The Complete Book of Cheese Part 27

Heat together and pour over well-b.u.t.tered toast.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_Chapter Eleven_

"Fit for Drink"

A country without a fit drink for cheese has no cheese fit for drink.

Greece was the first country to prove its epicurean fitness, according to the old saying above, for it had wine to tipple and sheep's milk cheese to nibble. The cla.s.sical Greek cheese has always been Feta, and no doubt this was the kind that Circe combined most suitably with wine to make a farewell drink for her lovers. She put further sweetness and body into the stirrup cup by stirring honey and barley meal into it.

Today we might whip this up in an electric mixer to toast her memory.

While a land flowing with milk and honey is the ideal of many, France, Italy, Spain or Portugal, flowing with wine and honey, suit a lot of gourmets better. Indeed, in such vinous-caseous places cheese is on the house at all wine sales for prospective customers to snack upon and thus bring out the full flavor of the cellared vintages. But professional wine tasters are forbidden any cheese between sips. They may clear their palates with plain bread, but nary a crumb of Roquefort or cube of Gruyere in working hours, lest it give the wine a spurious n.o.bility.

And, speaking of Roquefort, Romanee has the closest affinity for it.

Such affinities are also found in Pont l'Eveque and Beaujolais, Brie and red champagne, Coulommiers and any good _vin rose_. Heavenly marriages are made in Burgundy between red and white wines of both Cotes, de Nuits and de Baune, and Burgundian cheeses such as Epoisses, Soumaintarin and Saint-Florentin. Pommard and Port-Salut seem to be made for each other, as do Chateau Margaux and Camembert.

A great cheese for a great wine is the rule that brings together in the neighboring provinces such notables as Sainte Maure, Valencay, Vendome and the Loire wines--Vouvray, Saumur and Anjou. Gruyere mates with Chablis, Camembert with St. Emilion; and any dry red wine, most commonly claret, is a fit drink for the hundreds of other fine French cheeses.

Every country has such happy marriages, an Italian standard being Provolone and Chianti. Then there is a most unusual pair, French Neufchatel cheese and Swiss Neuchatel wine from just across the border. Switzerland also has another cheese favorite at home--Trauben (grape cheese), named from the Neuchatel wine in which it is aged.

One kind of French Neufchatel cheese, Bondon, is also uniquely suited to the company of any good wine because it is made in the exact shape and size of a wine barrel bung. A similar relation is found in Brinzas (or Brindzas) that are packed in miniature wine barrels, strongly suggesting what should be drunk with such excellent cheeses: Hungarian Tokay. Other foreign cheeses go to market wrapped in vine leaves. The affinity has clearly been laid down in heaven.

Only the English seem to have a _fortissimo_ taste in the go-with wines, according to these matches registered by Andre Simon in _The Art of Good Living:_

Red Cheshire with Light Tawny Port White Cheshire with Oloroso Sherry Blue Leicester with Old Vintage Port Green Roquefort with New Vintage Port

To these we might add brittle chips of Greek Casere with nips of Amontillado, for an eloquent appetizer.

The English also pour port into Stilton, and sundry other wines and liquors into Cheddars and such. This doctoring leads to fraudulent imitation, however, for either port or stout is put into counterfeit Cheshire cheese to make up for the richness it lacks.

While some combinations of cheeses and wines may turn out palatable, we prefer taking ours straight. When something more fiery is needed we can twirl the flecks of pure gold in a chalice of Eau de Vie de Danzig and nibble on legitimate Danzig cheese unadulterated. _Goldwa.s.ser_, or Eau de Vie, was a favorite liqueur of cheese-loving Franklin Roosevelt, and we can be sure he took the two separately.

Another perfect combination, if you can take it, is imported k.u.mmel with any caraway-seeded cheese, or cream cheese with a handy saucer of caraway seeds. In the section of France devoted to gin, the juniper berries that flavor the drink also go into a local cheese, Fromage Fort. This is further fortified with brandy, white wine and pepper.

One regional tipple with such brutally strong cheese is black coffee laced with gin.

French la Jonchee is another potted thriller with not only coffee and rum mixed in during the making, but orange flower water, too. Then there is la Petafina, made with brandy and absinthe; Hazebrook with brandy alone; and la Cachat with white wine and brandy.

In Italy white Gorgonzola is also put up in crocks with brandy. In Oporto the sharp cheese of that name is enlivened by port, Cider and the greatest of applejacks, Calvados, seem made to go the regional Calvados cheese. This is also true of our native Jersey Lightning and hard cider with their accompanying New York State cheese. In the Auge Valley of France, farmers also drink homemade cider with their own Augelot, a piquant kind of Pont l'Eveque.

The English sip pear cider (perry) with almost any British cheese.

Milk would seem to be redundant, but Sage cheese and b.u.t.termilk do go well together.

