Caption: Mark Johnson, senior scientist for the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research, uses a cheese trier to sample a block of 3-year-old cheddar in the Applications Laboratory of Babcock Hall. He first sniffs the core sample, then breaks off a piece to examine the texture, and finally tastes the cheese, which he labels as "too acidic and bitter, short-bodied and not well-rounded." Johnson, who will serve as a judge at the upcoming World Championship Cheese Contest, estimates that he eats close to 60 pounds of cheese per year, twice the national average. He admits that when he first arrived in Wisconsin as a cheesemaker, he did not like cheese. "I went to the grocery store and I bought bland cheeses, like Velveeta," he says. "But then someone gave me a well-aged cheese and I changed my mind. Now I don't buy cheese from grocery stores - you don't know what they've done with it." Whenever possible, he purchases cheese directly from the cheesemakers; currently his favorite is a beaufort cheese called Pleasant Ridge Reserve, made in Spring Green, Wis.
Photo by: Michael Forster Rothbart
Date: March 2006
300 DPI JPEG version

Caption: Mark Johnson, senior scientist for the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research, uses a cheese trier to sample a block of 3-year-old cheddar in the Applications Laboratory of Babcock Hall. He first sniffs the core sample, then breaks off a piece to examine the texture, and finally tastes the cheese, which he labels as "too acidic and bitter, short-bodied and not well-rounded." Johnson, who will serve as a judge at the upcoming World Championship Cheese Contest, estimates that he eats close to 60 pounds of cheese per year, twice the national average. He admits that when he first arrived in Wisconsin as a cheesemaker, he did not like cheese. "I went to the grocery store and I bought bland cheeses, like Velveeta," he says. "But then someone gave me a well-aged cheese and I changed my mind. Now I don't buy cheese from grocery stores - you don't know what they've done with it." Whenever possible, he purchases cheese directly from the cheesemakers; currently his favorite is a beaufort cheese called Pleasant Ridge Reserve, made in Spring Green, Wis.
Photo by: Michael Forster Rothbart
Date: March 2006
300 DPI JPEG version