I ’m going to tell you a secret. But first I need to make sure you do not: 1) gasp, scoff, or make any perceptible sign of surprise with the nose, eyes, or mouth. 2) remind me where I live. 3) ask any further questions.

OK, glad that’s all cleared up. I don’t like cheese. Taste, smell, texture – all of it.

Now, upon hearing my secret, other people (not you guys – you guys are polite) think it is necessary to deliver great diatribes against me and my taste buds. “But … how can you not like cheese?” they sputter. “You live in Wisconsin!” Unlike an aversion to lima beans, which is perfectly acceptable, my personal tastes are actually offensive to some. Then, for some reason, those people feel the need to tell me how much they enjoy it. “I eat it on everything,” they say.

In this cheese-idolizing world of ours, especially our Dairyland home, my secret is hard to hide. Sharing cheese curds is a social custom. To refrain borders on freakish. In fact, cheese has melted so many American hearts that to dislike it is, comically, a form of evil. In the Mario Series video games, “Cheese Haters” is a villainous organization that plans to destroy the moon, which is made of cheese. Harmless? Yes. But annoyingly reflective of our culture? Yes.

I’m a Wisconsinite, through and through. I don’t just mean I was born here. I mean my grandparents were all lumberjacks born at dairy farms overrun with badgers, and they knew the Packers personally. Naw, but my dad did work in a cheese factory to help pay for college, and my family owns a respectable number of Cheesehead hats.

To make matters worse, I was lactose intolerant as a child. At school I was the nerd with the little plastic pill case full of chewable Lactaid. (As far as taste goes, these were on the opposite end of the spectrum from Flinstone vitamins). Anyhow, I’m not sure how I passed for a Wisconsinite in those days. Luckily, I “grew out of it” and am now able to metabolize lactose just fine.

Sometimes people think they’re being really helpful, and try to walk me through it. They assume there had to have been an incident in the past that locked up my ability to enjoy the stuff. “What don’t you like about it?” they ask. Or, “have you tried different kinds?” If someone doesn’t like tomatoes, you generally don’t ask them if they’ve gone beyond Roma. My indoctrinator also brings up cheese’s “magical qualities.” Cheese creates more dopamine and norepinephrine, both of which stimulate feelings of bliss, improve control over motor movements, and increase concentration. I know it’s meant kindly. But really, I think I’m a happy enough person without those extra chemicals.

    I work as a waitress, and occasionally someone will order a sandwich without cheese. The customer will usually sigh and offer a sad confession: they are no longer allowed to eat it, due to medical anomaly X. There will be unanimous sympathy and attempts at comfort – a pitying nod, a pat on the hand.

I will say, however, that it’s difficult to mimic the textural qualities of cheese. How do you glue together the components of a sandwich, without the stickiness of coagulated milk? Avocado can do the job, sometimes. When I was little, my mom made “grilled peanut butter” sandwiches as substitutes for grilled cheese. And mac ‘n cheese was easy to replace. It was just mac.
It is interesting to me, then, that I should harbor so much pride for the milk that made me ill as a child, and the cheese trays I avoid. Sure, a wheel of cheese and a big ‘ole Holstein head don’t make for the most exciting state quarter, but I love that Wisconsin is still the top producer of cheese, beating out California. A few years ago, I would bristle at the smug “Happy Cow” ads which used our accents and images of snow to try and sway consumers into buying California dairy products. In fact, in college I was moved to write a paper concerning the California ad campaign and their “appropriation of our regional identity.” It was academic, but it was also personal: an excuse to vent about Sadie, the desperate California-bound Holstein. To me, cheese is a symbol of our continuing heritage, but that doesn’t mean I have to include it in my meals. This state is crazy about its Badger mascot, but for how many people are real badgers a part of their everyday life?

Now let me tell you that there are chocolate-haters in this world of ours, too. I am not one of them. But when I meet one, it is my goal to convey utter indifference. To hold back the incredulity, and not to belittle their taste buds – even if they’re from Switzerland, the world’s leader in chocolate consumption. Because I wish the same courtesy for myself, a happily cheeseless Wisconsinite.