 CHAPTER I. I remember cheese. In a town in the north of Holland. All the cheese fanciers are out, thumping the cannonball edams and the millstone gooders with their bare red knuckles, plugging in with a hollow steel tool for samples. In Holland, the business of judging a crumb of cheese has been taken with great seriousness for centuries. The abracadabra is comparable to that of the wine taster or tea taster. These edammers have the trained ear of music masters, and merely by knuckle-wrapping can tell down to an air pocket left by a gas bubble just how mature the interior is. The connoisseurs use gingerbread as a mouth freshener and I too that sunny day among the edams kept my gingerbread handy and made my way from one fine cheese to another, trying out generous plugs from the heaped cannonballs that looked like the ammunition dump at Antietam. I remember another market day, this time in Lucerne. All morning I stocked up on good schweizer kaza and better gruyere. For lunch I had cheese salad. All around me the farmers were rolling two hundred pound emmentalers, bigger than ox cartwheels. I sat in a little cafe, absorbing cheese and cheese law in equal quantities. I learned that a prized cheese must be chock full of equal sized eyes. The gas holes produced during fermentation. They must glisten like polished barglass. The cheese itself must be of a light, lemonish yellow. Its flavour must be nut-like. Nuts and Swiss cheese complement each other as subtly as Gorgonzola and a ripe banana. There are, I learned, blind Swiss cheeses as well, but the million-eyed ones are better. But I don't have to hark back to Switzerland and Holland for cheese memories. Here at home we have increasingly taken over the cheeses of all nations, first importing them, then imitating them, from Swiss engardine to what we call genuine sprints. We've naturalised Scandinavian blues and smoked browns and baptised our own Saarland faar in native whiskey. Of fifty popular Italian types we duplicate more than half, some fairly well, others badly. We have our own legitimate offspring too, beginning with the pineapple, supposed to have been first made about 1845 in Lichfield County, Connecticut. We have our own creamy Nerf Chateau, New York Coon, Vermont Sage, the delicious Lederkranz, California Jack, New World and dozens of others, not all quite so original. And true to the American way, we've organised cheese eating. There's an annual cheese week and a cheese month, October. We even boast a mail order cheese of the month club. We haven't yet reached the point of sophistication, however, attained by a Paris cheese club that meets regularly. To qualify for membership, you have to identify two hundred basic cheeses, and you have to do it blindfolded. This is a test I prefer not to submit to, but in my amateur way I have during the past year or two been sharpening my cheese perception with whatever varieties I could encounter around New York. I've run into briny Caucasian Cossack, Corsican Grecotta and exotics like Rarosh Durma, Travnik and Karahi Lala. Cheese hunting is one of the greatest and least competitively crowded of sports. I hope this book may lead others to give it a try. End of Chapter 1 70 years ago, another monstrous cheddar tipped the scales at six tons in the New York State Fair at Syracuse in 1937. Before this, a one thousand pounder was fetched all the way from New Zealand to London to star in the Wembley Exposition of 1924, but compared to the outside Syracusean, it looked like a baby gouda. As a matter of fact, neither England nor any of Hedera in colonies have gone in for memos shops, except Canada, with that four-tonner shown at Toronto. We should mention two historic Kings as Chesters. You can find all about them in Cheddar Gorge, edited by Sir John Squire. The first of them weighed 149 pounds and was the largest made up to the year 1825. It was proudly presented to H.R.H. the Duke of York. Its heft almost tied the 147 pound Green Country Wheel of Wisconsin-Swiss, presented by the makers to President Coolidge in 1928, in appreciation of his rising the protective tariff against genuine Swiss to 50%. While the cheese itself weighed a might under 150 with royal highness, rough belly knee bridges, doft high head and all, was a hundred weight, heavier and thus almost wafted. It was almost a century later that the second record-breaking Chester weighed in at only 200 pounds. Yet it won a gold medal in the Challenge Cup and was presented to the King who graciously accepted it. That was more than Queen Victoria had done, with the bridal gift cheese that dipped the scales at 1,100 pounds. It took a whole day's yield from 780 contented cows and stood a foot and 8 inches high, measuring 9 feet 4 inches around the middle. The assembled donors of the cheese were so proud of it that they asked royal permission to exhibit it on a round of country fairs. The Queen ascended to this ambitious request, perhaps prompted by the exhibition-minded Orbert. The publicity seeking cheese mangas assured her majesty that the gift would be returned to her just as soon as it had been exhibited. But the Queen didn't want it back after it was shown. The donors began to quarrel among themselves about what to do with the remains until finally it got into chancery where so many lost causes ended their days. The cheese was never heard of again. While it is generally true that the bigger the cheese the better, much the same as the magnum bottle of champagne is better than a pint, there is a limit to the obesity of a block, ball or prick, of almost any kinds of cheese. When they pass a certain limit they lack the homogeneity and are not nearly so good as the smaller ones. Today a good magnum size for an exhibition cheddar is 560 pounds for a price provolone 280 pounds, while a Swiss wheel of only 210 will draw crowds to any food shop window. Yet by and large it's the monsters to get into the cheese hall of fame and come down to us in song and story. For example, the four-ton Toronto affair inspired the cheese poet James McIntyre who doubled as the local undertaker. We have tea, memos cheese, lying quietly at your ease, gently fend for evening breeze, thy fair form no flies their seas, all galey dressed soon you'll go to the greatest provincial show to be admired by many a bow in the city of Toronto. May you not receive as car is, you have heard that Mr. Harris intends to send you off as far as the great world show at Paris. Of the youth's beware of these, for some of them might rudely squeeze and bite your cheek then song or gliss, we should not sing queen of cheese. An ode to a 100% American memos was inspired by the ultra-democratic anti-Federalist cheese of Cheshire. This was in the summer of 1801, when the patriotic people of Cheshire, Massachusetts, turned out to mass to concoct the memos cheese on the village green for presentation to their beloved President Jefferson. The unique demonstration occurred spontaneously in jubilant commemoration of the greatest political triumph of a new country in a new country, the victory of the Democrats over the Federalists. This collective making was heralded in the Boston's mercurial New England pallidum September 8, 1801. The memos cheese, an epicolorico ballad. For meadows rich with clover red, a thousand hivers come, the tinkling veils of tidings spread, the milk-made muffles up ahead, and wakes the village hum, and shining pens the snowy flood. So white and canvas-poors, the dying pots of otter-good, and ranient-tinched with meadow-blood are sought among their stores. The quivering chert in penny-ass stowed is loaded on the jade. The stumbling beast supports the load, while trickling vapid hues the road among the dusty clade. As Cairo slaves, to bondage spread, they rid deserts roam, through trekkless sands undaunted dread, the skins of water on their head, to cheer their masters home. So here, full many a sturdy swing, his precious baggage bore, all myses and forgot their gain, and better cripples free of pain, not took the road before. The widow, with her dripping might upon her settled horn, rode up in haste to see the sight, and ate a charity so right, a purpose so forlorn. The circling strong and opening two, upon the verdant grass, to let the vast processions through, to spread the richer past in few, an elder giel pass. An elder gie with lifted eyes amusing posh chastot, invoked a blessing from the skies, so safe from vermin mites and flies, and keep the bounty good. Now mellow strokes the yielding pile, from polished steel receives, and shining nymphs, stand still aval, or mix the mass with salt and oil, with sage and savoury leaves. Then Saxon liked the patriot troupe, the naked arms and crown, embraced with hearty hands the scoop, and felt the vast expanded hoop, while Beatles smacked it down. Next girdings crossed the ponderous beam, with hefty mans throw down. The gushing way from every scene, floats through the streets a rapid stream, and sheds come up the town. This spirited achievement of early democracy is commemorated today to a sign set up at the ancient and honourable town of Cheshire, located between Pittsfield and North Adams on Route 8. Jefferson's speech of thanks to the democratic people of Cheshire brings out in history. I look upon this cheese as a token of fidelity from the very heart of the people of this land to the great cause of equal rights for all men. This popular presentation started a tradition, when when Byron succeeded to the presidency, he received a similar mammoth cheese in token of the highest steam in which he was held, a monstrous one. Bigger than the Jeffersonian was made by the new Englanders to show their loyalty to President Jackson, for weakly stood in state in the hall of the White House. At last the floor was a foot-deep in fragments, remaining after the enthusiastic democrats had eaten their fill. End of Chapter 2, recording by Ellie, August 2009 For which we give thee thanks on bended knees, let them be fat or light, with onions blunt, shallots, brine, pepper, honey, whether scent of sheep or fields is in them, in the yard, let them, good lord, at dawn be