Wine and cheese have other things in common. Some wines and some cheeses are aged in caves, and there are vintage cheeses no less than vintage wines, as is the case with Stilton.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_Chapter Twelve_

Lazy Lou

Once, so goes the sad story, there was a cheesemonger unworthy of his heritage. He exported a shipload of inferior "Swiss" made somewhere in the U.S.A. Bad to begin with, it had worsened on the voyage.

Rejected by the health authorities on the other side, it was shipped back, reaching home in the unhappy condition known as "cracked." To cut his losses the rascally cheesemonger had his cargo ground up and its flavor disguised with hot peppers and chili sauce. Thus there came into being the abortion known as the "cheese spread."

The cheese spread or "food" and its cousin, the processed cheese, are handy, cheap and nasty. They are available everywhere and some people even like them. So any cheese book is bound to take formal notice of their existence. I have done so--and now, an unfond farewell to them.

My academic cheese education began at the University of Wisconsin in 1904. I grew up with our great Midwest industry; I have read with profit hundreds of pamphlets put out by the learned Aggies of my Alma Mater. Mostly they treat of honest, natural cheeses: the making, keeping and enjoying of authentic Longhorn Cheddars, short Bricks and naturalized Limburgers.

At the School of Agriculture the students still, I am told, keep their hand in by studying the cla.s.sical layout on a cheese board. One booklet recommends the following for freshman contemplation:

CARAWAY BRICK SELECT BRICK EDAM WISCONSIN SWISS LONGHORN AMERICAN SHEFFORD

These six st.u.r.dy samples of Wisconsin's best will stimulate any amount of cla.s.sroom discussion. Does the Edam go better with German-American black bread or with Swedish Ry-Krisp? To b.u.t.ter or not to b.u.t.ter? And if to b.u.t.ter, with which cheese? Salt or sweet?

How close do we come to the excellence of the genuine Alpine Swiss?

Primary school stuff, but not unworthy of thought.

Pa.s.s on down the years. You are now ready to graduate. Your cheese board can stand a more sophisticated setup. Try two boards; play the teams against each other.

The All-American Champs

NEW YORK c.o.o.n PHILADELPHIA CREAM OHIO LIEDERKRANZ VERMONT SAGE KENTUCKY TRAPPIST WISCONSIN LIMBURGER CALIFORNIA JACK PINEAPPLE MINNESOTA BLUE BRICK TILLAMOOK

VS.

The European Giants

PORTUGUESE TRAZ- DUTCH GOUDA ITALIAN PARMESAN OS-MONTES FRENCH ROQUEFORT SWISS EMMENTALER YUGOSLAVIAN KACKAVALJ ENGLISH STILTON DANISH BLUE GERMAN MuNSTER GREEK FETA HABLe

The postgraduate may play the game using as counters the great and distinctive cheeses of more than fifty countries. Your Scandinavian board alone, just to give an idea of the riches available, will shine with blues, yellows, whites, smoky browns, and chocolates representing Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Lapland.

For the Britisher only blue-veined Stilton is worthy to crown the banquet. The Frenchman defends Roquefort, the Dane his own regal Blue; the Swiss sticks to Emmentaler before, during and after all three meals. You may prefer to finish with a delicate Brie, a smoky slice of Provolone, a bit of Baby Gouda, or some Liptauer Garniert, about which more later.

We load them all on Lazy Lou, Lazy Susan's big twin brother, a giant roulette wheel of cheese, every number a winner. A second Lazy Lou will bear the savories and go-withs. For these tidbits the English have a divine genius; think of the deviled shrimps, smoked oysters, herring roe on toast, snips of broiled sausage ... But we will make do with some olives and radishes, a few pickles, nuts, capers. With our two trusty Lazy Lous on hand plus wine or beer, we can easily dispense with the mere dinner itself.

Perhaps it is an Italian night. Then Lazy Lou is happily burdened with imported Latticini; Incanestrato, still bearing the imprint of its wicker basket; Pepato, which is but Incanestrato peppered; Mel Fina; deep-yellow, b.u.t.tery Scanno with its slightly burned flavor; tangy Asiago; Caciocavallo, so called because the the cheeses, tied in pairs and hung over a pole, look as though they were sitting in a saddle--cheese on horseback, or "_cacio a cavallo_." Then we ring in Lazy Lou's first a.s.sistant, an old, silver-plated, revolving Florentine magnum-holder. It's designed to spin a gigantic flask of Chianti. The flick of a finger and the bottle is before you. Gently pull it down and hold your gla.s.s to the spout.

True, imported wines and cheeses are expensive. But native American products and reasonably edible imitations of the real thing are available as subst.i.tutes. Anyway, protein for protein, a cheese party will cost less than a steak barbecue. And it can be more fun.

Encourage your guests to contribute their own latest discoveries. One may bring along as his ticket of admission a Primavera from Brazil; another some cubes of an Andean specialty just flown in from Colombia's mountain city, Merida, and still wrapped in its aromatic leaves of _Frailejon Lanudo_; another a few wedges of savory sweet English Flower cheese, some flavored with rose petals, others with marigolds; another a tube of South American Krauterkase.