
Ah, the ways we can display patriotism! Waving a flag, singing "The Star Spangled Banner," and, of course constructing a sculpture of Wisconsin celebrities, such as Bucky Badger, Musky (the state fish), a dairy cow, and more out of 5,000 pounds of Wisconsin cheddar cheese.
Sarah Kaufmann has been creating large and small sculptures out of cheese since 1981. This July 4th, Sarah is hand-sculpting cheddar cheese to design a scene (with a 15-foot circumference) of popular Wisconsin icons in a "Spirit of '76"-style parade. In the past, people have crowded around Sarah as she produced her cheese masterpieces. For the next couple of days, people can once again gather to see the cheese turn into three dimensional characters. Today through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the public is invited to the Madison, WI Sam's Club to taste the cheese and purchase their own piece of the 5,000-pound cheddar.
I thought Sarah was starting a patriotic trend. Apparently, carving cheeses has been done before as a way of expressing American patriotism. In 1802, Elder John Leland presented Thomas Jefferson with a four-foot wide 15-inch thick sculpted cheese to express his political support.
And just so you know, handcrafted cheese larger than 75 pounds is considered a mammoth cheese. View Sarah's mammoth cheeses in the gallery below. What do you think? Does this cheese look good enough to eat, or is it just a waste of food?