beaten hard, and let their edges take on silvery shades, and the moist red hands of dairy-maids, and round and greenish, let them go to town, weighing the shepherd's folding mantle down, whether from Palmer or from Dura Heights, kneaded by Auguste hands of Carmelites, stamped with the might of a proud of S, flowered with the perfume to the grass of Bress, from Hollow Holland, from the vote from Brie, from Rockfort, Gorgonzola, Italy, bless them, good lord, Bestilton's Royal Fair, Red Cheshire, and the tearful Queen Grier, from Jethro Bethel's translation of a poem by M. Thomas Braun. Symphonie des fromages, a giant cantal, seeming to have been chopped open with an axe, stood aside of a golden-hued chester, and a Swiss crier resembling the wheel of a Roman chariot. There were duchy dams, round on blood red, and pour salut, lined up like soldiers on parade. Three breeze, side by side, suggested faces of the moon. Two of them, very dry, were amber-coloured, and full, and the third, in its second quarter, was runny and creamy, with a milky way, which no human barrier seemed able to restrain. And all the while, majestic, Gorgonzola looked down with princely contempt upon the other through the glass of their crystal covers. Emile Zola In 1953, the United States Department of Agriculture published Handbook No. 54, entitled Cheese Varieties and Descriptions, with this comment, that probably are only about 18 distinct types or kinds of natural cheese. All the rest, more than 400 names, are of local origin, usually named after towns or communities. A list of the best-known names applied to each of these distinct varieties or groups is given. Brick, common bear, cheddar, cottage, cream, edam, gouda, hamd, Limburger, neufchâtel, parmesan, provolone, romano, hot four, sapsago, swiss, trappist, whey cheeses, musoust, and ricotta. May we nominate another dozen to form our own cheese hall of fame? We begin our list with a partial roll call of the Big Blues family and end it with members of the monastic order of Porcelut trappist that includes Canadian ochre and our own Kentucky thoroughbred. The blues that are green. Stilton, Hawthor, and Gorgonzola form the triumvirate that rules the world of lesser blues. They are actually green, as green as the mythical cheese the moon is made of. In almost every land where cheese is made, you can sample a handful of lesser blues and imitations of the invincible three and try to classify them until you're blue in their face. The best we can do in this slight summary is to mention a few of the most notable, aside from our own blues of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, and other states that made it in cheese. Danish blues are popular and splendidly made, such as Flour of Denmark. The Argentine competes with a pompous grass blue all its own, but France and England are the leaders in this line, France first, with a sort of triple triumvirate within a triumvirate. Cetmoncel, Gex, and Sassinage, all three made with three milks mixed together, cow, goat, and sheep. Cetmoncel is the leader of these, made in the Dura mountains, and considered by many French cassiophiles to outrank a Rockfall. This cass of blue, or marble cheese, is called fromage peut-seller, as well as fromage bleu and pat bleu. Similar mountain cheeses are made in Auvergne and Aubrac, and have distinct qualities that have brought them fame, such as cantal, bleu d'auvergne guillol, au la guillol, bleu de soleur, and Saint-Flo. Olivier and Kevil come within the colour scheme, and sundry others, such as Champollion, Journiac, Kera, and Saraz. Of English blues there are several celebrities besides Stilton and Cheshire Stilton. Wensley Dale was one in the early days, and still is, together with Blue Dorset, the deepest green of them all, and esoteric blue Vinnie, a choosy cheese not liked by everybody, the favourite of Thomas Hardy. Brie. Sheila Hibbon once wrote in The New Yorker, I can't imagine any difference of opinion about Brie's being the queen of all cheeses, and if there is any such difference I shall certainly ignore it. The very shape of Brie, so un-cheese-like and so charmingly fragile, is exciting. Nine times out of ten a Brie will let you down, will be all caked into layers, which shows it is too young, and at the Auvergne stage, which means it's too old, but when you come on the tenth Brie, croulant to just the right delicate creaminess and the colour of fresh sweet butter, no other cheese can compare with it. The season of Brie, like that of oysters, is simple to remember. Only months within are, beginning with September, which is the best, bar none. Caciocavallo. From Bulgaria to Turkey, the Italian hoarse cheese, as Caciocavallo translates, is as universally popular as it is at home, and in all the little Italy's throughout the rest of the world. Flattering imitations are made and named after it as follows, Bulgaria, Caciocavallo, Greece, Caciocavallo and Caciocavallo, Hungary, Paranita, Romania, Pentele and Caciocavallo, Serbia, Caciocavallo, Syria, Caciocavallo, Transylvania, Caciocavallo as in Romania, Turkey, Caciocavallo, Penia, and Yugoslavia, Caciocavallo. A horse's head printed on the cheese gave rise to its popular name, and to the myth that it is made of mare's milk. It is, however, curded from cow's milk, whole or partly skimmed, and sometimes from water buffalo. Hard, yellow and so buttery that the best of it, which comes from Sorrento, is called cacio burro, butter cheese. Slightly salty, with a spicy tang, it is eaten sliced when young and mild, and used for grating and seasoning when old, not only on the usual Italian pastes, but on sweets. Different from the many grating cheeses made from little balls of curd called grana, caciocavallo is a pasta fileta, or drawn curd product. Because of this, it is sometimes drawn out in long thick threads and braided. It is a cheese for skilled artists to make sculptures with, sometimes horses' heads, again bunches of grapes and other fruits, even as provolone is shaped like apples and pears, and often worked into elaborate baha leaf designs. But ordinarily the horse's head is a plain ten pin in shape, or a squat bottle with a knob on the side by which it has been tied up, two cheeses at a time on opposite sides of a rafter, while being smoked lightly golden and rubbed with olive oil and butter to make it all the more buttery. In Calabria and Cicely, it is very popular, and although the best comes from Sorrento, there is keen competition for mabruzzi, apulian province and molliz. It keeps well and doesn't spoil when shipped overseas. In his little book of cheese, Osbert Burdette recommends the high horsey strength of this smoked caccio over to Macca smoke after dinner. Only monsters smoke at meals, but a monster assured me that Gorgonzola best survives this malpractice. Clearly, some pungency is necessary, and confidence suggests rather caccio, which would survive anything the monster said. Commembert. Commembert is called mold matured, and all that is genuine is labeled syndicat du vrai Commembert. The name in full is syndicat des fabricants du Vertebal Commembert de Normandy, and we agree that this is a most useful association for the defence of one of the best cheeses of France. Its extremely delicate pecans cannot be matched, except perhaps by Brie. Napoleon is said to have named it, and to have kissed the waitress who first served it to him in the tiny town of Commembert, and there a statue stands today in the marketplace to honour Marie-Jarrelle, who made the first Commembert. Commembert is equally good on thin slices of apple, pineapple, pear, French flute, or Pumpernickel. As with Brie and with oysters, Commembert should be eaten only in the almonds, and of these, September is the best. Since Commembert rhymes with beware, if you can't get the vegetable, don't fall for a domestic imitation, or any west German abomination, such as one dressed like a Valentine in a heart-shaped box and labelled Commembert cheese exquisite. They are equally tasteless, chalky with youth, or choking with ammoniacal gas when old and decrepit. Cheddar. The English encyclopedia of practical cookery says, Cheddar cheese is one of the kings of cheese. It is pale coloured, mellow, salvy, and when good resembling a hazelnut in flavour. The cheddar principle pervades the whole cheese-making districts of America, Canada, and New Zealand, but no cheese imported into England can equal the cheddars of Somerset in the west of Scotland. Named for a village near Bristol where farmagers of Hardingfest manufactured it, the best is still called farmhouse cheddar, but in America we have practically none of this. Farmhouse cheddar must be ripened at least nine months to a mellowness, and little of our American cheese gets as much as that. Back in 1695, John Horton wrote that it contended in goodness, if kept from two to five years according to magnitude, with any cheese in England. Today it is called England's second best cheese, second after Stilton of course. In early days a large cheese suffice for a year or two of family feeding according to this old note. A big cheddar can be kept for two years in excellent condition if kept in a cool room and turned over every other day. But in old England some were harder to preserve. In Bath I asked one lady of the larder how she kept cheddar cheese. Her eyes twinkled. We don't keep cheese, we eat it. Cheshire. A Cheshaman sailed into Spain to trade for merchandise, when he arrived from the main a Spaniard him a Spice, who said you English rogue, look here, what fruits and spices fine all land produces twice a year, but has not such in thine. The Cheshaman run to his hold and fetched a Cheshire cheese, and said, look here you dog, behold, we have such fruits as these. Your fruits are ripe but twice a year, as you yourself do say. But such as I present you here, our land brings twice a day. Anonymous. Let us pass on to cheese. We have some glorious cheeses, and far too few people glorying in them. The cheddar of the inn, of the chophouse of the average English home, is a libel on a thing which, when authentic, is worthy of great