Why packers cheese

When the Green Bay Packers take the field for their NFL playoff game this weekend, there will be millions around the world parked in front of their television sets donning bright yellow, triangular, foam hats that look suspiciously like a dairy product.

It's an odd tradition, no doubt, but something that Wisconsinites and so-called "cheeseheads" wear with pride even if President-elect Trump refused to wear one. If Wisconsin were a country, it would be fourth largest cheese producer in the world. While this headgear-wearing custom often elicits smiles, "cheesehead" was originally a pretty major insult. As with many American things, the term "cheesehead" has European roots. The Dutch word "kaaskop" literally translates to "head cheese ," but it was often used - and may still be - to call someone stupid or dense.

According to the Racial Slur Database I didn't even know that existed , the Nazis called the Dutch this while invading their country in World War II perhaps as an allusion to the Netherlands' cheesy reputation. While no other sources verify this, there are other places where the word "cheesehead" or the language's variation of it pops up that contextually confirms it was used as an insult. While this may not be related to its insult origins, the British also use the term "cheesehead," but in reference to a type of screw head with "vertical sides and a slightly domed top.

Fast forward from WWII and the term was taken on by Illinoisans to refer to their northern neighbors. It's unclear what prompted them to start calling Wisconsinites "cheeseheads. On Thanksgiving weekend in , Emmert attended the Packers' victory over the Browns, then flew home from Cleveland a week later with his flight instructor, Baron Bryan.

The weather was bad, and they were low on fuel, but they decided to take their four-seat Skyhawk Cessna on a direct route over Lake Michigan.

So we did what our training taught, flew it dead ahead and took out all the trees. You try to hit the tops of the trees, they release energy. You don't want to hit the panel or the windshield. So, that's when I assumed the position. That's when Emmert, sitting in the passenger seat, bent forward and pulled the Cheesehead, which he had been using as a pillow, over his face.

The plane cart-wheeled a few times then quickly disintegrated, leaving a debris field of more than yards. The Federal Aviation Administration photographs are harrowing. The only item visibly intact is Emmert's bloodied Cheesehead. The impact shattered his right ankle and left his body covered with bone-deep cuts and scratches. His head, miraculously, was unscathed. Emmert, a jovial man who is prone to the bad pun, and Bryan, who wasn't seriously injured, wound up in St. Michael's Hospital in Stevens Point.

Sales of Cheeseheads soared. He does now. Emmert, in a delicious stroke of karma, is still doing his part to promote sales. If you see the Foamation cheesehead van driving around Dallas this week, Frank is the guy behind the wheel.

Roger Krohn, master cheesemaker that's what it says on his business card , still gets very excited when the subject comes up, which is quite often. That's enough to make , pizzas every day.

Krohn, whose father oversaw a small cheddar plant beginning in , is the quality assurance manager at Trega Foods in Luxemburg. Wearing a white lab coat and hairnet to match, he takes a camera crew through a comprehensive tour, stopping at one point to extol the many virtues of cheese curds. Krohn is a veritable encyclopedia of cheese knowledge. Did you know:. Wisconsin leads the nation in cheese production, at about 25 percent, a total of about 2.

Some 92 percent of Wisconsin's milk goes into cheese-making, at facilities, with more than varieties. It takes 10 pounds of milk more than a gallon , to make a pound of cheese.

The average American eats an average of 36 pounds of cheese each year -- still a good distance behind most European nations. And there's quality to go along with all that quantity. Krohn isn't merely a Green Bay Packers fan, he is a part-owner with four shares.

The Packers, the only non-profit, community-owned franchise in all of American major-league sports, have , shareholders, representing more than 4. It's everybody sitting there.

They are owned by the people. Even the cheese humor, inflicted regularly at Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport, is on the dry side. McNulty's expansive shop is in downtown Milwaukee, right across from Mader's, the famous German restaurant where the schnitzel and spaetzle are superb.

He pours a glass of zinfandel from Sonoma on the butcher block bar and slides over a plate of cheddar, aged for 11 years. Indeed it is. The flavors fairly pop on your tongue.

McNulty likens Wisconsin's burgeoning cheese industry -- the boutique outfits are bringing back some of Europe's more obscure bacterial strains -- to Napa Valley's wine culture 30 or 40 years ago. Invariably, cheese seems to make people happy. According to McNulty, there is a scientific reason for this.

You're a character, just into the moment. Ralph Bruno has shipped Cheeseheads to all 50 states and 30 countries. He has received photos of folks wearing them in places like the Arctic Circle, and in Africa, on the head of a tribal chief. He says the plant in St. Francis produces about , pieces per year, which would stretch miles, all the way from Green Bay down to Monroe, if placed end to end.

It is really like something you see on TV. He's staying behind to build the inventory should the Packers win. John Pagel, the dairy impresario, already has tickets and is headed down to Dallas on Friday.

He's got a Packers shrine in his conference room, including signed jerseys and helmets from Brett Favre and, going even further back, Bart Starr. He will wear his Cheesehead proudly. The original display of a "cheesehead" hat was at a Milwaukeee Brewers baseball game against the Chicago White Sox game in It was handmade hat made by Bruno out of foam. It was made popular by center-fielder Rick Manning, who saw the hat while playing. Bruno would start a business called Foamation based in St.

Francis to sell the "Cheesehead" hats as novelties. The Cheesehead would become the signature wardrobe product for the Packers and Wisconsin sports fans. Foamation would later expand to various more Cheesehead products, which would include various cheeses designed as baseball hats, fire helmet hats, ties, and coasters. The video would gain over one million views on YouTube.