3 Most Fascinating College Cheeses
At many state universities across the country, ag and food science students work with milk from college-owned herds to create cheeses that are then made available for sale. But not all of them have such incredibly fascinating backstories as these cheeses from Minnesota, Mississippi and Washington. Regardless of your school allegiance, you’ll likely want to learn more about these college cheeses all of which are available online.
University of Minnesota: All-white blue cheese
"nuworld blue" by Fauxlaroid is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
Located on the banks of the Mississippi River and surrounded by the vibrant city of Minneapolis, this university projects a distinctly urban vibe. But it’s also home to respected departments of agriculture and food science. At the Dairy and Meat Salesroom, students sell products they make and process in classes or as part of research projects, including many different types of cheese. A hometown favorite is semi-soft nuworld cheese, the first-ever cheese developed in a university laboratory. An all-white twist on the traditional blue-veined variety, it was created in the 1950s through a cooperative effort by the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin—Madison.
Instead of the indigo and cerulean veins that are markers of a traditional bleu variety, nuworld has a uniformly creamy color, thanks to a white mutant of Penicillium roquefortii. This earthy, umami-rich cheese slices at room temperature and spreads well if slightly warmed. A five to six-pound wheel sells for $60.
Mississippi State University: Cannonballs of Edam
Edam photo courtesy of Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (MAFES) Sales Store
It was 1938, and the world was on the brink of war. In Starkville, Mississippi, a professor considered all the achievements of European culture that might vanish forever under a victorious Nazi regime. His first thought, of course, was about cheese. As tensions escalated across the Atlantic, Mississippi State University’s Professor Fredrick Herman Herzer ordered ten teakwood Edam molds from Holland. He acted just in time, since the hoops shipped to the school only days before the ports were closed to international trade. Herzer set out to use milk from the school’s own dairy farm and on-campus plants to recreate the iconicly nutty, semi-hard cheese that originated in the Netherlands in the 14th century.
According to the school’s website, the university annually produces 50,000 three-pound balls of red wax-covered Edam “cannonballs”, which are especially popular as holiday gifts. The plant produces Additional one-and-a-half-pound balls are made for the Maroon and White Gift Packs. And what goes perfectly with a few slices of this Dutch/Southern specialty? Perhaps some Hail State ham, also produced by the school and named for the MSU Bulldogs’ fight song. Each three-pound ball is $18.
Washington State University: Cheese in cans
Photo credit Cougar Gold photos courtesy Washington State University
This college cheese story begins with a wartime government project and a top-secret bacterial culture known as WSU19. During the height World War II, the U.S .government was looking for ways to keep cheese that was feeding the troops as fresh as possible. While dipping cheese in wax had been the preferred method of preservation for centuries, the government found that cracks which developed in transit could lead to spoilage. They partnered with the American Can Company to fund research on the best way to keep cheese fresh by sealing it in cans.
The mastermind behind the project was Washington State University dairy husbandry professor Dr. N. S. Golding, who pioneered the development of a cheese that would stay fresh without allowing the carbon dioxide buildup that had, in previous experiments, caused cans to explode. With WSU19 as his adjunct culture, Golding safely reduced the levels of carbon dioxide in the cans.
With Dr. Golding’s research, 30-ounce tins of a sharp white American cheddar named Cougar Gold went into production, the name an amalgam of Dr. Golding’s name and the school’s cougar mascot. The addition of the new microbial culture led to a new taste in cheese, one with a firmness and moisture level similar to cheddar, but sweeter and nuttier than the traditional variety. True to the original intent of the research, the cheese is promised to not only stay fresh indefinitely, but to become even more flavorful with age.
The U.S. government eventually lost interest in canned cheese, moving to the brave new world of plastic packaging. Picking up where the government left off, students, alumni, and neighbors around the Pullman, Washington, area soon developed a taste for the giant cans of cheese, made with milk collected from the nearby university dairy farm. Currently, WSU annually sells more than a 250,000 of the 30 ounce cans, which cost $25 each.