Cheese 101: I Love Cheese (and You Do Too!)
Picture it now:
You, an eager but inexperienced cheese enthusiast. The cheese case, open and sprawling before you in it’s cooled circumference and bright fluorescent lights. An endless bounty clad in a variety of labels in a rainbow of colors. Unfamiliar words and even more unfamiliar styles. Questions about: “Well, there’s a goat on the label and it’s soft, I kinda like this!” “This is French, that means it’s good, right?” “I don’t normally like blue, but this one is hard. Does that mean it’s more or less funky?” Surreptitiously looking around, you reach for the most basic-looking cheese, hoping it’s something you’ll like.
Assuming you don’t just run away in frustration or shame. Why is this so difficult? YOU JUST WANT CHEESE!!
Listen- most Americans aren’t built for the typical cheese case. Our main options are the too-perfect blocks sliced by the pound for us at the deli counter. Or even worse- dried, little shelf-safe crumbles we sprinkle over our pasta. And while some people have started to dabble in new cheeses, many of the paths we take are routine and familiar: Spanish (“Man...chengo?” Always accompanies a look of desperate hesitation), French staples that “aren’t too stinky!” but might be factory made and run the risk of a most disappointing blandness, and hard Italian cheeses that can often be characterized purely on salty crumble alone.
NAY, I say to you- dare to experience new cheeses! Don’t let the unfamiliar stop you- let it inspire you! Even comfort you, that the worst that can happen is that you find out you don’t like something...right now. Yes, I said it. You don’t like something right now. Because palates can change. Mine did.
I once shied away from the aggressively funky. I turned my cheek from many of those stinky, or blue, or bold cheeses. I would pick the most basic brie I could find and hope for the best. If I dared to step out on a limb and ate anything more ‘aggressive’, I guzzled down mouthfuls of wine and bread to wash away the taste, smiling bitterly while trying to seem adventurous.
Let us build to something better.
Here is where I come in- as a Professional Cheese Enthusiast. My name is Kristen and I will be your guide. GUIDE, not guru. At best, I accept Cheese Witch (possibly one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me in the history of existence). I don’t consider myself the be-all-end-all authority. I might know my stuff, but when a food becomes a hip, cultural marker of coolness it often gets used as a battering ram. I don’t care if you love what I love. I care more about the quality of the cheese you’re eating, the impact on the environment and the history behind it than I do if you order an entire plate of cheddar and brie styles that you could have easily bought at the grocery store. I mean, I will be SAD for you, but life’s too short to judge too harshly. People get skittish about ‘cool food’ already- I’m not here to make it worse. I’m here to drop some knowledge and take you on an experience.
Let’s boldly go!
Even with the basics covered, there is a whole world to explore and explore it we will. Cheerfully, hopefully, and purely for the enjoyment of the experience. Cheese isn’t trying to test you or make you feel bad- it merely wishes to be consumed on it’s own merits. Not everything might be to your taste, but I think everything is worth tasting. At least once.
Cheese 101: Let the journey begin!