As you may or may not know, my maternal grandfather is a rather strange man; this being said, I can continue with the rest of my write up. My grandfather is fond of foods that make other people turn their nose, for example, my grandfather eats raw onions, canned salmon (with the bones and all. He once made some for me and I protested because there were bones in it, he responded by saying 'It's only a little one' hmmph), and limburger.
Mind you, my grandfather doesn’t eat real limburger all the time, because where he lives it is kind of hard to get at it. You might ask where that is, but if I told you, you wouldn’t know where I mean. You can be assured to know that it IS a village in Ohio. Anyway, so what my grandfather eats to substitute for real limburger is this limburger spread, made by who else but Kraft, the makers of Vegemite ? It is 10% limburger and 90% cream cheese. Even with the 90% cream cheese this stuff is strong enough to knock you back in your chair because it reeks. So, needless to say, this is stuff you really need to grow up on to truly like. Am I saying that I like it? Maybe. It isn't something I would like to eat everyday, but like Buttermilk, raw onions, and cow tongue it reminds me of my favorite place on earth.
I make it sound like my grandfather would eat real Limburger if given the chance, and that is true, I know this because my mom tells this story about how she was stuck eating some real limburger cheese with him one day a few years before I was born. I have a second cousin (my grandfather's niece) who used to run a deli, and she must have had this stuff laying around for a while, either that or she ordered it specially. Whatever the reason I can assure you that I am very happy that I wasn’t born yet, and do not remember this occasion. Anyway, what happened is my second cousin sent her son (my mom's cousin) to my grandfather's house with some cheese in its form. My grandfather knew what it was instantly, and grew excited about it, he opened the cheese form up, and invited my mom and her cousin to stay for sandwiches. It would have been rude to decline, and my mom always says that she was a bit hungry, and well, how bad could it be? So my grandfather made up sandwiches, this consists of a slab of limburger in between two slices of bread. My mom says that it was all she could do to keep from throwing up, and that she declined the second sandwich that my grandfather rejoiced in eating. Ok, so he is really weird. I still love my grandpa.
So what do you do with this cheese spread? Funny you might ask, What my grandfather likes to do, as if his breath didn’t smell bad enough, is to take a slice of bread and apply this spread liberally, then add chopped up onion, and sometimes raw garlic slices. Yes, this is guaranteed to keep vampyres away for generations. Less braves souls, or the more scrupulous simply spread it on crackers and munch on that. Ritz crackers actually taste kind of good with limburger cheese spread on it.
So with all this said and done, what does it really taste like? That is really hard question. Take a nice cream cheese, and let it sit in the hot sun for a few days… smell that, I think it would get to close to the smell of this, and yes, it does leave an after taste. But if it is mixed with cream cheese, the after taste isn't as bad. One of the other nodes asks what your first cheese was. I am proud to say that Limburger was my first cheese. I was the only kid at school who thought that American Cheese was for wimps, and insisted to be given sharp cheddar in her lunch.