“It’s a rusty place to be. It’s not the greatest. It’s dark.”

There is perhaps no more accurate a way to describe the real estate between my ears these last two months, as I’ve toiled through the evenings in pursuit of the Challerhocker Boy, that chapped, troll-like, perplexingly wrinkled young child on the label of Walter Räss’s stunning Alpine cheese. The mysteries of his existence and the questions of what it must be like in his mind have so consumed me that, last week, I found myself on the receiving end of a phone call from Switzerland, where Walter’s exporter, Konrad Houser, called from to answer my questions. It was Konrad who spoke of the dark, rusty place, only he mentioned it to give context to the cellar where the Challerhocker Boy spends his days. And that was when the animating force behind my curiosity started to become clear, and I began to realize why I have been so singularly focused on learning about this beloved yet terrifying illustrated lad.

Allow me to explain.

In our last installment, I spoke with Glenn Hills, the Columbia Cheese importer of Challerhocker. He offered to put me in touch with Walter. To do so, however, I would first have to speak with Glenn’s counterpart, Konrad. Konrad is an effusively charming individual, with a disposition that seems practically enlightened and a Swiss-German accent that is mellifluous and syrupy. I could listen to Konrad speak for years. He could read the instruction manual for an ice tray or give a real-time account of watching paint dry and it would be enrapturing. So imagine such a voice illuminating the secrets of the very thing that has been gnawing at you for fortnights on end. I was mildly concerned I might explode.

Konrad gave me his personal interpretation of the word Challerhocker, just as Glenn had. Where Glenn had conceived of a Challerhocker as “someone in their parents’ basement playing World of Warcraft,” Konrad spoke of a challer as that rusty place, and of hocker as meaning to “sit on your bum.” And that’s his take on Challerhocker Boy—a child spending his time on his hocks, just sitting down there in the cold, dark cellar. “For some,” he said, “the label has the feeling that the kid has been locked up.”

I know the feeling, I thought. I myself have been figuratively trapped in the labyrinth, the maze, the dark and rusty challer that is the mystery of Boy. And in that moment, it all made sense. My months’ worth of sleepless nights suddenly played out in my mind, like near the end of a movie when the main character finally figures something out, and those seemingly small moments from earlier in the film replay on the screen to illuminate their hidden significance for the audience. I saw myself pent up in my cold apartment, my vegetables wilting in the crisper as I thought of Challerhocker Boy. I saw the intensity of my conviction as I fell asleep with my head on my keyboard each night. I saw Glenn Hills leading me to understand that the boy has an overactive imagination. And I saw myself fabricating a quote from Mr. Hills in which he tells me that I, too, have an overactive imagination. Reader, it was at this moment, the dulcet tones of Konrad Houser’s voice still coming through the telephone, that I understood my preoccupation with Challerhocker Boy. I grinned maniacally. My eyes became startlingly large. It felt so liberating that it was as if I’d just broken through the bricks of the cellar I’d been locked up in to announce to my imaginary fellow Swiss villagers: that look on the face of Challerhocker Boy is one that I recognize as my own. The reason I have been so consumed by this boy is because I see myself in him. In so, so many ways, I am the Challerhocker Boy. And the Challerhocker Boy is me.

With that, my terror of Boy turned to fondness for him, a terrifying fondness, the look of which was etched on my face, just as it is on his. I looked at his image, he looked back at me, both of us looking exactly the same, synergizing, fusing, becoming one. And then I ate a slice of his cheese. There are flavor moments you will remember forever, and this was one of them: the Challerhocker’s remarkable depth, its aromas of cooked custard, its flavors of butterscotch and browned butter and slowly roasted hazelnuts. It was the taste of understanding, and it was extraordinary.

I did ultimately speak to Walter, and he was a consummate gentleman, but by then I already had the answers to the questions I’d initially set out to ask him. I had begun this journey to find out what it must be like inside the head of the Challerhocker Boy, and it lead me to learn that I’ve actually known all along.

Back to Part I

Back to Part III

Welcome back to our continuing investigation into the true nature of Challerhocker Boy, he of alarmingly intense eye contact and smiling-but-in-an-unsettling-way mouthparts. Here’s where we left things: after many sleepless nights and dog-chewed pants legs, we received our first legitimate lead in the case. This came in the form of Columbia Cheese’s Glenn Hills, the US importer of Challerhocker and also, therefore, of the likeness of its terrifying Boy. Glenn agreed to speak with me and provide any help he could. Did he have answers? In short, yes. But that doesn’t solve anything.

Upon first hearing of Glenn Hills, I was taken by his wonderful name. As we all know, glenn is the Gaelic term for a narrow, gently sloping valley, typically one with a romantic run of water moving through it. By virtue of being valleys, glenns converge downward. In other words, they are the direct opposite of hills, which rise and converge upward. How can two such concepts be reconciled within one man? What powers must he have? What other paradoxes might he contain? Suddenly I had many more questions to ask.

“Hello, this is Glenn,” he said when I called him.

“Glenn, are you able to chew on cotton candy before it dissolves?” I asked.

“Excuse me?”

“What is it like? I must know.”

“Oh, right. I get this question a lot. Imagine, if you can, a perfectly medium-rare steak with the flavor of bubble gum. It’s kind of like that.”

“Magnificent,” I whispered.

