Do you like cheese and if you do how about stinky cheese? I love the smell of cheese, but it's an acquired stinky love, not everybody is keen. Me? I could sniff cheese all day, I'm a cheese sniffer. Come on, say CHEESE - inhale, big breaths.
When I think of the human race's greatest achievements, it isn't really about science or medicine, it isn't the wheel, it isn't language, technology, flying or even going to the moon. Art and literature are both up there, of course, but at the very top of the pinnacle of man's achievement is cheese. Of course, if the moon was actually made from cheese, as all my nursery rhyme books said, it might have been the moon, but it isn't, the moon is just rock and there's hardly a slice of even rubbery foil-wrapped processed to be had on the lunar surface.
I often wonder who invented cheese. What was his name? Was it Mr Cheese do you think? it certainly wasn't Jesse Williams, a dairy farmer from Rome - the New York one and not the Italian - who industrialised the cheese process and doomed America forever to the cheese wilderness - Monterey Jack and Government Cheese indeed, rubber cheeses PAH! The earliest evidence of the cheesemakers art is to found in seven thousand-year-old sieved pottery containers from Poland and Croatia and Switzerland. Forensic tests have shown that cheese was made in these vessels and it seems to have been popping up everywhere all at once, but that doesn't explain why it happened. Why would anyone decide to make cheese (usually a solid or semi-sold) from milk, a liquid and a smelly gooey rancid liquid at that? It's not a simple process this cheesemaking malarky, just try it and see. The Egyptians didn't catch onto cheese until five thousand years later and the Chinese, one of the most inventive of races, has never really caught onto to cheese at all. It seems that cheese is a decidedly European invention.
I often wonder who invented cheese. What was his name? Was it Mr Cheese do you think? it certainly wasn't Jesse Williams, a dairy farmer from Rome - the New York one and not the Italian - who industrialised the cheese process and doomed America forever to the cheese wilderness - Monterey Jack and Government Cheese indeed, rubber cheeses PAH! The earliest evidence of the cheesemakers art is to found in seven thousand-year-old sieved pottery containers from Poland and Croatia and Switzerland. Forensic tests have shown that cheese was made in these vessels and it seems to have been popping up everywhere all at once, but that doesn't explain why it happened. Why would anyone decide to make cheese (usually a solid or semi-sold) from milk, a liquid and a smelly gooey rancid liquid at that? It's not a simple process this cheesemaking malarky, just try it and see. The Egyptians didn't catch onto cheese until five thousand years later and the Chinese, one of the most inventive of races, has never really caught onto to cheese at all. It seems that cheese is a decidedly European invention.
The Swiss make cheeses with holes in, the Dutch make hard cheese covered in wax, the Italians make wonderful cheese for cooking and the extravagantly named and delcious Gorgonzola, the Spanish do great tapas cheese, Greeks, Danes, Luxemburgers, all make cheese of one sort or another, and the Germans are the biggest exporters of cheese on the planet - who'd have guessed! Sausage yes, but cheese! - actually they do make some very nice smoked cheeses if you like that sort of thing but I don't.
Worldwide it's America, Canada, and New Zealand although Saudi is in there too. Camel cheese is strongly stinky and is meant to be quite an experience. It can give you the hump though. I've yet to find a decent American cheese that doesn't look and taste about as good as the plastic wrappers they come in, and as for nacho cheese...sheesh! Over and above that most of the rest of 'world' cheeses are basically imitation Cheddars give or take a curd or two.
No, the real competition for the cheesy crown is between France and Britain. The French have about 1,600 distinct types grouped into eight categories, 'les huit familles de fromage' (as they call them) which for those of you that didn't do French at school is, 'the eight families of cheese' (I'm so bloody educated, no applause please). Britain has more than 700 cheeses, but then we are a small island and much of it is Scotland and Wales - which are more whisky swigging and sheep dipping than cheese chomping. Britain's food is mocked worldwide but our cheese is, without doubt, our biggest culinary contribution. Yes, forget about the Armada, Waterloo, the Empire, and defeating the Germans twice - it's really all about our cheeses and as we all know, blessed are the cheesemakers (cue Jerusalem, or is that jam?).
No, the real competition for the cheesy crown is between France and Britain. The French have about 1,600 distinct types grouped into eight categories, 'les huit familles de fromage' (as they call them) which for those of you that didn't do French at school is, 'the eight families of cheese' (I'm so bloody educated, no applause please). Britain has more than 700 cheeses, but then we are a small island and much of it is Scotland and Wales - which are more whisky swigging and sheep dipping than cheese chomping. Britain's food is mocked worldwide but our cheese is, without doubt, our biggest culinary contribution. Yes, forget about the Armada, Waterloo, the Empire, and defeating the Germans twice - it's really all about our cheeses and as we all know, blessed are the cheesemakers (cue Jerusalem, or is that jam?).
For me, you can forget your Stinking Bishop and flavoured cheeses with apricots, and sage and even whisky, just give me an extra vintage Cheddar with crystallised bits in, a nice overripe Stilton, and the crumbliest of crumbly white Cheshires served with a hunk of crusty bread and some sweet pickled onions. When it comes to French cheese I'll take some Roquefort, Boursin, a little Brie de Meaux and maybe a soupcon of leu d'Auvergne my dear fromager. Just forget that crawling Casu Marzu.
My fridge is always full of cheese, it's what fridges are for. But I do wish I had a nice cool limestone slab in a nice cool cellar pantry. What could be better than a small cheese sanctuary to cleanse the soul and take in the stinky aroma? I love that smell, the rich, deep, slightly farty, socky odour of cheese. So here's a cheesy ode to cheese, let's call it my fr(h)omage to fromology.
O' cheese you gorgeous, tender treat,
There's nothing that I'd rather eat.
Whether strong or mild, you can't be beat.
Your bite, so sharp, I do entreat.
Your texture, soft; your flavour, sweet;
Your lush bouquet of rancid feet -
Sliced thick or thin, with bread or meat,
You are a tender, tasty treat.
O' cheese you gorgeous, tender treat,
There's nothing that I'd rather eat.
Whether strong or mild, you can't be beat.
Your bite, so sharp, I do entreat.
Your texture, soft; your flavour, sweet;
Your lush bouquet of rancid feet -
Sliced thick or thin, with bread or meat,
You are a tender, tasty treat.
Amen.
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