of Mindy's Limburger, and everybody knows Mindy's Limburger is very squashy, and also very loud." Joe the Joker then disposes of the rest of the Limburger by wiping his hands on the steering wheels of some parked cars.

See also

• List of cheeses