honour. Cheshire divinely commanded into existences to three parts to proceed, and as to one part to accompany certain tawny ports, and some late-bottle ports, can be a thing for which the British navy ought to fire a salute, on the principle on which Colonel Bryson made his regiments salute, when passing the great Burgundian vineyard. Tea ill well be, in the dinnel. Cheshire is not only the most literary cheese in England, but the oldest. It was already manufactured when Caesar conquered Britain, and tradition is that the Romans built the walled city of Chester to control the district where the precious cheese was made. Chester, on the River Dee, was a stronghold against the Roman invasion. It came to fame with the old Cheshire cheese in Elizabethan times, and waxed great with Samuel Johnson presiding at the Fleet Street Inn, where white Cheshire was served with radishes or watercress or celery when in season, and red Cheshire was served toasted or stewed in a sort of wealth rabbit. The blue variety is called Cheshire Stilton, and Vivian Holland in Cheddar Gorge suggests that it was no doubt a cheese of this sort discovered and filched from the lada of the Queen of Hearts that accounted for the contented grin on the face of the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland, all very English, as recorded in Victor Mersey's couplet. In the Chester Dry and Pink, the long teeth of the English Sink. Edam and Gouda. Edam in Peace and War. They're also coming into the river to Dutchmen. We sent a couple of men on board and brought three Holland cheeses, cost four pence apiece, excellent cheeses. From Peeps Diary, March the 2nd, 1663. Commando Coe of the Montevideo Navy defeated Abral Brown of the Buenos Aires Navy in a naval battle when he used Holland cheese for cannonballs. The Harbinger, Vermont, December the 11th, 1847. The crimson cannonballs of Holland have been heard around the world. Known as Red Balls in England and Cats and Cops, Cats Head in Germany, they differ from Gouda chiefly in the shape. Gouda being round but flat-ish and are chiefly imported as one-pound baby Goudas. Edam, when it is good is very, very good, but when it is bad, it is horrid. Sophisticated ones are sent over already scalloped for the ultimate consumer to add port and there are crocs of Holland cheese potted with Sauterne. Both Edam and Gouda should be well aged to develop full-bodied quality, two years being the accepted standard for Edam. The best Edams result from a perfect combination of breed, black and white Dutch Friesen and feed, the rich pastureage of Friesland and Nord Holland. The Goudas, shaped like English Derby and Belgium Deft and Leiden, come from South Holland. Some especially made for the Jewish trade and called Kosher Gouda. Both Edam and Gouda are eaten at mealtowns thrice daily in Holland. A Dutch breakfast without one or the other on black bread with butter and black coffee would be unthinkable. There are also boomed companions to Plumbread and Dutch Coco. The Clare Edams are those with soft insides. Ementala, Quriaa and Swiss. When the working woman takes her bende lunch it is a piece of Quriaa which for her takes the place of roast, Victor Mosey. Whether an Ementala is eminently Schweitzerheise, Grand Quriaa from France or lesser Swiss of the United States, the shape, size and glisten of the eyes indicate the stage of rightness, skill of making and quality of flavour. They must be uniform, roundish. About the size of a big cherry and, most important of all, must glisten like the eye of a lass in love, dry, but with the suggestion of a tear. Quriaa does not see eye to eye with the big-holed Swiss sawn and cartwheel or American imitation. It has tiny holes in many of them. Let us say it is freckled with pinholes rather than pockmarked. This variety is technically called an istzla, while one without any holes at all is blind. Eyes or holes are also called physicals. Quriaa Trauben, great Quriaa, is aged in Neuchâtel wine in Switzerland, although most Quriaa has been made in France since its introduction there in 1722. The most famous is made in the Euro, and another is called Comte, from its origin in Frange Comte. A blind Ementala was made in Switzerland for export to Italy, where it was hardened in caves to become a grating cheese called Rappé, and now it is largely imitated there. Ementala, in fact, because of its pecan, pecan nut flavour and inimitable quality, is simulated everywhere, even in Switzerland. Besides phonies from Argentina and countries as far off as Finland, we get a flood of imported and domestic swisses of all-serve sorts with all possible faults, from too many holes that make a flubbly wobbly cheese, to too few, cracked, dried up, collapsed, or utterly ruined by moulding inside. So it will pay you to buy only the kind already marked genuine in Switzerland. For there cheese such as saanen takes six years to ripen, improves with age and keeps forever. Cartwheels well over a hundred years old are still kept in cheese cellars, as common in Switzerland as wine cellars are in France, and it is said that the rank of a family is determined by the age and quality of the cheese in its larder. By Robert Carleton-Brown Feta and Cassere The Greeks have a name for it, Feta. The navies call it Greek cheese. Feta is to cheese what Himetos is to honey, the two together make ambrosial manner. Feta is soft and as blinding white as a plate of fresh ricotta smothered with sour cream. The whiteness is preserved by shipping the cheese all the way from Greece in kegs sloshing full of milk, the milk being renewed from time to time. Having been cured in brine, this great sheep milk curled is slightly salty and somewhat sharp, but superbly spicy. When first we tasted it fresh from the keg with salty milk dripping through our fingers, we gave it full marks. This was at the Steikos Brothers Greek import store on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. We then compared Feta with thin wisps of its grown-up brother, Cassere. This grey and greasy, hard and brittle palate tickler of sheep's milk made us bleed from more Feta. Gorgontola, least pretentious of the blues triumvirate, including Gohawk 4 and Stilton, is none the less by common consent, monarch of all other blues from Argentina to Denmark. In England, indeed, many epicures consider Gorgontola greater than Stilton, which is the highest praise any cheese can get there. Like all great cheeses, it has been widely imitated, but never equaled. Imported Gorgontola, when fruity ripe, is still firm but creamy and golden inside with rich green veins running through. Very pungent and highly flavoured, it is eaten sliced or crumbled to flavour salad dressings, like hot four. Ablé creme chantilly, the name Ablé creme chantilly, sounds French, but the cheese is Swedish and actually lives up to the blurb in the imported package. The overall characteristic is indescribable and delightful freshness. This exclusive product of the Walt Gard Creamery was hailed by Sheila Hibbert in the New Yorker of May 6, 1950, as enthusiastic as Brie la Savoie would have greeted a new dish or the planetarium a new star. Endevering to be as restrained as I can, I shall merely suggest that the arrival of creme chantilly is a historic event, and that in reporting on it, I feel something of the responsibility that the contemporaries of Madame Ahel, the famous cheesemaking lady of Normandy, must have felt when they were passing judgment on the first common bear. Miss Hibbert goes on to say that only a fromage à la crème made in Québec had come anywhere near her impression of the new Swedish triumph. She quotes the last word from the makers themselves. This is a very special product that has never been made on this earth before, and speaks of the elusive flavor of mushrooms. Before summing up, the exquisitely textured curd and the unexpectedly fresh flavor combined to make it one of the most subtly enjoyed foods that have come my way in a long time. And so say we, all of us, hand cheese. Hand cheese has this niche in our cheese hall of fame, not because we consider it great, but because it is usually included among the 18 varieties on which the hundreds of others are based. It is named from having been moulded into its final shape by hand. Universally popular with Germanic races, it is too strong for the others. To our mind, hand cheese never had anything that algoya or Limburger hasn't improved upon. It is the only cheese that is commonly melted into steins of beer and drunk instead of eaten. It is usually studded with caraway seeds, the most natural spice for curds. Limburger Limburger has always been popular in America, ever since it was brought over by German-American immigrants, but England never took to it. This is eloquently expressed in the following entry in the English encyclopedia of practical cookery. Limburger cheese is chiefly famous for its pungently offensive odor. It is made from skimmed milk and allowed to partially decompose before pressing. It is very little known in this country, and might be lesser with advantage to consumers. But this is liable. But as soft and sappy, Limburger has brought gustatory pleasure to millions of hardy gastronomes since it came to light in the province of Lutich in Belgium. It has been Americanised for almost a century, and is by now one of the very few cheeses successfully imitated here, chiefly in New York and Wisconsin. Early Wisconsiners will never forget the Limburger Rebellion in Green County when the people rose in protest against the Limburger Caravan that was accustomed to park in the little town of Monroe where it was marketed. They threatened to stage a modern Boston Tea Party and dump the odiferous bricks in the river when five or six wagonloads were left ripening in the sun in front of the town bank. The Limburger was finally stored safely underground. Leverro Leverro has been described as decadent, the very verlain of them all, and Victor Mersey personifies it in a poem dedicated to all the great French cheeses of which we give a free translation. In the dog days in its overflowing dish Leverro gesticulates or weeps