So Many Bacteria-Laced Milk Products and So Little Time

Warning:  Though proper writing limits the overuse of adverbs, with this post that rule has been officially flushed. Please enjoy.

 

Are you a lover of cheese? If so, what is your favorite, perhaps Bleu Cheese? If this is the case does your allegiance lie with the all American Maytag (a middle of the road cheese strength wise, but tangy and full of flavor); the Danish Bleu, considered mild; or the pungent Roquefort named for the town in France from which it hails? A dusting of Feta turns a salad into a meal fit for me. A creamy Brie spread across a cracker is something to savor.  Gruyère piled high over a perfectly toasted crostini, floating in a bowl of onions soup, and melted until bubbly and brown is something to cherish.

That’s the thing about cheese, or at least one of the things, for there are many. When you name your favorite cheese, you’ll soon find there’s no such thing,  instead you began to compile a list. So let the compilation continue.

Four simple words, “extra sharp cheddar cheese,”…could you possibly say it any better than that? Well, please allow me to answer that question. Can you say Parmesan? I don’t mean the stuff you grew up with shaking from the green can.  I am speaking of the crème de la crème, none other than Parmesan Reggiano! There, are you satisfied because I pretty much said it all… Well, then again maybe not.

Can you even began to utter the word cheese without adding that all-important prefix?  “Macaroni and.”

When I speak of macaroni and cheese I’m not talking about the stuff in the $.25 box with elbow macaroni and a packet containing a suspect orange powder.  I’m speaking of a cream based white sauce infused with fontina, asiago, cheddar and Parmesan cheeses. The sauce is mixed with the perfectly cooked pasta, slightly underdone to allow for the extra time in the oven to bring the dish together; topped with a thin layer of homemade bread crumbs and then baked until bubbly with a light crunchy top layer.

How about a burger with Swiss Cheese and mushrooms or freshly grated Pecorino Romano on those meatballs swimming in marinara? A pizza covered with gooey mozzarella that refuses to disconnect even when a slice is removed from the mother pie. Instead, this cheesy lifeline stretches valiantly in a vain attempt to remain with its siblings. Or that smoky taste of provolone on your favorite sub or the delightful flavor of a melted piece of Havarti toasting in the Panini press?

I suppose I must extend an honorable mention to those individually wrapped slices of processed food we all know as “American cheese.” Even though it cannot be legally sold in the US as cheese but rather “processed cheese” it is still very popular.

I could go on and on and after that go on and on and on, but alas there are too many cheeses to name within the average person’s life span; however, I would be remiss if I did not venture into the dark side of the cheese world.  Yes, I’m talking about the cheese that some love to love, but most love to hate. A cheese that when fully ripe oozes from within its protective rind as a viscous blob of pus ready to consume any and all it happens to touch.  I suppose I could pen a novel entitled, “Knights of the Round Cheese Wheel,” where good King Cheddar and his cohorts, Sir Provolone, Sir Swiss-A-Lot, Sir Roman-O-Had, Sir Pecivere and a host of brave cheese warriors defeat the rhinasious pus dragon.

Alas, I must be true to myself and especially my loyal readers, the heinous glob I speak of is none other than, “Limburger cheese.”

If you’ve never had the good fortune of inhaling this odiferous concoction, it’s not hard to get an idea of the odor the real cheese exudes.  Each day the young blocks of Lindbergh are wiped down with a solution containing the same bacteria that causes our body odor.

If the beginning of this post stimulated your appetite, the ending sure washed it down the gutter.

With that I bid you a fond ado until next week……