“I’d also like to note,” Glenn said, “for the record, that this part of the conversation never actually happened and that you are completely fabricating it due to having an overactive imagination within a mind that has difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. Please put that in whatever it is you are writing.”

“We’ll let the readers draw their own conclusions, Glenn,” I said.

Then, upon speaking further, it became clear that Glenn is a fantastically kind and helpful individual, and so thoroughly decent that I would be remiss if I did not myself state that no questions were in fact asked about cotton candy and none of the heretofore conversation took place. I vow to henceforth maintain my journalistic and investigative integrity and not bring in blatantly false or misleading lines of narrative.

Instead, I will tell you what Glenn told me about Challerhocker and the Boy. First, lets discuss the name. Challerhocker does indeed roughly translate to “sitting in the cellar.” Or, if you want to mimic the sound of the name, we can say that it means Cellar Dweller. In that translation, the word can be thought of with a slightly pejorative connotation. “Imagine,” Glenn said (actually, this time), “someone in their parents’ basement playing World of Warcraft. That can be a Challerhocker.”

This, perhaps, is our first inroad into the psyche of Boy. He may indeed be a World of Warcraft gamer, so thoroughly and enthusiastically so that it appears he’s begun to channel the spirit of a troll from within the game. He’s a child whose imagination is active and unboundedly alive.

But how is it that Challerhocker even acquired its name in the first place? According to Glenn, it was but one of the potential candidates that Walter Rass dreamed up for his cheese. In total, he developed fifteen options. Then he took those names to the town architect. The architect liked Challerhocker for a name, and it was he who then conceived of the label. The Boy is an architectural design.

“To them,” Glenn told me, “the boy is just smiling. He’s coming out of the cellar to announce the cheese is ready. End of story.”

But the end of the story is really only the beginning of the mystery. Who is this architect, and why did he draw his Boy to look as though he’s finished feeding on the cheese and is now breaking through a prison wall to hunt for brains? In short, though we now know who created the Challerhocker Boy, the greater question remains: why does he interpret happiness to look like this?

That is the question I put to Glenn, who confessed that he could not say. What he could do, however, is put me in touch with his Swiss counterpart, the man who exports Challerhocker to the United States. So, reader, our investigation continues. Can you smell it? That is the scent of progress. We are on our way. Boy has so fully consumed me that I imagine I’d be having nightmares in which he comes for me. Perhaps one upside of losing so much sleep over this is avoiding such terror. Please stay tuned as we continue charging onward.

Read Part III

Back to Part I

Editor’s note: A few weeks ago, we posted about our recent visit to Consider Bardwell Farm in West Pawlet, Vermont. After our visit, we made our way north to Greensboro, home of Jasper Hill Farm. We were going to do a write up on that too, but a young lady at Jasper Hill asked if we’d post something she wrote. So instead, we will be featuring her as a guest blogger. Her post is below.

Hello.

My name is Maple, and I like you. A lot. Please pet me.

I am, how do you humans say? Ah yes, The Best. And the prettiest. And the humblest too. Also, I am very young. Just six months! It’s so lovely to be young and pretty, isn’t it? It can easily go to your head. At least I’d imagine. I’m too humble for that. Tee hee!

I am the first heifer to be raised at Jasper Hill. It’s a great place to grow up! If you’d allow, I would like to give you a tour of my home.

Great!

This is where I live:

Beautiful, no? I spend most of my time hanging out in the open space between the two barns. Well, it’s much more than just hanging out; I suppose I was being humble again. Really I spend most of my time in that open space studying. I want to learn to make the best cheese possible, and I take my duties very seriously. And I’d probably be much more productive if I didn’t share the space with a pair of frenetic goats. There’s always kidding around. That was a pun. They are teaching me a little how to joke. Ha ha!

Most of my mentors live in the blue barn. My goal is to one day grow up to provide milk as rich and flavorful as theirs. And I tell ya, the folks at Jasper are doing a real good job turning it into incredible cheese. Just look at what’s happening in their caves!

Such wonder in those cellars! That’s Bayley Hazen right when it’s pierced, and then as it’s getting its blue on. And then stacks on stacks of Cabot Clothbound Cheddar. And finally, my pal Joe wrapping green Harbisons in spruce cambium. When you walk into his cellar, there’s soothing folk music bouncing off the walls, with the most pleasing acoustics. I certainly do not take for granted that I get to live at one of the most state-of-the-art, innovative, standard bearing artisanal cheese facilities in the whole country. I’m a real lucky duck. Joking again! As you know, I’m actually a cow.

At the very end of January, some humans from Murray’s came up to visit. They were tasting through all that Cabot Clothbound, selecting the batches that they want to sell. One of the things I’ve learned in my studies is that we here at Jasper actually have four distinct flavor profiles for our Cabot Clothbound. For example, one profile is Umami & Roasted, and it has a spidergraph that looks like this:

You can, in fact, read all about those flavor profiles here.

Murray’s, however, hand-selects their own wheels, not based on our profiles but rather on their own. They look for a deep, caramelized, almost candied sweetness. And they come up to the farm every quarter to do just that. Which is exciting for me, because everyone who visited was so great! Especially the copywriter, who is so cool and fun and has toned muscles.

I’d love to tell you more, but I want to hit the books some more before the sun goes down. Better get a moo’ve on. Ha ha! I had a lot of fun writing this letter to all you fine people and hope to get invited to do another one soon. Thanks for reading!

Curdiously,
Maple