like a child. Munster. At the diplomatic banquet one must choose his piece, all his politics, a cheese, and a flag. You annoy the Russians if you take Chester. You irritate the Prussians in choosing Munster, Victor Mersey. Like Limburger, this male cheese, often caraway flavoured, does not fare well in England. Although over here we consider Munster far milder than Limburger, the English writer Eric Weir in When Madame Cooks Will Have None of It. I cannot think why this cheese was not thrown from the aeroplanes during the war to spread panic amongst enemy troops. It would have proved far more efficacious than those nasty deadly gases that kill people permanently. Neuchâtel. If the cream cheese be white, far fairer the hands that made them. Arthur Hughclough. Although originally from Normandy, a Neuchâtel like Limburger was so long ago welcomed to America and made so splendidly at home here that we may consider it our very own. All we have against it is that it is served as a model for too many processed abominations. Parmesan, romana, pecorino, pecorino, romana. Parmesan, when young, soft and slightly crumbly is eaten on bread. But when well aged, let us say up to a century, it becomes rock of Gibraltar of cheeses and really suited for grating. It is easy to believe that the so-called Spanish cheese used as a barricade by Americans in Nicaragua almost a century ago was none other than the almost indestructible grana, as Parmesan is called in Italy. The association between cheese and battling began in BC days with the Jews and Romans who fed cheese to their soldiers not only for its energy value, but as a convenient form of rations, since every army travels on its stomach and can't go faster than its impedimenta. The last notable mention of cheese in war was the name of the monitor, the cheese box on a raft. Romano is not as expensive as Parmesan, although it is as friable, sharp and tangy for flavouring, especially for soups such as onion and minestrone. It is brittle and just off-white when well aged. Although made of sheep's milk, pecorino is classed with both Parmesan and romano. All three are excellently imitated in Argentina. Romano and pecorino romano are interchangeable names for the strong, medium sharp and pecan Parmesan types that sell for considerably less. Most of it is now shipped from Sardinia. There are several different kinds, pecorino dolce, sweet, sardo d'uscano, and pecorino romano cacio, which relates it to cacio cavallo. Kibitz has complained that some of the cheaper types of pecorino are soapy, but fans give it high praise. Gillian F., in her letter from Italy, in Osbert Baudet's delectable little book of cheese, writes, out in the orchard, my companion, I don't remember how, had provided the miracle, a flask of wine, a loaf of bread, and a slab of fresh pecorino cheese. There wasn't any thou for either, but that cheese was paradise, and the flask was emptied and a wood dove, cooing, made you think with the flask's contest, or in a crystal goblet, instead of an enamel cup, one only, and the cheese broken with the fingers, a cheese of cheeses. Pôle de veck. This semi-soft, medium-strong, golden-tinted French classic made since the thirteenth century is definitely a dessert cheese, whose excellence is brought out best by a sound claret, or tawny port. Por salut, C. trappist. Provoloni. Within recent years, Provoloni has taken America by storm, as common bear, a hop-for, Swiss, Limburger, no chateau, and such great ones did long before. But it has not been successfully imitated here, because the original is made of rich water, buffalo milk unattainable in the Americas. With caccio cavallo, this mellow, smoky, flavoursome delight is put up in all sorts of artistic forms, red cellophane apples, pears, bells, a regular zoo of animals, and in all sorts of sizes, up to a monumental hundred-pound barra leaf imported for exhibition purposes by Phil Alput. The hop-for. Au marge, to this fromage. Long hailed as le roi. A hop-for, it has filled books and booklets beyond count. By the miracle of penicillium or hop-forty, a new cheese was made. It is placed historically back around the eighth century when Charlemagne was found picking up the green spots of Persile with the point of his knife, thinking them decay. But the monks of Sangal, who were his hosts, recorded in their annals that when they regaled him with a hop-for, because it was Friday and they had no fish, they also made bold to tell him he was wasting the best part of the cheese. So he tasted again, found the advice excellent, and liked it so well he ordered two cases of it sent every year to his palace at Aix-la-Chapelle. He also suggested that it be cut in half first, to make sure it was well veined with blue, and then bound up with a wooden fastening. Perhaps he hoped the wood would protect the cheeses from mice and rats, for the good monks of Sangal couldn't be expected to send an escort of cats from their chalky caves to guard them, even for Charlemagne. There is no telling how many cats were mustered out in the caves in those early days, but a recent sense has put the number at five hundred. We can readily imagine the head handler in the caves leading a night inspection with a candle, followed by his chief taster, and a regiment of cats. While the Dutch and other makers of cheese also employ cats to patrol the storage caves, hop-for holds the record for number. An interesting point in this connection is that as rats and mice pick only the prime cheeses, a gnawed one is not thrown away, but greatly prized. The name Sapsago is a corruption of Sharpsiger, German for whey cheese. It's a hay cheese, flavoured heavily with mellilot, a kind of clover that's also grown for hay. It comes from Switzerland in a hard, truncated cone wrapped in a piece of paper that says, to be used, grated only, genuine Swiss green cheese, made of skim milk and herbs. To the housewives, do you want to change in your meals? Try the contents of this wrapper. Delicious as spreading mixed with butter, excellent for flavouring eggs, macaroni, spaghetti, potato, soup, etc., can be used in place of any other cheese. Do not take too much, you might spoil the flavour. We put this wrapper among our papers, sealed it tight in an envelope, and to this day, six months later, the centre of Sapsago clings round it still. Stilton, honour for cheeses, literary and munching circles in London are putting quite a lot of thought into a proposed memorial to Stilton cheese. There is a Stilton memorial committee with Sir John Squire at the head, and already the boys are fighting. One side, led by Sir John, is all for a monument. This, presumably, would not be a replica of Stilton itself, although Mr. Epstein could properly hack out a pretty effective G-shaped figure and call it Dolorosa. The monument boosters plan the figure of Mrs. Paulette, who first introduced Stilton to England, possibly a group showing Mrs. Paulette holding a young Stilton by the hand and introducing it while the Stilton curtsies. T. S. Eliot does not think that anyone would look at a monument, but wants to establish a foundation for the preservation of ancient cheeses. The practicability of this plan could depend largely on the site selected for the treasure house and the cost of obtaining a curator who could, or would, give his whole time to the work. Mr. J. A. Simons, who is secretary of the committee, agrees with Mr. Eliot that a simple statue is not the best form. I should like, he says, something irrelevant, gargoyles, perhaps. I think that Mr. Simons has hit on something there. I would suggest, if we Americans can pitch into this great movement, some gargoyles designed by Mr. Rube Goldberg. If the memorial could be devised so as to take on an international scope, an exchange fellowship might be established between England and America although the exchange, in the case of Stilton, would have to be all on England's side. We might be allowed to finish the money, however, while England finishes the cheese. There is a very good precedent for such a bargain between the two countries. Robert Benchley in After 1903, what? When all seems lost in England, there is still Stilton, an endless after-dinner conversation piece to which England points with pride. For a sound appreciation of this cheese, see Clifton Faderman's introduction to this book. Talagio and Bel Paese When the great Italian cheese maker, Galbini, first exported Bel Paese some years ago, it was an eloquent ambassador to America. But, as the years went on and imitations were made in many lands, Galbini did it wise to set up his own factory in our beautiful country. However, the domestic Bel Paese and a minute one powder called Bel Paesino just didn't have that old alpine zest. They were no better than the German copy, called Schoenland, after the original, or the French Fleur des Alpes. Melfino was a blend of Bel Paese and Gorgontola. It perked up the market for a full fruity cheese with a snap. Then, Galbini hit the jackpot with his Talagio, that filled the need for the sharpest, most sophisticated pungents of them all. Trappist, Porsaloo, or Pardousaloo, and Oka. In spite of its name, Trappist is no rat trap commoner. Always of the elect, and better known as Porsaloo, or Pardousaloo, from the original home of the Trappist monks in their chief French Abbey, it is also set apart from the ordinary Canadians under the name of Oka, from the Trappist monastery there. It is made by Trappist monks all over the world, according to the original secret formula, and by Trappist's Cistercian monks of the Abbey of Gethsemaneau Trappist in Kentucky. This is a soft cheese, creamy and of superb flavour. You can't go wrong if you look for the monastery name stamped on, such as Arsé in Belgium, Mondica in Flanders, Saint Andorre in Brittany, and so forth. Last but not least, a commercial Porsaloo, entirely without benefit of clergy or monastery, is made in Milwaukee, under the Lion Brand. It is one of the finest American cheeses in which we have ever sunk a fan. End of chapter 3 part 2. Chapter 4 of The Complete Book of Cheese This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Caroline