Why would cheesemakers be smelly?

Stinky cheeses have largely disappeared from the zeitgeist, but were used to be much more common (see, for example, the Pepe Le Pew cartoon from the 40s where his would-be paramour locks herself in a Limburger cheese factory gaining a stench that puts the amorous skunk in flight).

	▲	tkgally 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		There’s an anecdote in Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (1889) about taking cheese on a train: https://archive.org/details/threemeninboatto00jerorich/page/...
	▲	HarHarVeryFunny 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I just asked AI about this, wondering if the Romans were making stinky Limburger-style cheeses, and apparently not... there is a known roman legal case complaining about the smoke from making smoke-cured cheeses, and one might infer that spoilable byproducts such as whey might not add to the aroma of a cheesemaker!