Marieke Penterman: Wisconsin’s Newest Woman Master Cheesemaker
By: Micky Ellenbecker, Purchasing Assistant
Wisconsin is the only state that offers a Master Cheesemaker Program and describes itself as getting a Ph.D. in cheese. First, potential candidates must be professionally licensed cheesemakers for at least 10 years before they can even apply. Once they are in the program, it requires a three-year apprenticeship of rigorous training, testing, submitting of samples, and ultimately a final written exam. There are currently fewer than 100 active Master Cheesemakers in the state.
With that in mind, and with March being Women’s History Month, we’d like to take this opportunity to celebrate Marieke Penterman, who is making a mark on women’s history herself. Marieke is the founder and owner of Marieke® Gouda and was recently awarded the title of Certified Master Cheesemaker, which only a handful of Wisconsin women have earned. To put this into perspective, there are roughly 1,200 licensed cheesemakers in Wisconsin, only 60 of which are women and fewer than 10 of those women have reached Master Cheesemaker status. (What is also notable is that Marieke has two additional licensed cheesemakers on her team, and you guessed it, both are women as well!)
Marieke’s story starts in the Netherlands, where she was born and raised on a 60-cow dairy farm. The Netherlands is a very small country, roughly one quarter the size of Wisconsin with more than three times the population, which makes finding land and starting a farm there very challenging. So she and her husband Rolf felt they needed to look for land elsewhere to pursue their dreams of starting their own dairy farm. This ultimately brought them to the Land of Dairy in 2002, specifically the city of Thorp. She’s been quoted as saying, “If you love cows, where else can you go? Wisconsin.” She’s not wrong.
After arriving in Wisconsin, Marieke was finding many delicious Wisconsin-made cheeses, but Gouda wasn’t one of them. This sparked Marieke’s journey to start making Dutch-style Gouda with their own farm fresh milk; the only problem was that she didn’t actually know how to make cheese. In October of 2006 she went to school here in Wisconsin to get licensed as a cheesemaker, but then she needed to go back to the Netherlands, where Gouda originated, to learn how to make the types of Gouda she so dearly missed.
Her efforts and skills at recreating Dutch-style Gouda were quickly recognized. She made her first wheel of Gouda in November 2006 and only four months later she won her first award, a gold for her Foenogreek Gouda at the US Champion Cheese Contest! In the 18 years she’s been making cheese, she’s earned a whopping 273 awards, one of which actually helped her get her green card! She was named the US Cheese Grand Champion in 2013 for her 6-9 month Mature Gouda, which basically means that her cheese was voted THE BEST of all cheeses in the US that year, and her immigration lawyer saw it as an opportunity to gain citizenship via the extraordinary ability route. She is likely the first cheesemaker to get her green card for her tremendous skill. Her other notable accolades include being the first woman to win a cheese competition at the Wisconsin State Fair in 2011, and also becoming the first woman to win the Wisconsin Outstanding Young Farmer Award in 2015! Prior to 2015, many women had won the award in conjunction with their husbands, but Marieke was the first solo woman to win.
So what makes Marieke® Gouda stand out from the rest? As I mentioned, Marieke’s Dutch heritage and training bring a unique skillset to the process, which also includes imported cultures, herbs and spices, as well as some equipment from the Netherlands to maintain their traditional techniques. Marieke and Rolf also produce all their own milk on their farmstead creamery, which creates an unmatched freshness. Their milk goes directly into a pipeline to their cheese vats, resulting in a turnaround of five hours from the cow to becoming a wheel of cheese. They also pride themselves on having happy cows and have coined their barn as the “cow spa,” which includes sand beds, automatic brushes for back scratches, the ability to free roam in the barn, sprinklers during the hotter months, and their own personalized “fitbit” to track their overall health and exercise needs. They believe happy, healthy cows will produce consistent full-flavored raw milk and, in turn, consistent full-flavored, raw-milk cheese, and so they make their cows
their top priority.
But, wait! There’s more! If you’re feeling adventurous, you can visit Marieke’s farm. From June through August, they offer guided tours twice per day, six days a week. You’ll get to visit their milking parlor and cow spa barn, cuddle their calves, and observe the cheesemaking through a viewing window. Then you can follow it up with a Gouda-infused meal at their on-site restaurant, Cafe Dutchess, and/or a visit to their on-farm gift shop where you’ll find all 273 awards on display.
You can find the following Marieke® Gouda varieties at all three of our locations: 2-4 mo. Young Gouda, 6-9 mo. Mature Gouda, Foenegreek Gouda, and Smoked Gouda. East carries an additional four varieties and West an additional 10. Also keep your eyes peeled for Marieke Cheese samplings scheduled for this month! They’ll be East on Friday, March 14 from 10am–1pm; North on Friday, March 14th from 2–5pm; and West on Saturday, March 15 from 10am–1pm.
