My guess would be that everyone is revolted by Limburger, just because of its malodorous reputation.  I bet most of you haven’t actually seen, smelt or tasted it.  Fess up: you just looked at it in the foil wrapper, thought “yecch, revolting,” and bought something else–but you never experienced it.  Well, I bought some the other day and tried it (wife is out of town), with the goal of giving you an honest and full description.

I see why it’s in a tightly sealed foil package, because it does have an unpleasant odor.  Sort of like feet with a spoiled poultry nuance.  It is pale yellow and fairly uniform in color, about the color of Munster but with some burnt orange rinding around the edges here and there.  Texture is creamy and not hard, less rigid than cheddar, soft to the point of spreadability.  Cuts easily with dull knife, doesn’t crumble.  No caves like Havarti or a blue cheese.

The next step was to melt some onto food.  If you heat this stuff up, the smell travels a lot farther, but it doesn’t do much for the taste.  I put it onto some pretty bland bean burritos and it was a culinary non-entity.  Here’s the burning question:  is there some great flavor here that would make you brave the bouquet to get the taste, or is this stuff just for practical jokes? I’d describe it as like a milder Gouda, nothing to get excited about.  You buy cheese for what its unique flavor contributes, and here it’s not really very unique, just accompanied by rotting chicken and unwashed feet.  I’ll eat the rest of it just so that it doesn’t go to waste, but without great enthusiasm.