Don't Mess With My Cheese

It's all about the cheese

Something happens to milk when introduced to a little bacteria in a tank that turns it from not so pleasant liquid to an incredible semi-solid. Right back to Miss Muffet's curds and whey, little lumps of deliciousness floating in a sea of cow by-product slowly morphing into cheese. The curds are just fine by me, they squeak on my teeth as I bite into the soft malleable lump followed by a burst of cheese flavor – tough to beat. Here in Arizona one can purchase Wisconsin cheese curds, but sadly they don't travel well, coming off as a pale version of their former selves, no squeak, muted flavor and just not the gems they once were. Fortunately Sprouts carries AZ dairy curds (yes, AZ has a dairy industry). I feel as though I am betraying my old home when eating the AZ curds, but all's fair in love and cheese and if curds aren't addictive, I don't know what is.

The curds that aren't eaten will be pressed and sent into an aging room, where the bacteria, molds, and other nasties will do their work imparting a particular flavor and consistency. Each cheese is aged for a prescribed period of time, though there can be (as far as I am concerned) a point of no return where a perfectly good brick suddenly develops a smell that could knock a buzzard off a gut wagon. Some cheeses are allowed to become runny nasty sweaty gym sock flavored puddles of disgust. This mostly happens in France and there are those who relish the drippy BO flavored delicacy, and they are more than welcome to my share. I gave them a fair shake right from the source, trying several varieties in France and Belgium. Being closer to where they are made does nothing to make them more palatable to me. The only blessing is that there was Gruyere on the plate.

What's this Crap in my Cheese?

Beyond the noisome runny cheeses there is a disturbing trend – someone has been putting crap in my cheese. I first discovered this while trying to purchase cheese form a Beechwood, Wisconsin cheese factory. They had no brick, in fact they had no curds, but they did have a cooler full of cheese with crap in it. There was a brick, with caraway seeds in it – now who decided I wanted seeds in my cheese? There was even a “Chicken Soup” cheese – honestly what does chicken soup have to do with cheese? There were more types of cheese with more types of crap in them as well, a sad day in Wisconsin history as far as I am concerned. The bottom line is that if I want extra stuff in any of my food, I will put it there and certainly won't ruin a good brick with some filthy hippy “artisan” ploy.

Cheese-head to the End

Though residing in Arizona I still firmly believe Cheese is the major food group. Yes, it will bump up one's cholesterol to insane levels, and will never get any respect from the vegetable food group – there are even those who claim cheese exploits cows, but to hell with them all, because I will give up my cheese when they pry it from my cold dead fat induced heart-attack fingers.