Shapiro. The Complete Book of Cheese by Robert Carlton Brown Chapter 4 Native Americans American Chetters The first American cheddar was made soon after 1620, around Plymouth, by pilgrim fathers who brought along not only cheese from the homeland, but a live cow to continue the supply. Proof of our ability to manufacture cheddar of our own lies in the fact that by 1790 we were exporting it back to England. It was called cheddar after the English original, named for the village of Cheddar near Bristol. More than a century ago it made a new name for itself, Herkimer County Cheese, from the section of New York State where it was first made best. Herkimer still equals at several distinguished competitors, Coon, Colorado Blackie, California Jack, Pineapple, Sage, Vermont Colby, and Wisconsin Longhorn. The English called our imitation Yankee or American Cheddar, while here at home it was popularly known as yellow or store cheese from its prominent position in every country's store. Also apple pie cheese because of its affinity for the all American dessert. The first Cheddar factory was founded by Jesse Williams in Rome, New York, just over a century ago, and with Herkimer County Cheddar already widely known, this established New York as the preferred store-bottom cheese. An account of New York's cheese business in the pioneer wooden nutmeg era is found in Ernest Elmo-Kalken's interesting book, They Broke the Prairies. A Yankee named Sylvainas Ferris, the most successful dairyman of Herkimer County, in the first decades of the 1800s teamed up with Robert Nesbit, the old Quaker cheese buyer. They bought from farmers in the region and sold in New York City. And according to the business ethics of the times, Nesbit went ahead to cheapen the cheese offered by deprecating its quality, hinting at a bad market, and departing without buying. Later when Ferris arrived in a more optimistic mood, offering a slightly better price, the seller, unaware they were partners, and ignorant of the market price, snapped up the offer. Similar sharp trade tactics put too much green cheese on the market, so those honestly aid from a minimum of eight months up to two years fetched higher prices. They were called Old, such as Old Herkimer, Old Wisconsin Longhorn, and Old California Jack. Although the established Cheddar Ages are three, fresh, medium-cured, and curator-aged, commercially they are divided into two and described as mild and sharp. The most popular are named for their states, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Two New York Staters are called and named separately, Coon and Herkimer County. Tillamook goes by its own name with no mention of Oregon. Pineapple, Monterey Jack, and Sage are seldom listed as Cheddars at all, although they are basically that. Brick. Brick is the one and only cheese for which the whole world gives America credit. Runners-up are Lederkrans, which rivals say is too close to Limburger, and Pineapple, which is only a Cheddar under its criss-cross painted and flavored rind. Yet Brick is no more distinguished than either of the 100% Americans, and in our opinion is less worth bragging about. It is a medium firm, mild, strong slicing cheese for sandwiches and melting in hot dishes. Its texture is elastic, but not rubbery. Its taste is sweetish, and it is full of little round holes or eyes. All this has inspired enthusiasts to liken it to Emmentaler. The most appropriate name for it has long been Married Man's Limburger. To make up for the mildness, caraway seed is sometimes added. About Civil War time, John Jossi, a dairyman of Dodge County, Wisconsin, came up with this novelty, a rennet cheese made of whole cow's milk. The curd is cut like Cheddar, heated, stirred, and cooked firm, to put in a brick-shaped box without a bottom, and with slits in the sides to drain. When this is set on the draining table, a couple of bricks are also laid on the cooked curd for pressure. It is this double use of bricks for shaping and for pressing that has led to the confusion about which came first in originating the name. The formed bricks of cheese are rubbed with salt for three days, and they ripen slowly, taking up to two months. We eat several million pounds a year, and 95% of that comes from Wisconsin, with a trickle from New York. Colorado Blackie Cheese A subtly different American Cheddar is putting Colorado on our cheese map. It is called Blackie from the black waxed rind, and it resembles Vermont State Cheese, although it is flatter. This is a proud new American product, proving that although Papa Cheddar was born in England, his American kinfolk have developed independent and valuable characters all on their own. Coon Cheese Coon Cheese is full of flavor from being aged on shelves at a higher temperature than cold storage. Its rind is darker from the growth of mold, and this shade is sometimes painted on more ordinary cheddars to make them look like Coon, which always brings a 10% premium above the general run. Made at Lowellville, New York, it has received high praise from a host of admirers, among them the French cook Clementine in Phineas Beck's kitchen, who raised it to the power of French immortals by calling it fromage de Coon. Clementine used it with scintillating success in countless French recipes, which ended with the words gratinée à fleurs et sous-vêtres choux. She made baguettes of it by soaking sticks three-eighths inch square and one-and-a-half inches long in lukewarm milk, rolling them in flour-beaten egg and breadcrumbs, and browning them instantaneously in boiling oil. Herkimer County Cheese The standard method for making American Cheddar was established in Herkimer County, New York in 1841, and has been rigidly maintained down to this day. Made with rennet and a bacterial starter, the curd is cut and pressed to squeeze out all of the whey, and then aged in cylindrical forms for a year or more. Herkimer leads the whole breed by being flaky, brittle, sharp, and nutty, with a crumb that will crumble in a soft, mouth-watering pale orange color when it is properly aged. Isigny Isigny is a Native American cheese that came from a cropper. It seems to be extinct now, and perhaps that is all to the good, for it never meant to be anything more than another camembert, of which we have plenty of imitation. Not long after the Civil War the attempt was made to perfect Isigny. The curd was carefully prepared according to an original formula, washed and rubbed, and set aside to come of age. But when it did, alas, it was more like Limburger than Camembert, and since good domestic Limburger was then a dime a pound, obviously it wouldn't pay off. Yet in shape the newborn resembled Camembert, although it was much larger. So they cut it down and named it after the delicate French crumb Isigny. Jack, California Jack, and Monterey Jack. Jack was first known as Monterey cheese from the California County where it originated. Then it was called Jack for short, and only now takes its full name after 60 years of popularity on the west coast. Because it is little known in the east and has to be shipped so far, it commands the top cheddar price. Monterey Jack is a stirred curd cheddar without any annatto coloring. It is sweeter than most and milder when young, but it gets sharper with age and more expensive because of storage costs. Liederkrantz No Native American cheese has been so widely ballyhoed and so deservedly as Liederkrantz, which translates wreath of song. Back in the gay inventive nineties, M.L. Frey, a young delicatessen keeper in New York, tried to please some bereft customers by making an imitation of Bismarck Schlosskazza. This was imperative because the imported German cheese didn't stand up during the long sea trip, and M.L.'s customers, mostly members of the famous Liederkrantz singing society, didn't feel like singing without it. But M.L.'s attempts at imitation only added indigestion to their dejection, until one day, Fabelhoft, one of those cheese dream castles in Spain, came true. He turned out a tawny, altogether golden, tangy and mellow little marvel that actually was an improvement on Bismarck's old Schlosskazza. Better than brick, it was a deodorized Limburger, both a man's cheese and one that cheese-conscious women adored. M.L. named it wreath of song for the Liederkrantz customers. It soon became as internationally known as Tabasco from Texas or Parisian Camembert, which it slightly resembles. Borden spot out Frey in 1929, and they enjoyed telling the story of a GI who, to celebrate V.E. Day in Paris, sent to his family in Indiana only a few miles from the factory at Van Wert, Ohio, a whole case of what he had learned was the finest cheese France could make. And when the family opened it, there was Liederkrantz. Another deserved distinction is that of being sandwiched in between two foreign immortals in the following recipe. Schnitzelbank Pot One ripe Camembert cheese One Liederkrantz One eighth of a pound imported Rokeford One fourth of a pound butter One tablespoon flour One cup cream Half a cup finely-chopped olives One fourth of a cup canned Pimento A sprinkling of Cayenne Depending on whether or not you like the edible rind of Camembert and Liederkrantz, you can leave it on, scrape any thick part off, or remove it all. Mash the soft creams together with the Rokeford, butter and flour, using a silver fork. Put the mix into an enameled pan for anything with a metal surface will turn the cheese black in cooking. Stir in the cream and keep stirring until you have a smooth, creamy sauce. Strain through sieve or cheesecloth and mix in the olives and Pimento thoroughly. Sprinkle well with Cayenne and put into a pot to mellow for a few days or much longer. The name Schnitzelbank comes from Schoolbench, a game. This snappy sweet pot is specially suited to a beer party and Stein songs. It is also the affinity spread with rye and pumpernickel and may be served in small sandwiches or on crackers, celery and such to make appetizing tidbits for cocktails, tea or cider. Like the trinity of cheeses that make it, the mixture is eaten best at room temperature when