Exploring the Best Cheese Dreams | The Cheese Professor

Cheese has a way of finding its way into every aspect of life, some people even dream of cheese. In fact, dream dictionaries go into great detail explaining what dreaming about cheese means. Eating cheese in a dream could signify success in love, it could also represent financial security or abundance. Other interpretations include cheese as a symbol of nourishment, growth, or simply pleasure. Cheese has inspired many dreamers and not only do some people dream of cheese, but sometimes cheese is the dream.

A Dream that Inspired a Cheese

Mary Keehn the founder of Cypress Grove started as a self-taught cheesemaker and created her first cheeses in her home kitchen. Read more about Cypress Grove. She had been making goat’s milk cheeses for a while and experiencing some success, when in 1992, she and Judy Schad, of Capriole Goat Cheese in Indiana, decided to travel to France. There, the two of them visited small goat’s milk cheese producers all over the country, walked through lavender fields, and tasted dozens upon dozens of cheeses. Read more about Capriole.

On the plane ride back to California, Keehn fell asleep. “On her flight home, all of these things were swirling about in her head, and there, in her dreams, she saw a bloomy rind goat’s milk cheese that when you cut through it, there was a line of ash, and the ash feathered through. the cheese,” shares Janne Rasmussen, marketing manager for Cypress Grove. “It looked just like the fog that cut through the coastline in Humboldt County.” So, when Keehn finally arrived home, she knew that she had to make that cheese of her dreams. “It was the right cheese at the right time when people were traveling more,” recalled Keehn.

Humboldt Fog Chevre photo credit T. Depaepe

To make the cheese, Keehn did not follow the methods of European cheesemakers. Instead of letting the curds just drain in the forms, she squeezed the whey out first while the curds were in a curd bag and started with a drier curd, which she then pressed into the form. This method also allowed her to start with a lesser amount of cheese forms, as she could press the curds out, form a cheese, remove it from the form, and then repeat the process with the same form. “We still make the cheese that way today even though we could afford more cheese forms,” Rasmussen says.

The cheese not only was delicious and became award-winning, but it had an easily identifiable name, which resonates with people. “It was an American original before there were American originals,” Rasmussen says. “It became Cypress Grove’s specialty, which was making goat cheeses for the American palate.”

“Humboldt Fog is such a beloved cheese, and we did some consumer research, and people who buy it often buy it for its emotional resonance,” Rasmussen says. “It’s more than just cheese. It’s a social sidekick, as in, ‘It will be fine to have my in-laws over for dinner if I have Humboldt Fog on the table.’” People buy the cheese once to try it, but then they buy it again and again because of how they feel about it, Rasmussen says.

“A lot of people buy it because of the feeling it evokes in them,” Rasmussen says. “It really is the cheese of their dreams.”

A Dreamy Cheese Contest

Chrissy Teigen & John Legend photo source Instagram

When John Legend gifted his wife Chrissy Teigan a ginormous wheel of Parmesan cheese for Christmas, that got the creative wheels spinning at the Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin. “She was over the moon to receive it,” says Suzanne Fanning, chief marketing officer for Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin. “To see that she was so excited…we realized that was a cheese dream come true.”

But it wasn't the first cheese dream come true that Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin helped turn into reality. There was a child from Make-A-Wish who wanted to make cheese recalls Fanning. “We got him a cheese coat embroidered with his name when he went to the cheese factory to make string cheese,” says Fanning.

Those two dreamers made Fanning and her team realize that there were probably quite a lot of other, ordinary people who dreamed of cheese. So, they set up a contest, and people had to answer, via video, two questions: What is a Wisconsin cheese experience you’ve always wanted to have but never thought would be possible? How can Wisconsin Cheese plus up your happiest moment? After posting these questions on social media, they waited for the answers to come in.

The initial thought was to award a couple of grand prize winners, but then the dreams started coming in, and hundreds of people ended up entering the contest. The organizers held a viewing party, and in watching all of these people express their passion for Wisconsin cheese, they decided that awarding only a couple of winners was not going to be their thing. “We thought, ‘How could we say no to them?” Fanning says.

Choosing the Best Cheese Dreams

So, they decided to make 125 cheese dreams come true. “Some of them were very easy to fulfill,” Fanning says. “One person wanted to be a Wisconsin Cinderella, whisked away in a cheese carriage, and another guy, who is in the Santa International Hall of Fame, wanted to showcase Wisconsin cheese for all the Santas who are coming to their convention in Appleton this year, and how could we say no to Santa?”

Some were just dreaming of the perfect cheeses to make a lasagna or other cheesy delights; one person wanted to give away cheese instead of chocolate milk and have cheese at the finish line of a marathon. “So we also said we’ll give you cheese and chocolate milk,” Fanning says. “And we gave away a lot of cheese wedding cakes, too.” Read how to incorporate cheese into a wedding celebration.

One woman was an artist who wanted to paint a mural of cheese so they’re looking for a public building to help her paint it. A lot of people dreamed of either returning to Wisconsin or coming to Wisconsin for the very first time to visit cheesemakers so they’ve organized a big trip this summer for them.

Some dreams, however, stood out. Two women have long-held dreams of making cheese. A woman named Alaina, from North Carolina, is coming at the end of April to make cheese with professional cheesemakers, and Megan, a Cheeselandian from Illinois will be making cheese at the end of August. They’re going to get to spend some time at the Center for Dairy Research and then spend a lot of time making cheese.

But the biggest winner has to be Libby Rasmussen, a Washington, D.C.-based influencer of @libbylivingcolorfully, is going to host her bachelorette party with her 11 bridesmaids in Wisconsin. “Libby has this very exciting life as a fashion influencer, and she said that bachelorettes are going to all of these international destinations for their parties, and she said ‘My roots are in Wisconsin, and all I want is to pull my bridesmaids back to Wisconsin, where my roots are and show them how great Wisconsin is. I want to rub wheels at Sartori and milk cows and make cheese boards,’” Fanning says. “That really touched our hearts so we’re going to make that happen for her.”

Though Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin are fulfilling these dreams, through September 2024, there were some dreams that didn’t make it - and these people basically disqualified themselves. “One person just filmed their carpet,” Fanning says. “If you didn’t put in any effort, you weren’t going to win.” Most people, however, did put in a lot of effort so Fanning and her team put together a video announcing the winners, their wishes, and their wish fulfillment, here. Interested cheese dreamers should follow them @wisconsincheese, and/or join Cheeselandia.

“In the end, it turns out, they’re our dreams, too,” Fanning says. “And I am definitely enjoying my summer as the dairy godmother.”