Casper Jaggi

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Master Swiss Cheese Maker

Jerry Apps

Ever wondered why Swiss cheese has holes? You’ll find out in this story about a Swiss cheese maker named Casper Jaggi, one of many European immigrants who helped establish Wisconsin’s reputation for delicious cheese.

96 pages, 7 x 9, 57 b&w photos
Paperback: $12.95 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-392-3
Ebook: $9.99 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-522-4
Publication Date: 2/27/2008

Reading Level: Ages 10–14, Grades 5–8

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Description

Casper Jaggi was only six years old when his father taught him how to make cheese in the Swiss Alps. In 1913, Jaggi left Switzerland in search of new opportunities in the United States. Like many other Swiss immigrants, he settled in Green County, Wisconsin, where the rolling hills dotted with grazing cows reminded him of home. And soon, he’d be turning cow’s milk into cheese, just as he did in Switzerland. This book opens the door to Jaggi’s Brodhead Swiss Cheese Factory—the largest factory of its kind in Wisconsin in the 1950s—and shares the history behind Wisconsin’s storied cheese traditions.

Archival photos help illustrate, step-by-step, the process Jaggi and his workers followed to transform 2,000 pounds of milk in a copper kettle into a 200-pound wheel of Swiss cheese. Jaggi was one of the many European immigrants who helped establish Wisconsin’s reputation for delicious cheese. The artisan cheese makers crafting award-winning cheeses today are continuing this rich tradition in America’s Dairyland.

Author Bio

Jerry Apps

Celebrated storyteller and rural historian Jerry Apps was born and raised on a central Wisconsin farm. He was a former county extension agent and professor at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Apps authored more than fifty fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books, including Every Farm Tells a Story: A Tale of Farm Family Values, The Quiet Season: Remembering Country Winters, When the White Pine Was King, and Barns of Wisconsin, all published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.