its flavor is fullest. If kept in the refrigerator, it should be taken out a couple of hours before serving. Since it is a natural cheese mixture which has gone through no process or doping with preservative, it will not keep more than two weeks. This mellow sharp mix is the sort of ideal the factory processors shoot at with their olive pimento abominations. Once you've potted your own, you'll find it gives the same thrill as garnishing your own lip tower. Minnesota Blue The discovery of sandstone caves in the bluffs along the Mississippi, in and near the Twin Cities of Minnesota, has established a distinctive type of blue cheese named for the state. Although the rocfort process of France is followed and the cheese is inoculated in the same way by mold from bread, it can never equal the genuine imported, marked with its red sheep brand, because the milk used in Minnesota Blue is cow's milk and the caves are sandstone instead of limestone. Yet this is an excellent blue cheese in its own right. Pineapple Pineapple cheese is named after its shape rather than its flavor, although there are rumors that some pineapple flavor is noticeable near the oiled rind. This flavor does not penetrate through to the cheddar center. Many makers of processed cheese have tampered with the original, so today you can't be sure of anything except getting a smaller size every year or two at a higher price. Originally six pounds, the pineapple is shrunk to nearly six ounces. The proper bright orange oiled in shellac surface is more apt to be a sickly lemon. Always an ornamental cheese, it once stood in state on the sideboard under a silver bell also made to resemble a pineapple. You cut a top slice off the cheese, just as you would off the fruit, and there was a rose colored, fine tasting, mellow hard cheese to spoon out with a special silver cheese spoon or scoop. Between meals the silver top was put on the silver holder, and the oiled and shellac rind kept the cheese moist. Even when the pineapple was eaten down to the rind, the shell served as a dunking bowl to fill with some salubrious cold fondue or salad. Made in the same manner as cheddar with the curd cooked harder, pineapple's distinction lies in being hung in a net that makes diamond-shaped corrugations on the surface, simulating the sections of the fruit. It is a pioneer American product with almost a century and a half of service since Louis M. Norton conceived it in 1808 in Litchfield County, Connecticut. There in 1845 he built a factory and made a deserved fortune out of his decorative ingenuity with what before had been a plain, unromantic yellow or store cheese. Perhaps his inspiration came from cone-shaped Cheshire in Old England, also called pineapple cheese, combined with the hanging up of provolones in Italy that leaves the looser pattern of the four sustaining strings. Sage, Vermont Sage, and Vermont State. The story of sage cheese, or green cheese as it was called originally, shows the several phases most cheeses have gone through from their simple, honest beginnings to commercialization and sometimes back to the real thing. The English Encyclopedia of Practical Cookery has an early sage recipe. This is a species of cream cheese made by adding sage leaves and greening to the milk. A very good receipt for it is given thus. Brews the tops of fresh young red sage leaves with an equal quantity of spinach leaves and squeeze out the juice. Add this to the extractive rennet and stir into the milk as much as your taste may deem sufficient. Break the curd when it comes, salt it, fill the vat high with it, press for a few hours, and then turn the cheese every day. Fancy cheese in America, late Charles A. Pueblo, records the commercialization of the cheese mentioned above, a century or two later, in 1910. Sage cheese is another modified form of the cheddar variety. Its distinguishing features are a modeled green color and a sage flavor. The usual method of manufacture is as follows. One third of the total amount of milk is placed in a vat by itself and colored green by the addition of 8 to 12 ounces of commercial sage color to each 1,000 pounds of milk. If green corn leaves unavailable in England or other substances are used for coloring, the amounts will vary accordingly. The milk is then made up by the regular cheddar method, as is also the remaining two thirds in a separate vat. At the time of removing the whey, the green and white curds are mixed. Some prefer, however, to mix the curds at the time of milling, as a more distinct color is secured. After milling, the sage extract flavoring is sprayed over the curd with an atomizer. The curd is then salted and pressed into the regular cheddar shapes and sizes. A very satisfactory sage cheese is made at the New York State College of Agriculture, by simply dropping green coloring made from the leaves of corn and spinach upon the curd after milling. An even green modeling is thus easily secured without additional labor. Sage flavoring extract is sprayed over the curd by an atomizer. One half ounce of flavoring is usually sufficient for 100 pounds of curd and can be secured from dairy supply houses. A modern cheese authority reported on the current 1953 method. Instead of sage leaves or tea prepared from them, at present the cheese is flavored with oil of Dalmatian wild sage because it has the sharpest flavor. This piney oil, thujone, is diluted with water, 250 parts to one, and either added to the milk or sprayed over the curds, one eighth ounce for 500 quarts of milk. In scouting around for a possible maker of the real thing today, we wrote to Vrest Orton of Vermont and got this reply. Sage cheese is one of the really indigenous and best native Vermont products. So far as I know there is only one factory making it and that is my friend George Crowley's. He makes a limited amount for my Vermont country store. It is the fine old time full cream cheese flavored with real sage. On this hangs a tale. Some years ago I couldn't get enough sage cheese, we never can, so I asked a Wisconsin cheese maker if he would make some. Said he would but couldn't at that time because the alfalfa wasn't ripe. I said what in hell has alfalfa got to do with sage cheese? He said well we flavor the sage cheese with a synthetic sage flavor and then throw in some pieces of chopped up alfalfa to make it look green. So I said to hell with that and the next time I saw George Crowley I told him the story and George said we don't use synthetic flavor alfalfa or anything like that. Then what do you use George? I inquired. We use real sage. Why? Well because it's cheaper than that synthetic stuff. The genuine Vermont sage arrived. Here are notes on it. Oh wilderness we're paradising now. My taste buds come to full flower with the sage. There's a slight burn savor recalling smoke cheese although not related in any way. Mildly resinous like that near east one packed in pine suggesting the well sage dressing of a turkey. A round mouthful of luscious mellowness with a bouquet, a snapping reminder to the nose. And there's just a soup sawn of pneumone hay above the green freckles of herb to delight the eye and set the fancy free. So this is the veritab vea, green cheese. The moon is made of it. Ver veritab. A general favor with everybody who ever tasted it for generations of lusty crumblers. Old fashioned Vermont state store cheese. We received from savant rest orton another letter together with some Vermont store cheese and some crackers. This cheese is our regular old fashioned store cheese. It's been in all country stores for generations and we have been pioneers in spreading the word about it. It is of course a natural aged cheese, no processing, no fussing, no fooling with it. It's made the same way it was back in 1870 by the old time Colby method which makes a cheese which is not so dry as cheddar and also as holds in it something like Swiss. Also it ages faster. Did you know that during the last part of the 19th century and part of the 20th Vermont was the leading cheese making state in the union? When I was allowed every town in Vermont had one or more cheese factories. Now there are only two left, not counting any that make process. Process isn't cheese. The crackers are the old time store cracker. Every Vermont are used to buy a big barrel once a year to sit in the buttery and eat. A classic dish is crackers broken up in a bowl of cold milk with a hunk of Vermont cheese like this on the side. Grand snack, grand midnight supper, grand anything. These crackers are not sweet, not salt and as such make a good base for anything. Swell with clam chowder also with toasted cheese. Tillamook. It takes two pocket size but thick yellow volumes to record the story of Oregon's great Tillamook. The Cheddar Box by Dean Collins comes neatly boxed and bound in golden cloth stamped with a purple title like the rind of a real Tillamook. Volume one is entitled Cheese Cheddar and volume two is a two pound cheddar cheese labeled Tillamook and molded to fit inside its book jacket. We borrow volume one from a noted literature and never could get him to come across with volume two. We guessed its fate however from a note on the flyleaf of the only tome available. This is an excellent cheese, full cream and medium sharp and a unique set of books in which volume two suggest bacons. