Chicago Tribune, IL
01-24-07
Blue heaven
Maytag still churns out quality blue cheese in the middle of Iowa
By Jean Thilmany, Special to the Tribune
and Robin Mather Jenkins
APPLIANCE-MAKER, CHEESEMAKER: It's an odd association to say the least.
But in the case of Maytag blue cheese, it's a long-standing association. The
world-famous cheese shares the same family lineage as the world-famous
appliances.
Gourmands and chefs praise Maytag blue, but what they may not know is that
the cheese itself springs not from Wisconsin nor California but from the fertile
Iowa heartland. It is aged in caves dug into the Maytag farm's property in
Newton, located about 35 miles east of Des Moines in central Iowa.
Long before the artisanal food movement blossomed in America, those in the
know could order a wedge of the handmade, cave-aged Maytag blue.
"If our father could see how we've become a part of American food Renaissance,
he would be amazed," said Fritz Maytag, referring to his father, Fred Maytag,
who started the cheese business. "Artisan food had been a dream of his. We still
make everything by hand." Fritz is now co-chairman of the board of Maytag Dairy
Farms, along with his brother, Ken.
Many of the cheesemaker's 80 or so employees have worked there for decades,
said Myrna Ver Ploeg, president of Maytag Dairy Farms.
Among the ranks of chefs who praise the firm's aged cheese is Heather Terhune,
executive chef at South Water Kitchen and Atwood Cafe. Her menus of classic
American food include the blue cheese in dishes such as poached pears with
Maytag blue and Atwood Cafe's Buffalo wing blue-cheese dressing.
"This fits our concept," she said. "This is an artisanal cheese, with small
production, from Iowa."
Indeed, the mark of an artisanal company may be when the president answers
the phone on the first ring and has time to talk about her operation.
Success story
Ver Ploeg said the Maytag Blue story begins with E.H. Maytag, son of the
appliance-firm founder, Frederick Louis Maytag. His father's success granted
him the time and money to indulge his hobbies. In 1919, he established a herd of
Holstein show cows on the family farm. By the 1930s, those cows were winning
competitions across the country.
E.H.'s son, Fred, who inherited the farm, saw other possibilities. He had sampled
European delicacies on trips abroad, such as Roquefort aged cheese made with
sheep's milk, and wanted to bring that taste home while making the best use of
his dairy farm's milk.
But how to make a blue cheese from cow's milk?
In the late 1930s, Fred Maytag looked for the answer close to home.
"Fred was really on the forefront of the food renaissance," Ver Ploeg said. "He'd
seen [that] those fine European cheeses weren't being made here in the U.S."
He visited the dairy science department at Iowa State University in nearby
Ames. As luck would have it, university researchers were in the last stages of
perfecting a way to break down the fat particles in cow's milk so it behaved as
sheep's milk and could be used to make a Roquefort-style cheese.
Maytag licensed the process from the university and swiftly established the family
blue-cheese business. He also decided to age the wheels in caves, just like the
French did.
"It took me a while to realize my father was one of the pioneers of the American
food renaissance, but he was, and it's a source of great pride for our family," said
Fritz Maytag.
When Whirlpool Corp. bought the Maytag appliance corporation in 2005, it
announced it would shutter the Newton headquarters. Devoted cheese
customers need not have worried; the blue cheese operation remains Maytagfamily owned and remains unaffected by that sale.
Cave dwellers
Maytag makes about 1 million pounds of cheese each year. Much of it still is
aged in the two caves that Fred's crew dug by hand, 110 feet into a hillside, on
the farm in 1941. Two years ago, to meet demand, the company dug two more
caves in the same hill. The small batches of wheels are aged four to six months-but that's the final part of the cheese production.
Though each wheel averages about 4 pounds, the weight can vary, Ver Ploeg
explained, because the cheese is hand-hooped (which means employees scoop
the curds by hand into the stainless-steel hoops that act as cheese forms). Mold,
specifically Penicillium roqueforti, is responsible for the blue veins; it is added to
the milk and sprinkled later on the curds.
The forms are placed on wooden boards and carried onto tables, where
employees regularly rotate the wheels to compress them. Once the wheel is set,
the hoops are pulled off, the cheese is rolled in salt to help it dry, and the wheel
is ready for aging in the cave. The wheels are pierced with needles to create the
air channels that allow the blue mold to grow.
Ver Ploeg and head cheesemaker Robert Wadzinski, the third generation to ply
his trade, taste a sample from the wheels at three weeks, four months, then
again at six months. They might follow another schedule, however, depending on
consistency.
"We test them until we think they have achieved the right components as far as
taste, texture and creaminess," Ver Ploeg said. "The body has to be at a
particular point." They taste as often as a batch dictates, regularly testing for
ripeness until they deem it ready.
All that testing means Ver Ploeg tastes blue cheese every day. She described
herself as someone who was ambivalent about blue cheese before her job led
her into caves filled with it.
"For me, it was kind of an acquired taste, but now I just love it, even with eating it
Monday through Friday," she said. "By Sunday evening, I go to my own
refrigerator and look for the blue cheese. Or if I travel, I'm desperately looking for
it. I'm seriously addicted to it: warm, cold, with honey on it, any which way."
The addition of the two caves, along with a Web site
(www.maytagdairyfarms.com), has been about the only expansion for the
business. Maytag still sells cheese in wheels and smaller, hand-wrapped wedges
through its catalog, which dates to 1942, Ver Ploeg said.
"We charged a premium price and we sold the cheese by mail--can you believe
it?" added Fritz Maytag. "We were mail-order pioneers as well."
Today the farm's Web site joins its catalog as the main sales tool. Some
restaurant wholesalers also supply the cheese to customers, and Maytag sells
directly to many cruise-ship lines and hotels.
Back in the 1940s and 1950s it was customary for many of the Maytag-appliance
employees who came to train at company headquarters in Newton to visit the
Maytag dairy farm for a tour. They returned home with foil-wrapped bundles and
got the folks back home addicted to the cheese. Soon they were calling to
request a catalog, Ver Ploeg said.
That's how Jean Van Drimmelen of Bellevue, Iowa, discovered her state's blue
cheese as a new bride in 1943. Her husband's family, who worked for the
appliance-maker, brought the cheese during a Christmas visit. Soon she began
ordering regularly and often.
Van Drimmelen discovered the cheese all those years ago before words like
"artisanal" were part of anyone's lexicon. Inadvertently following a trend, she still
orders a full wheel every Christmas. It lasts only a few months.
"I eat it on everything," she said. "I couldn't live without it."