Which came first,t he Cheeseheads or those strange hats that Green Bay Packers fans like to wear? I know that Wisconsin has long been “America’s Dairyland” and is responsible for inflicting us with non-threatening cheese foods. But did the Packers fans get the nickname from the state, or from those silly cheese wedge hats that they wear?
Before the hats apeared on the scene there was a series of T-shirts in Wisconsin featuring “The Cheeseheads”, a family whose heads were wedges of cheddar. But our Friendly Illinois Brethren (or FIB’s) have been calling us Cheeseheads for decades.
My main problem with the Cheesehead hats is, what kind of cheese is that supposed to be? It has holes like swiss, but is cheddar-colored. ( actually I guess it’s really more yellow.)
That has always bothered me, being the stickler for accuracy that I am.
And no I do not own, nor have I have I ever owned, a cheesehead hat.
I proudly own a cheesehead hat. And I think the cheese is what is known as “Tom n Jerry” cheese.
Hmmm… as a former Chicagoan who lived in Wisconsin for several years, I seem to recall FIB as standing for something else… :dubious:
[sub]I’ll be a FIB again this time next year![/sub]
I’m pretty sure that any alternate meaning of FIB is a myth concocted by Chicagoans to make us poor Wisconsinites seem mean.
<sub> SHHHHH! Don’t spill the beans!</sub>
P.S. Welcome back to the Midwest next year, make sure you come up and see us in Illinois’ largest State Park sometime.
So which of you friendly, loveable, wonderful Wisconsinites are going to send me a Cheesehead??? I’ll send you the money and a fedex number if you’ll just send me one! I’m a HUGE Packer Fan (we even have a Packer Tape Measure from Home Depot!!) and when Mr2U and I are at the bar on Sundays, we like to be as obnoxious as possible.
You can buy them online.
D’OH - Thanks Duckster!!
Cheesehead used as a general insult goes back to the teens. Wisconsin-specific cheeseheads came much later.
And cheesehead should never be confused with headcheese, an altogether different sort of entity.
And by “different” I mean alien, bizarre, other-wordly, perhaps satanic.
Mmmmmmmmmm…
Head cheese, aged cheddar, vegemite, and habanero sauce, all on a toasted bagel. I’m in!
Head cheese is nothing more than a tasty meat jelly.
It just looks deadly. So before eating it, just close your eyes with holy dread!
Oh, man. I haven’t had headcheese in many many years. Tasty, ambiguous and oh so disusting to look at. God I love that stuff.
Is headcheese related to scrapple? From what I understand, scrapple is stuff that couldn’t even make it into a hot dog.
How about dickcheese, ever have any of that? 
It’s appalling, isn’t it, that our species would have invented both headcheese and scrapple. You’d think just one of these would have been enough to prove the concept. Just one or the other would have revealed the boundless frontier of Disgusting Edibles, and then all further interest in the field, this highly competitive field apparently, should have fallen instantly. Before reaching the bathroom even.
But no. Having mastered fire, our species had to go an invent napalm. Having grasped the atom, we had to go and invent nuclear bombs. Having discovered music, we had to go and invent Britney Spears. And having tasted pig, we had to go cook up every conceivable combination of pig bits, in every conceivable way. We just can’t stop biting into that forbidden apple of knowledge, over and over and over — exactly how roast pigs are served, come to think of it.
Sorry, I digress. Anyway, to remind ourselves of what headcheese is, we’ll drink a quick swig of vodka and then consult the Pig Processing FAQ. If you already have this site bookmarked, I don’t want to know that side of you. And if you drink some more vodka, you won’t have to remember what you’re about to read:
I’m sorry, I had to stop it right there. I had to go look at a portrait of Cthulu to clear my head. You can read the rest on your own time.
Next up on the menu of horrors, I offer you scrapple:
Hoo-kay. It’s alright. Breathe easy now. Everything’s going to be alright. Those people are far, far away from here. Oooooh, oh God. Oh Mary Mother of Christ. I am not well.
[ … ]
Okay. Better now. Had a lie down. And more vodka. I’m getting my second wind.
To continue. Scrapple and headcheese seem to be very similar. Both eschew the pig’s eyeballs for example, though offhand I can’t understand the sudden finickiness, given everything else that goes in. But headcheese is open to including the ears, in toto, with their “crunchy cartilaginousness”, whereas scrapple seems to reserve the ears only for the marinade. On the other hand, scrapple includes cornmeal, a welcome and hearty vegetable addition to an otherwise all-meat product.
Finally, note that scrapple uses children as an ingredient. Presumably the young, slower ones who can’t run away fast enough. I have to admit this surprised me at first, but it’s not so surprising once you realize that scrapple must have found its original inspiration in some severe famine. People make do with what they have available.
Hope this helps.
:eek:
:curls up into fetal position, begins rocking back and forth, and inserts thumb into mouth:
Cheesehead grandson of a cheesemaker here. The nickname “cheesehead” for Wisconsinites has been around for decades, and the Cheesehead created by Foamation in the late 1980s is simply a product realization of the nickname. I own three of them!