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested. Wisconsin Longhorn. Since we began this chapter with all American Chetters it is only fitting to end with Wisconsin Longhorn a sort of national standard even though it's not nearly so fancy or high priced at some of the regional natives that can't approach its enormous output. It's one of those all-purpose round cheeses that even taste round in your mouth. We are specially partial to it. Most Chetters are named after their states. Yet putting all of these 37 states together they produce only about half as much as Wisconsin alone. Besides Longhorn in Wisconsin there are a dozen regional competitors ranging from white twin cheddar to which no annatto coloring has been added through Green Bay cheese to Wisconsin Redskin and Martha Washington Age proudly set forth by Ph Casper of Bear Creek who said they have won more prizes in 40 years than any 10 cheese makers put together. To help guarantee a market for all this excellent apple pie cheese, the Wisconsin State Legislature made a law about it recognizing the truth of Eugene Field's jingle. Apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze. Small matter in the Badger State where the affinity is made legal and the couple lawfully wedded in statute number 160065. It's still in force. Butter and cheese to be served. Every person, firm, or corporation duly licensed to operate a hotel or restaurant shall serve with each meal for which a charge of 25 cents or more is made at least two-thirds of an ounce of Wisconsin butter and two-thirds of an ounce of Wisconsin cheese. Besides Longhorn, Wisconsin leads in Limburger. It produces so much Swiss that the state is sometimes called Wisconsin. The Complete Book of Cheese by Robert Carlton Brown Chapter 5 Part 1 65 Sizzling Rabbits That nice little smoke room at the salutation, which is even now continually presenting itself to my recollection, with all its associated train of pipes, egg hot, Welsh rabbits, metaphysics, and poetry. Charles Lamb in a Letter to Coleridge Unlike the beginning of the classical jugged hair recipe, first catch your hair. We modern rabbit hunters start off with first catch your cheddar. And some of us go so far as to smuggle in formally forbidden fromages such as guillere, nufchatelle, parmesan, and mixtures thereof. We run the gamut of personal preferences in selecting the rabbit cheese itself, from old-time American, yellow, or store cheese to Coon and Canadian smoked, though all of it is still cheddar, no matter how you slice it. Then, too, guests are made to run the gauntlet of all American trimmings from pin-money pickles to peanut butter, succotash, and maybe marshmallows. We add mustard, chill, curry, Tabasco, and sundry bottled red devils from the grocery store to add pep and pecans to the traditional cayenne and black pepper. This results in rabbits that are out of focus, out of order, and out of this world. Among modern sense of omission, the Worcestershire sauce is left out by braggarts, who aver that they can take it or leave it. And in these degenerate days, when it comes to substitutions for the original beer, or stale, pale ale, we find the gradings of great cheddars wet down with mere California sherry, or even ginger ale. Yet, so far, thank goodness, no coaks. And there's tomato juice out of a can into the rum turned tidy, and sometimes celery soup, in place of milk or cream. In view of all this, we can only look to the standard cookbooks for salvation. These are mostly compiled by women, our thoughtful mothers, wives, and sweethearts who have saved the twin basic rabbits for us. If it weren't for these fanny farmers, the making of a real aboriginal Welsh rabbit would be a lost art, lost in sporting male attempts to improve upon the original. The girls are still polite about the whole thing, and protectively pervert the original spelling of rabbit to rare bit in their culinary guides. We have heard that once a club of ladies in high society tried to high pressure the publishers of Mr. Webster's dictionary to change the old spelling in their favor. Yet, there is a lot to be said for this more gentile and appetizing rendering of the word for the Welsh masterpiece is, after all, a very rare bit of cheese mongery, male or female. Yet, in dealing with rare bits, the diss staff side seldom sets down more than the basic Adam and Eve in a whole paradise of rabbits. Number one, the wild male type made with beer, and number two, the mild female made with milk. Yet now that the chafing dish has come back to stay, there's a flurry in the rabbit whore and the new cooking encyclopedias give up to a dozen variants. Actually, there are easily half a gross of valid ones in current esteem. The two basic recipes are differentiated by the liquid ingredient, but both the beer and the milk are used only one way, warm, or anyway at room temperature. And again for the two, there is but one traditional cheese, cheddar, ripe, old or merely aged from six months onward. This is also called American store, sharp, rabbit, yellow, beer, Wisconsin longhorn, mouse, and even rat. The seasoned sapid cheddar type, so indispensable, includes dozens of varieties under different names, regional or commercial. These are easily identified as sisters under the rinds by all five senses. Sight, golden yellow and mellow to the eye. It's one of those round cheeses that also taste round in the mouth. Hearing by thumping, a cheese fancier like a melon picker can tell if a cheddar is rich, ripe and ready for the rabbit. When you hear your dealer say, it's six months old or more, enough said. Smell, ascent as fresh as that of the daisies and herbs the mother milk cow munched, will hang round it still. Also a slight berry saver. Touch, crumbly, a caress to the fingers. Taste, the quintessence of this five-fold test. Just cuddle a crumb with your tongue, and if it tickles the taste buds, it's prime. When it melts in your mouth, that's proof it will melt in the pan. Beyond all this, and in spite of the school that plumps for the number two temperance alternative, we must point out that beer has a special affinity for cheddar. The French have clearly established this in their names for Welsh rabbit, fromage fondue à la bière, and fondue à l'anglaise. To prepare such a cheese for the pan, each rabbit hound may have a preference, all his own, for here the question comes up of how it melts best. Do you shave, slice, dice, shred, mince, chop, cut, scrape, or crumble it in the fingers. This will vary according to one's temperament and the condition of the cheese. Generally for best results, it is coarsely graded. When it comes to making all this into a rare bit of rabbit, there is the one and only method. Use a double boiler, or preferably a chafing dish, avoiding aluminum and other soft metals. Heat the upper pan by simmering water in the lower one, but don't let the water boil up, or touch the top pan. Most but not all rabbits are begun by heating a bit of butter or margarine in the pan in which one cup of roughly grated cheese, usually sharp cheddar, is melted and mixed with one half cup of liquid added gradually. The butter isn't necessary for a cheese that should melt by itself. The two principal ingredients are melted smoothly together and kept from curdling by stirring steadily in one direction only over an even heat. The spoon used should be made of hard wood, sterling silver, or porcelain. Never use tin, aluminum, or soft metal. The taste may come off to taint the job. Be sure the liquid is at room temperature or warmer, and add it gradually without interrupting the stirring. Do not let it come to the bubbling point, and never let it boil. Add seasonings only when the cheese is melted, which will take two or three minutes. Then continue to stir in the same direction without an instance let up for maybe ten minutes more until the rabbit is smooth. The consistency and velvety smoothness depend a good deal on whether or not an egg or a beaten yolk is added. The hotter the rabbit is served, the better. You can sizzle the top with a salamander or other branding iron, but in any case set it forth as nearly sizzling as possible on toast, hellishly hot, whether it's browned or buttered on one side or both. Give a thought to the sad case of the little dog whose name was Rover, and when he was dead he was dead all over. Something very similar happens with a rabbit that's allowed to cool down. When it's cold it's cold all over, and you can't resuscitate it by heating. Basic Welsh Rabbit. Number one with beer. Two tablespoons butter, three cups grated old cheddar, one half teaspoon English dry mustard, one half teaspoon salt, a dash of cayenne, one teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, two egg yolks, lightly beaten with one half cup like beer or ale, four slices hot buttered toast. Over boiling water melt butter and cheese together stirring steadily with a wooden or other tasteless spoon in one direction only. Add seasonings and do not interrupt your rhythmic stirring as you pour in a bit at a time of the beer and egg mixture until it's all used up. It may take many minutes of constant stirring to achieve the essential creamy thickness and then some more to slick it out as smooth as velvet. Keep it piping hot but don't let it bubble for a boiled rabbit is a spoiled rabbit. Only unremitting stirring and the best of cheese will keep it from curdling getting stringy or rubbery. Pour the rabbit generously over crisp, freshly buttered toast and serve instantly on hot plates. Usually crusts are cut off the bread before toasting and some esthetes toast one side only spreading the toasted side with cold butter for taste contrast. Lay the toast on the hot plate buttered side down and pour the rabbit over the porous un-toasted side so it can soak in. This is recommended in Lady John Auver's recipe which appears on page 52 of this book. Although the original bread for rabbit toast was white there is now no limit in choice among whole wheat, gram, rolls, muffins, buns, croutons, and crackers to infinity. Number two with milk. For a rich milk rabbit use one half cup thin cream evaporated milk whole milk or butter milk instead of beer as in number one. Then to keep everything bland cut down the mustard by half or leave it out and use paprika in place of cayenne as in number one the use of Worcestershire sauce is optional although our feeling is that any spirited rabbit would resent its being left out. Either of these basic recipes can be made without eggs and more cheaply although the beaten egg is a good guarantee against stringiness. When the egg is missing we are sad to report that a teaspoon or so of cornstarch generally takes its place. Rabbit ears are of two minds about fast and slow heating and stirring so you'll have to adjust that to your own experience and rhythm. As a rule the heat is reduced when the cheese is almost melted and speed of stirring