This year’s Giant Cheese Sculpture was unveiled Wednesday morning in the Mercantile Building at the Indiana State Fair.
Internationally recognized food artist Nancy Baker and her “Cheese Team” – Janet Lewis, Raini Broken, Dennis Franzen, Frank Brown, Gus “Squash Carver” Smithhisler and Greg Mays – designed a sculpture using more than 1,000 pounds of cheese from Pace Dairy in Crawfordsville, Ind. The sculpture features American Dairy Association Indiana (ADAI) mascot Buttercup slam-dunking a cow-pattered basketball.
Baker is a high school art teacher from the Baltimore, Md., area. She is an accomplished food artist who creates amazing work using all sorts of edible mediums such as pasta, bacon, pies – and cheese. She has appeared on The Food Network’s Halloween Wars, Disney+ Foodtastic, The Kelly Clarkson Show and more – along with carving appearances throughout the country.
Baker her Cheese Team stood in for Sarah “The Cheese Lady” Kaufmann who is unable to attend this year’s fair.
The cheese used in this year’s creation includes 640 pounds of mild or medium cheddar, three 40-pound blocks of white cheddar, and eight 40-pound blocks of yellow cheddar. Following the State Fair, the cheese joins other biological matter from the fair destined for a north central Indiana digester, where it will be churned and turned into green energy.
Did you know?
Here are some interesting facts about Indiana dairy farmers:
- There are 700 dairy farms in Indiana, with 98 percent being family owned.
- Indiana ranks 14th in milk production, and second in ice cream production.
- It takes 10 pounds of milk to make one pound of cheese.