Stand By Your Stand Bleu Mont Dairy

Bored of aimless browsing at Madison's popular farmers markets? In Stand By Your Stand, Decider heads out to find their best and strangest offerings, and tips on how to use them.

The source: Blue Mounds, Wis.
Wares: Small-batch cheeses—many of which are cave-aged—made of raw, organic milk. Varieties include Gouda, Farmstead Kase, Irish Gems, Swiss, Gruyere-style Lil’ Will’s Big Cheese, Havarti, cheddar, blue, and many variations spiked with chipotle, garlic, and herbs.
Best deal: Everything at this stand is sold by the pound, but many of the cheeses are less than $4.
Weirdest item: Bandaged cheddar, 10-pound wheels of cheddar that have been wrapped, as the name suggests, in bandages, then spritzed with a mixture of water and previous rinds before being aged on special spruce boards in Bleu Mont’s cave. The Driftless Select Earth Schmier, a fragrant cheese similar to Limburger, runs a close second.
Serving suggestion: The bandaged cheddar is the one to try if you’ve only had supermarket cheddar, says owner Willi Lehner. It has a clean, buttery taste that’s unlike any other cheddar and goes especially well with bread and fruit.
Find it at: Dane County Winter Farmers’ Market, 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. each Saturday through Apr. 11 at the Madison Senior Center.