slows when the eggs and last ingredients go in. Many moderns who have found that monosodium glutamate steps up the flavor of natural cheese put it in at the start using one half teaspoon for each cup of grated cheddar. When it comes to pepper you are fancy free as both black and white pepper are now held in almost equal esteem you might equip your hutch with twin hand mills to do the grinding fresh for this is always worth the trouble. Tabasco sauce is little used and needs a cautious hand but some addicts can't leave it out anymore than they can swear off the Worcestershire. The school that plumps for multi rabbits and the other that goes for milky ones are equally emphatic in their choice. So let us consider the compromise of our old friend Frederick Philip Steiff the Baltimore on Dubush as he sets it forth for us years ago in ten thousand snacks. Quote the idea of cooking a rabbit with beer is an exploded and dangerous theory tap your keg or open your case of ale or beer and serve with not in your rabbit close quote the steif recipe basic milk rabbit completely surrounded by a lake of malt beverages two cups grated sharp cheese three heaping tablespoons butter one and one half cups milk four eggs one heaping tablespoon mustard two teaspoons Worcestershire sauce pepper salt and paprika to taste then add more of each grease well with butter the interior of your double boiler so that no hard particles of cheese will form in the mixture later and contribute undesirable lumps put cheese while grated into the double boiler and add butter and milk from this point vigorous stirring should be indulged in until rabbit is ready for serving prepare a mixture of Worcestershire sauce mustard pepper salt and paprika these should be beaten until light and then slowly poured into the double boiler nothing now remains to be done except to stir and cook down to proper consistency over a fairly slow flame the finale has not arrived until you can drip the rabbit from the spoon and spell the word finesse on the surface pour over two pieces of toast per plate and send anyone home who does not attack it at once this is sufficient for six gourmetes or four gourmands notabene a well-shrabbit to be a success should never be of the consistency whereby it may be used to tie up bundles nor yet should it bounce if inadvertently dropped on the kitchen floor lady Yanover's toasted well-shrabbit cut a slice of the real Welsh cheese made of sheep's and cow's milk toast it at the fire on both sides but not so much as to drop milk toast on one side a piece of bread less than one quarter inch thick to be quite crisp and spread it very thinly with fresh cold butter on the toasted side it must not be saturated lay the toasted cheese upon the untoasted bread side and serve immediately on a very hot plate the butter on the toast can of course be omitted it is more frequently eaten without butter from this original toasting of the cheese many Englishmen still call Welsh rabbit toasted cheese but Lady Yanover goes on to point out that the toasted rabbit of her whales and the melted or stewed buck rabbit of England which has become our American standard are as different in the making as the regional cheeses used in them and she says that while doctors prescribe the toasted Welsh as salubrious for invalids the stewed cheese of old England was only adapted to strong digestions English literature rings with praise for toasted cheese of whales and England there is Christopher Norris eloquent threads of beaten gold shining like gossamer filaments that may be pulled from its tough and tenuous substance yet not all of the references are complimentary thus Shakespeare and King Lear look look a mouse piece piece this piece of toasted cheese will do it and Sydney Smiths old friendships are destroyed by toasted cheese and hard salted meat has led to suicide but tease Davis in my whales makes up for such rudeness is the Welsh enter heaven the Lord had been complaining to Saint Peter of the dearth of good singers in heaven yet he said testily I hear excellent singing outside the walls why are not those singers here with me me Saint Peter said they are the Welsh they refuse to come in they say they are happy enough outside playing with the ball and boxing and singing such songs as suspend fuck the Lord said I wish them to come in here to sing Bach and Mendelssohn see that they are in before sundown Saint Peter went to the Welsh and gave them the commands of the Lord but still they shook their heads harassed Saint Peter went to consult with Saint David who with a smile was reading the works of Caradoc Evans the Saint David said try toasted cheese build a fire just inside the gates and get a few angels to toast cheese in front of it this Saint Peter did the heavenly aroma of the sizzling browning cheese was wafted over the walls and with loud shouts a great concourse of the Welsh came sprinting in when sufficient were inside to make up a male voice choir of 100 Saint Peter slammed the gates however it is said that these are the only Welsh in heaven and last we forget the wonderful drink that made Alice grow and grow to the ceiling of wonderland contained not only strawberry jam but toasted cheese and then there's the frightening nursery rhyme the Irishman loved us give up the Scott loved ale called blue cap the Welshman he loved toasted cheese and made his mouth like a mousetrap the Irishman was drowned in us give up the Scott was drowned in ale the Welshman he near swallowed a mouse but he pulled it out by the tail and perhaps worst of all Shakespeare no cheese lover this tune in Merry Wives of Windsor tis time I were choked by a bit of toasted cheese an elaboration of the simple Welsh original went English with Dr William McGinn the London journalist whose facile pen enlivened the Blackwoods magazine era with 10 tales Dr. McGinn's rabbit much is to be said in favor of toasted cheese for supper it is the can't to say that Welsh rabbit is heavy eating I like it best in the genuine Welsh way however that is the toasted bread buttered on both sides profusely then a layer of cold roast beef with mustard and horseradish and then on top of all the super stratum of Cheshire thoroughly saturated while in the process of toasting with genuine porter black pepper and shallot vinegar I peril myself upon the assertion that this is not a heavy supper for a man who has been busy all day till dinner in reading writing walking or writing who has occupied himself between dinner and supper in the discussion of a bottle or two of sound wine or any equivalent and who proposes to swallow at least three tumblers of something hot ere he resigns himself to the embrace of someness with these provisos I recommend toasted cheese for supper the popularity of this one has come down to us in the succinct summing up toasted cheese hath no master the Welsh original became simple after Dr. McGinn's supper sandwich was served a century and a half ago for it was served as a savory to sum up and help digest a dinner in this form after dinner rabbit remove all crusts from bread slices toast on both sides and soak to saturation in hot beer melt thin slices of sharp old cheese and butter in an iron skillet with an added spot of beer and dry English mustard stir steadily with a wooden spoon and when velvety serve a sizzle on piping hot beer soaked toast it is notable that there is no beer or ale in this recipe but not lamentable since all aboriginal cheese toasts were washed down in tossing seas of ale beer porter stout and arf and arf this creamy stewed buck on which the literary greats of Johnson's time subbed while they smoked their church wardens received its highest praise from an American newspaper woman who rhapsodized in 1891 then came stewed cheese on the thin shaving of crisp golden toast in hot silver saucers so hot that the cheese was the substance of thick cream the flavor of purple pansies and red raspberries commingled this may sound a bit flowery but in truth many fine cheeses hold a trace of the bouquet of the flowers that have enriched the milk alpine blooms and herbs haunt the gruyere parmesan wafts the scent of parma violets the flower cheese of england is perfumed with the petals of rose violet marigold and jasmine oven rabbit from an old recipe chop small one half pound of cooking cheese put it with a piece of butter the size of a walnut in a little saucepan and as the butter melts and the cheese gets warm mash them together when softened add two yolks of eggs one half tea cup full of ale a little cayenne pepper and salt stir with a wooden spoon one way only until it is creamy but do not let it boil for that would spoil it place some slices of butter toast on a dish pour the rare bit upon them and set inside the oven about two minutes before serving yorkshire rabbit originally called gherkin buck from a pioneer recipe put into a saucepan one half pound of cheese sprinkle with pepper black of course to taste pour over one half tea cup of ale and convert the whole into a smooth creamy mass over the fire stirring continually for about 10 minutes in two more minutes it should be done 10 minutes altogether is the minimum pour it over slices of hot toast place a piece of broiled bacon on the top of each and serve as hot as possible golden buck a golden buck is simply the basic well shrabbit with beer number one plus a poached egg on the top the egg sunny side up gave it its shining name a couple of centuries ago nowadays some chafing dish show offs tried to guild the golden buck with dashes of ginger and spice golden buck two this is only a golden buck with the addition of bacon strips the venerable yorkshire buck spread one half inch slices of bread with mustard and brown and hot oven then moisten each slice with one half glass of ale lay on top a slice of cheese a quarter inch thick and two slices of bacon on top of that put back in oven cook till cheese is melted and the bacon crisp and serve piping hot with tankards of cold ale bacon is the thing that identifies any yorkshire rabbit end of section six the first part of chapter five read by denises and modesto california for libravox