I have known many cheeses in my life. Some were sweet, some were spicy. Some were stolid and reliable, some were mushy and blue. I can’t say that I have loved all of them, or even enjoyed all of them, but I’ve certainly indulged myself in them.
The first of these affairs began when I didn’t even know what cheese was. We are all cheese-based people, even before we experience a cheese-wakening that enlightens us to who and what we are, in relation to casein. I first knew that cheese would be central to my life when I encountered (en-cheese-countered?) my first block of dense, orange American Cheddar. It came in an enormous rectangular tube and weighed maybe 20 pounds. I was immediately and permanently enthralled. Here was the answer to all hunger and apathy: just slice off a slab of that fatty goodness and the rest of the afternoon disappeared into a haze. I loved it immediately, in a way that I had no words for at the time.
My next caseous revelation was, as I hope it is for everyone, mild, pleasant, entirely forgettable, and best remembered and not re-experienced. It was a Monterery Jack. White, slightly flabby, with some gaping holes in its personality, its main appeal was that it was a) *there* and b) non-threatening. I sliced it over a hamburger, ate it, and immediately realized that Jack and I had no future together and would never need to meet again. I still see him once in a while, showing up on grocery store shelves, reminding me that, yes, this entirely bland option not only remains, but endures in unchanged format forever. I have yet to make a second purchase.
Once you can articulate that cheese is part of your life, most of us want to explore different kinds of cheese. We often discover a lot about ourselves in this period. For instance, perhaps because of my early imprinting, I believed for a long, long time that I was a Cheddar person, through and through. The sharper the better, but, really, never going to stray far beyond that. I dabbled in cheddars of all sorts--Welsh, Irish, English, American (that old standby, once in a while, just for old time’s sake), Vermont, Wisconsin--all the Cheddars. I thought I was being broad and adventurous. I guess I was, within the parameters of Cheddar.
It was only after years of Cheddar, the harder the better, did I discover...my very first blue. It happened almost by accident, although I have come to believe that no cheese is an accident. You manifest the cheese that you want to see in the world. It showed up on another hamburger (are hamburgers the media for cheese expansion in the world?). I didn’t know it would come with a cheese at all, but it did...and it was BLEU!! I held my nose and ate it. I loved it.
Here’s the thing, though. Liking a strong, soft, stinky French Bleu is not really something you can talk about in polite company. People are not comfortable with the realities of cheese, even if they engage in tidy, dainty cheese experiments themselves. They unwrap a Kraft Single once or twice a month, and think that *that* is what cheese is about. When you try to show them that, no, the world of Cheese is so much broader and deeper and more complex and challenging and satisfying that they ever imagine...you get either ringing silence or horrified social exclusion. Most people are far from ready for Roquefort. They can’t even handle Gorgonzola. They blanch at a bite of Stilton.
I’ve learned to ease people gently into the reality that they know a person who “cheeses.” It’s not for everyone. Most folks barely have the fortitude for Feta, much less Fleur de Maquis. I understand that most people don’t want to be challenged by cheese. They prefer to keep their Tillamook Tidbits separate from their feelings. I honor that. But I also keep a well-stocked larder of Labneh and Laguiole. No one else needs to know about it. My cheesiness, though I occasionally choose to share it, is first and foremost, just for me.
Cheese. Mmmmm.
©2020 by Jessie Hanson. All rights reserved.