STORYTIME TAPESTRY

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April 16, 2005

In Pursuit of The Perfect Cheese

Carol Roach

As a child there were several foods I never liked. It was not that I was a fussy eater; it was because I grew up poor and I was not exposed to a large variety of foods. My grandmother made sure I always had a decent meal. She made it as nutritious as she could despite a less than adequate budget.

Up to the age of 9-years-old, the only cheese I knew was Kraft slices. I did not know that other varieties of cheeses existed.

At that time, every Wednesday the family of a friend would have their traditional spaghetti night dinner. They were proud of this dinner. They were also a poor family of Scottish decent. But they raved their spaghetti was authentically Italian.

Wednesday night was open house night and the visitors from the neighbourhood would come to eat their famous Italian spaghetti.

I remember the first night I was invited over for dinner. I was all hyped up. I wanted to bite into that piece of heaven they raved so much about. I can remember my mouth watering in anticipation of what was to come.

I entered the house and I was immediately attacked by the most offensive odour I had ever experienced. The smell was rancid. It was everywhere. It smelled like a thousand pairs of dirty feet!

I practically fell over; I wanted to head for the hills if only I knew where they were. I lived in the city. I never had seen a hill before.

I was seriously considering turning around and going home when my friend's father came by. "So you came for our spaghetti did you? I hope you brought your appetite. There is plenty of food."

He disappeared to some other part of the house, leaving me still standing in the doorway. I asked my friend what the smell was. She seemed surprised that I didn't know. "It's the cheese of course. You can't have Italian spaghetti without lots and lots of cheese."

"That cheese is stinky," I said.

"Of course it is" she answered but it is so good!"

"What else is in that spaghetti?" I asked. It was no spaghetti that I had ever eaten before and I was more than a tad bit skeptical.

"Dad adds pepperoni to the meat sauce. That is his secret for the extra spicy taste. I hope you like it hot because he makes it very, very hot."

I had heard enough, I told her right then and there that I was not going to have any spaghetti.

"I thought you liked spaghetti" she said.

"I do but not that kind," and I turned around and walked straight out the door.

After that I never complained about my grandmother's simple spaghetti with sugar added to the meat sauce to cut the tangy taste.

A few years later, my uncle would order pizza for my grandmother and I to share. I wouldn't touch the stuff, although it didn't smell as bad as that spaghetti did, it didn't smell good and I just knew that I wouldn't like it.

My uncle said to me, ???So you don't want to try it - your loss, all the more for me."

Ordering pizza was a common thing he did when he started to work and was still living with us. I hated the look of all the mish mash on the bread. It was yucky with white gooey cheese. "Who had ever heard of white gooey cheese" I though. Cheese was hard and it was yellow unless of course you made yummy grill cheese sandwiches with the Kraft cheese slices. But that wasn't the same gooey stuff; it was yellow like cheese is supposed to be.

Somehow or other, I felt cheated as I watched the family devouring the pizza and I sat there looking at them, refusing to take a bit. I asked for just the crust of the bread, without any of the gooey mess on it. I couldn't go wrong with bread now could I?

This went on for months. I was content with the upper crust of the bread and everyone made sure they cut off their upper crusts for me. Eventually I decided to be brave and try the whole pizza. My senses had now habituated. The pizza no longer looked or smelled bad. So I tried it.

Guess what? I loved it! I have been a pizza lover ever since. Even the white cheese was delicious, the mozzarella really had no flavour, but it was warm, inviting, and palatable. It descended smoothly down my throat and filled my empty stomach with warmth.

I now had become accustomed to two cheeses; yellow and white. I still thought it was the entire assortment available to anyone though. However, one thing didn't make sense at the time. How was it this mozzarella cheese did not stink as I remembered from that infamous spaghetti of years gone by? It was then that I was told there were indeed many kinds of cheeses. Probably the one that I had smelled and disliked was munster, or limburger. I also found out something amusing on that day as well. There was a cheese with holes in it. It was called Swiss cheese. Wow, I thought isn't that fun!

Years later I grew up when wine and cheese parties were all the rave. I felt so inadequate, ???so uncultured??? when I passed by the cheese table and feasted my eyes on the various assortments. I chose the hard cheddar, white or yellow. I knew I couldn't go wrong. I tried the three flavours, mild, medium and strong. During the first attempts at widening my repertoire of cheeses, the strong cheddar was a little too tangy for my palate but with perseverance I began to like it. As a matter of fact, strong is my preferred cheddar today.

But I was not satisfied, nor were my friends; they encouraged me to sample other cheeses as well. They said my assortment was rather pathetic to say the least. So partially because I did want to experiment, but mostly because I succumbed to the peer pressure, I tried the soft cheese.

Oh my God, I wanted to gag. I couldn't stand that pungent flavour in my mouth. It tasted to me like sour baby food. I couldn??™t wait to spit it into my napkin.

I was not going to try another cheese again. I learned my lesson. You can keep the brie or camembert, I don??™t even know how to spell camembert and frankly I don??™t care. I don't want anything to do with it.

But since I was attending so many of these wine and cheese parties, I found out that there are semi-soft cheeses as well. This was getting to be really complicated. I tried them. They weren't for me, the texture was just not right. Here were cheeses that could not decide if they wanted to be soft or hard, and they just did not tickle my taste buds. I don??™t even know their names; I tried them once, and said, ???no way Jose!??? Now that I think about it, I remember Gouda as being one of them, but who cares I don't like it anyway.

Finally it was my turn to bring the cheese plate. I knew I could not just bring cheddar, I would never hear the end of it. So I went to a cheese shop. Explained to the vendor how I had no clue, and no taste for cheese, but I had to come up with something. The vendor made up a very nice party assortment for me. He highly recommended that I try the herb cheese and the blue cheese. Yes, he said they were soft cheeses, but he felt that I would enjoy them.

At the party I said to myself, I brought it so why not try it. I tried the herb cheese. I loved it, since I loved spicy foods by this time in my life. This piece of herb cheese was exotic and tantalizing. I think I ate most of it that night. I kept going back for more. But the blue cheese, I learned my lesson. Never fill your mouth with a food you have never tasted just because you think it will taste good, more often than not you will be disappointed, your senses assaulted, and your dignity bruised.

Gee, all this talk about cheese has made me hungry for a snack. I think I will raid the refrigerator. I know I have some Philadelphia cream cheese in there. I just love it on bagels or even crackers don't you?

Winterose@videotron.ca