Wisconsin and cheese go together like peanut butter and jelly, but it's another snack that's really shaping Ellsworth's standing in the Dairy State.

Cheese curds are made all over our area, right?
So in this Wandering Wisconsin, we go to Pierce County, to find out why the county seat has been named the Cheese Curd Capital of Wisconsin.

In Ellsworth, these bits of cheddar are what apple pie is to America.

"That's our claim to fame," says Jerry DeWolfe. He's the mayor of the town of a little more than 3,000, where the curds outnumber the people by a landslide.

"We like the cheese curd," he says.

And he says the curd has been key in getting the word out about the Pierce County town. He's even taken curds to Washington, D.C. to market this dairy delight.

"Exposure for the cheese curd is exposure for Ellsworth," says the mayor.

And at the end of June, the curd is the word in town, an entire festival is devoted to the little cheese chunks.

Tommy Helmer says it runs June 25 to the 28. Helmer is one of the festival organizers and he's done his homework.

"I have tried just about every cheese curd there is. To the plain, the flavored and the fried, and it's all good," Helmer said.

He says just about every food stand will be selling curds. There's a best curd competition and a curd-eating contest of course, but he says there's one magical moment in your mouth that puts certain curds a cut above the rest.

"The squeak. Gotta have the squeak. If you don't have the squeak then you don't have an Ellsworth cheese curd," says Helmer.

To get the story behind the squeak, we went to the source. The Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery.

"We make 140,000 pounds of cheese a day," says Paul Bauer. He's the C.E.O. and General Manager. He says the secret to the squeak is the "whey" they process it.

"Basically a cheese curd is a nearly finished piece of cheddar cheese and what the last little bit of squeak is, they're trying to get the last bit of whey out. That's what you hear is that whey residing in that curd because it's not mushed together and formed into the shapes commonly associated with cheddar cheese forms, which are bricks, blocks or wheels," he explains.

He says curds can last up to a year in the vacuumed sealed bags… and if your snack gets silent?

"If you heat up a cheese curd you can get a little more squeak out of it," he said.

He says the creamery has been in business for 99 years, but the cheese tide really turned after a special visit in 1984.

"Governor Earl at the time proclaimed Ellsworth as the Cheese Curd Captial of Wisconsin," Bauer adds.

So a political proclamation promoted these pieces of cheddar to big cheese status, but Bauer says it's really a tribute to the community and creamery, where generations of hard-working and dedicated people have taken pride in their product since 1908.

"As it started to increase production, it gained notoriety for its cheese and with the help of its employees and its farmers it started making really good cheese curds. When you've had a good cheese curd it's hard to go back," Bauer adds.

The Ellsworth Co-op Creamery is giving out free samples of its cheese curds during the Cheese Curd Festival on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., that's June 27 and 28. The creamery says it it sells curds nationally and internationally and this summer will send about 100,000 pounds of curds to each state fair in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.

Click here for a link to the Cheese Curd Festival.