Limburger is a soft, surface-ripened cow's-milk cheese famous — or infamous — for its intensely pungent, barnyardy aroma, the work of the bacterium Brevibacterium linens that is washed onto its sticky, orange-brown rind. Beneath that powerful smell lies a smooth, creamy, meaty paste with a flavour milder than the nose suggests, traditionally made in the historic Duchy of Limburg straddling Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.