Beyond Cheeseheads in the Wintry North

Listen to this show 
Subscribe to all shows  

In this week's show, we travel to the icy climes of the Upper-Midwest, stopping in on Wisconsin to learn how to eat well through these cold-weather months.

We investigate the tastes and traditions of Hmong immigrants who are transforming what we think of as Wisconsin cuisine. Terese Allen - host of the website Taste of Wisconsin: Food and Culture in the Heartland and author of several cookbooks, including Wisconsin Hometown Flavors and Fresh Market Wisconsin - offers a Hmong cooking primer and a recipe for a spicy Hmong salad, Tomsum. Mai Zong Vue welcomes us to Taste of Asia restaurant in Madison where they're cooking up traditional Hmong dishes.

Janet Gilmore, professor of folklore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, invites us to a Winconsin farm meal influenced by Wisconsin's diverse northern European heritage. Traci Kelly, webmaster for CHEW (Culinary History Enthusiasts of Wisconsin) and professor at UWM, introduces us to the Norwegian winter staple, lefse, a traditional potato flatbread. UWM graduate student, Emily Pfotenhauer, gives us a taste of another Norwegian specialty, krumkake, a holiday pastry.

Then we're on a fishing trip. We visit the White Gull Inn where owner Andy Coulson serves up a delicious description of the Wisconsin fish boil tradition. I introduce whitefish to applewood-smoked bacon in my recipe for Tastes of Wisconsin Chowder.

Finally, we get to the cheese and beer everyone expects. We taste the award-winning cheese, Benedictine, produced by Carr Valley. And the great beers of New Glarus Brewing Company, like Spotted Cow, Uff-da Bock, and Snowshoe Ale. And to mix it all together, I offer a recipe for Wisconsin beer and cheese soup.

You can create your own tour of Wisconsin cheese and beer with a Tasters Map of Wisconsin from the Milk Marketing Board. Whenever, I go from point A to point B in the cheesestate, I always take my map along and see what great tastes I'll find along the way.

Find cheese curds and other Wisconsin cheeses, lingonberry sauce for Swedish pancakes, smoked whitefish, and bratwurst at Amazon's Gourmet Food Shop.

Find rustic soup bowls for chowder, soup pots and ladles, stylish beer glasses from pilsners to pints, table linens with a Northwoods look, and everything else you need to serve your Wisconsin dinner at Sur La Table.

When you use our links to purchase books and tools from the podcast, you help the support the show. Thanks!