Deep fried cheese curds: the true Green County gold

If you live in or visit Green County, you likely know that there are cheese curds and then there are the Monroe Morning Optimists' Deep Fried Cheese Curds!

Last year a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel online poll regarding where to buy the best deep fried cheese curds  had multiple comments about the Optimists' Deep Fried Cheese Curds. And, for those who tweet, the land of Twitter is a-flutter right now with sweet notes about the phenomenal delicacy.

Earlier this week, Cheese Curd King Jon Rufenacht spared a few minutes to talk with Day Trip Examiner about the ever popular snack that the Optimists have been selling for nearly forty years.

Rufenacht's sidekick, the other Cheese Curd King Bob Reffue was not available for the interview and Rufenacht, who is pretty tight lipped about the Deep Fried Cheese Curd business, would not confirm if it was because Reffue was picking up some liquid, fermented gold to go in the cheese curd batter. It has long been rumored that the secret ingredient in the batter recipe is beer, but when asked Rufenacht would only say, “Now, if I told you that, then it wouldn't be a secret anymore, would it?”

All jesting aside, if you are attending Cheese Days, your visit will not be complete unless you stop by the southeast corner of Monroe's historic courthouse square, wait in line, fork over your $4.00 and enjoy the best deep fried cheese curds in Wisconsin!

Even numbered years are pretty special to deep fried cheese curd lovers since the tasty treats are sold annually in July at the Green County Fair, but on even years the crew rolls out the production again for Cheese Days! As one local teenage boy said, “Any year I can get deep fried cheese curds twice in one year, I'm in!” Day Trip Examiner believes “I'm in” is teen-speak for “it is a good thing!”

Rufenacht says the group has three-thousand-eight-hundred pounds of cheese ordered and if the weather cooperates should sell a minimum of three-thousand-three-hundred pounds of it. The cheese is pretty much the same product as the curd you see bagged and for sale in grocery stores, convenience shops and cheese stores except Rufenacht explains it is blocked into forty pound wedges to cutdown on waste.

Each forty-pound wedge will yield about one-hundred-eighty orders of cheese curds. Doing the rough math, that is roughly sixty-thousand-dollars in sales of deep fried cheese curds over the course of the weekend.

So, just why are the deep fried nuggets of goodness so incredibly popular? Rufenacht has that theory down pat, “Because you can't make them at home. Many have tried and failed. They blow out the batter, the cheese melts and gets all over the bottom of their fryer.”

If you go to Cheese Days and are worried about the calories, let yourself go and enjoy some deep fried cheese curds consoling yourself with the knowledge that you have done a good thing for the Green County area. You are probably wondering why? Well, since all the profits from the Optimists' fundraisers gets donated to groups sponsoring youth activities in the area, this is truly a win-win scenario. You get to enjoy the best deep fried cheese curds around and the youth of Green County get many positive activities.

The Optimists first started making and selling deep fried cheese curds in the 1970s and Rufenacht estimates since then the group has donated almost three-quarters of a million dollars to benefit area youth.

Now, that is certainly reason enough to smile, and say, “Cheese!”