According to Wikipedia (and it doesn't get much more reliable than that...) Limburger originated in the mid-19th century in, appropriately enough, the Dutchy of Limburg. As you are likely already aware, Limburger is famous (infamous?) for its foul aroma, which is a result of the bacteria used to culture the cheese, Brevibacterium linens. The disconcerting fact that this just so happens to be the very same bacteria responsible for human body odor has lead me to a less-than-appetizing theory on Limburger's origin.
My theory is as follows. One day, while fed up with an particularly annoying cheese connoisseur, an exasperated cheese-monger decided to take revenge on his irksome patron. After telling the connoisseur of his newest cheese creation, the monger shoved a small block of feta down his pants and left it there for a couple months. Once satisfied that the resulting creation was foul enough, he went and presented the poor, unsuspecting sod with the nauseating brick of crotch-fermented cheese. The connoisseur, being too pretentious to simply state the obvious – that the cheese smelled like a dead pigeon soaked in pig sweat – instead gave a glowing review hailing the new cheese's wondrous qualities and “unique” odor. The artisan cheese community, too worried about appearances to go against majority opinion, agreed with the cheesy ass (which, coincidentally would be good way to describe Limburger's pungent aroma) and the rest is history. Now I freely admit I have absolutely no sources whatsoever to back up this ridiculous theory, (until I edit the Wikipedia page, that is) but I stand firm in this belief nonetheless.
With this theory forming in my head, I cautiously unwrapped my newly-purchased cheese and after taking a big 'ol whiff of the fetid little brick (don't do this...I'm serious.) I somehow forced myself, after a brief psyche-up period, (think Hulk Hogan during one of his classic '80's comebacks) to try a piece all by itself (again, don't do this). After several aborted attempts, I finally decided to search online for some way of preparing this stuff that wouldn't inspire me to perform by best Krakatoa impression. What I found was The Stinky:
The Stinky:
2 slices of Toasted Rye Bread
A layer of Limburger cheese
A thick slice of sweet onion
Spicy brown mustard
1 Hail Mary (Okay, I added the last one. I'm an atheist, but I'll take all the help I can get when I'm about to eat something that smells like John Goodman's jockstrap...)
My opponent. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee...
While this sandwich was certainly preferable to ingesting this noxious cheese straight, that's somewhat akin to saying a punch in the face is preferable to a swift kick to the groin. The spicy mustard and sweet onion do an admirable job of masking the overpowering odor of the Limburger, but the odd exhale through the nose is more than enough for this stinky little cheese to reassert its olfactory dominance. Truth be told, only through sheer will and determination (and a gigantic mug of my beloved Coca-Cola) was I able to power through this sandwich.
Other than being able cross one more thing off of the old culinary bucket list, I really don't have a lot of nice things to say about my experience with Limburger cheese, or as I now call it, Satan's Jell-O. While the taste isn't terrible, its horrific stench simply cannot be overstated, and this is coming from a man with countless sewage back-ups under his belt and who once helped clean up an abandoned, unlicensed slaughterhouse full of putrid deer skins, 55-gallon drums full of rotting pig carcasses, and an unplugged freezer containing what can only be described as a thick, biological, avian soup. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I know a thing or two about stinky. It might not be on par with a barrel of rotting pig heads, but Limburger, with its Bootsy Collins level of funk, definitely holds its own in terms of stink. I'm quite sure it's an acquired taste, however I'm not nearly as sure I would be able to survive the acquisition process.
