Jarlsberg

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About Jarlsberg
Wikipedia Article About Jarlsberg on Wikipedia

Jarlsberg cheese is a mild, Swiss Emmentaler-style, cow's-milk cheese that has large irregular holes. It comes from Norway and has a yellow-wax rind and a semifirm yellow interior. The texture is buttery rich and the flavor is mild and slightly sweet. It is an all-purpose cheese that is good both for cooking and for eating as a snack.

The history of this cheese can be traced back to the middle 1850s. Its creator was Anders Larsen Bakke (1815-1899), a local farmer/entrepreneur in the Våle village in Vestfold county, some 80 km south of Oslo. Bakke was a pioneer in introducing the dairy industry in Norway, and the cheese was named "Jarlsberg" because "Jarlsberg & Larviks Amt" was the name of the county until 1918, when it was renamed with its old name "Vestfold". The cheese (and Bakke's accomplishments) was first noted in the annual county report of Jarlsberg & Larviks Amt 1855. Production was discontinued in the early 1900s, and the cheese was only re-invented by professor Ola Martin Ystgaard of the Agricultural University of Norway in the late 1950s.