The Complete Book of Cheese Part 28

Provide your own a.s.sortment of breads and try to include some of those fat, flaky old-fashioned crackers that country stores in New England can still supply. Mustard? Sure, if _.you_ like it. If you want to be fancy, use a tricky little gadget put out by the Maille condiment-makers in France and available here in the food specialty shops. It's a miniature painter's palate holding five mustards of different shades and flavors and two mustard paddles. The mustards, in proper chromatic order, are: jonquil yellow "Strong Dijon"; "Green Herbs"; brownish "Tarragon"; golden "Ora"; crimson "Tomato-flavored."

And, just to keep things moving, we have restored an antique whirling cruet-holder to deliver Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, A-1, Tap Sauce and Major Grey's Chutney. Salt shakers and pepper mills are handy, with a big-holed tin canister filled with crushed red-pepper pods, chili powder, Hungarian-paprika and such small matters. b.u.t.ter, both sweet and salt, is on hand, together with, saucers or bowls of curry, capers, chives (sliced, not chopped), minced onion, fresh mint leaves, chopped pimientos, caraway, quartered lemons, parsley, fresh tarragon, tomato slices, red and white radishes, green and black olives, pearl onions and a.s.sorted nutmeats.

Some years ago, when I was collaborating with my mother, Cora, and my wife, Rose, in writing _10,000 Snacks_ (which, by the way, devotes nearly forty pages to cheeses), we staged a rather elaborate tasting party just for the three of us. It took a two-tiered Lazy Lou to twirl the load.

The eight wedges on the top round were English and French samples and the lower one carried the rest, as follows:

ENGLISH CHEDDAR CHESHIRE ENGLISH STILTON CANADIAN CHEDDAR (rum flavored)

FRENCH MuNSTER FRENCH BRIE FRENCH FRENCH CAMEMBERT ROQUEFORT

SWISS SAPSAGO SWISS GRUYERE SWISS EDAM DUTCH GOUDA

ITALIAN CZECH ITALIAN NORWEGIAN PROVOLONE OSTIEPKI GORGONZOLA GJETOST

HUNGARIAN LIPTAUER

The tasting began with familiar English Cheddars, Cheshires and Stiltons from the top row. We had cheese knives, scoops, graters, sc.r.a.pers and a regulation wire saw, but for this line of crumbly Britishers fingers were best.

The Cheddar was a light, lemony-yellow, almost white, like our best domestic "bar cheese" of old.

The Cheshire was moldy and milky, with a slightly fermented flavor that brought up the musty dining room of Fleet Street's Cheshire cheese and called for draughts of beer. The Stilton was strong but mellow, as high in flavor as in price.

Only the rum-flavored Canadian Cheddar from Montreal (by courtesy English) let us down. It was done up as fancy as a bridegroom in waxed white paper and looked as smooth and glossy as a gardenia. But there its beauty ended. Either the rum that flavored it wasn't up to much or the mixture hadn't been allowed to ripen naturally.

The French Munster, however, was hearty, cheery, and better made than most German Munster, which at that time wasn't being exported much by the n.a.z.is. The Brie was melting prime, the Camembert was so perfectly matured we ate every sc.r.a.p of the crust, which can't be done with many American "Camemberts" or, indeed, with the dead, dry French ones sold out of season. Then came the Roquefort, a regal cheese we voted the best buy of the lot, even though it was the most expensive. A plump piece, pleasantly unctuous but not greasy, sharp in scent, stimulatingly bittersweet in taste--unbeatable. There is no American pretender to the Roquefort throne. Ours is invariably chalky and tasteless. That doesn't mean we have no good Blues. We have. But they are not Roquefort.

The Sapsago or Krauterkase from Switzerland (it has been made in the Canton of Glarus for over five hundred years) was the least expensive of the lot. Well-cured and dry, it lent itself to grating and tasted fine on an old-fashioned b.u.t.tered soda cracker. Sapsago has its own seduction, derived from the clover-leaf powder with which the curd is mixed and which gives it its haunting flavor and spring-like sage-green color.

Next came some truly great Swiss Gruyere, delicately rich, and nutty enough to make us think of the sharp white wines to be drunk with it at the source.

As for the Provolone, notable for the water-buffalo milk that makes it, there's an example of really grown-up milk. Perfumed as spring flowers drenched with a shower of Anjou, having a bouquet all its own and a trace of a winelike kick, it made us vow never to taste another American imitation. Only a smooth-cheeked, thick slab cut from a pedigreed Italian Provolone of medium girth, all in one piece and with no sign of a crack, satisfy the gourmet.

The second Italian cla.s.sic was Gorgonzola, gorgeous Gorgonzola, as fruity as apples, peaches and pears sliced together. It smells so much like a ripe banana we often eat them together, plain or with the crumbly _formaggio_ lightly forked into the fruit, split lengthwise.

After that the Edam tasted too lipsticky, like the red-paint job on its rind, and the Gouda seemed only half-hearted. Both too obviously ready-made for commerce with nothing individual or custom-made about them, rolled or bounced over from Holland by the boat load.

The Ostiepki from Czechoslovakia might have been a link of smoked ostrich sausage put up in the skin of its own red neck. In spite of its pleasing lemon-yellow interior, we couldn't think of any use for it except maybe crumbling thirty or forty cents' worth into a ten-cent bowl of bean soup. But that seemed like a waste of money, so we set it aside to try in tiny chunks on crackers as an appetizer some other day, when it might be more appetizing.

We felt much the same about the chocolate-brown Norwegian Gjetost that looked like a slab of boarding-school fudge and which had the same cloying cling to the tongue. We were told by a native that our piece was entirely too young. That's what made it so insipid, undeveloped in texture and flavor. But the next piece we got turned out to be too old and decrepit, and so strong it would have taken a Paul Bunyan to stand up under it. When we complained to our expert about the shock to our palates, he only laughed, pointing to the nail on his little finger.

"You should take just a little bit, like that. A pill no bigger than a couple of aspirins or an Alka-Seltzer. It's only in the morning you take it when it's old and strong like this, for a pick-me-up, a cure for a hangover, you know, like a prairie oyster well soused in Worcestershire."

That made us think we might use it up to flavor a Welsh Rabbit, _instead_ of the Worcestershire sauce, but we couldn't melt it with anything less than a blowtorch.

To bring the party to a happy end, we went to town on the Hungarian Liptauer, garnishing that fine, granulating b.u.t.tery base after mixing it well with some cream cheese. We mixed the mixed cheese with sardine and tuna mashed together in a little of the oil from the can.

We juiced it with lemon, sluiced it with bottled sauces, worked in the leftovers, some tarragon, mint, spicy seeds, parsley, capers and chives. We peppered and paprikaed it, salted and spiced it, then spread it thicker than b.u.t.ter on pumpernickel and went to it.

_That's_ Liptauer Garniert.

[Ill.u.s.tration: No. 4 Cheese Inc.]

_Appendix_

The A-B-Z of Cheese

_Each cheese is listed by its name and country of origin, with any further information available. Unless otherwise indicated, the cheese is made of cow's milk._

A

Aberdeen _Scotland_

Soft; creamy mellow.

Abertam _Bohemia_ _(Made near Carlsbad_)

Hard; sheep; distinctive, with a savory smack all its own.

Absinthe _see_ Petafina.

Acidophilus _see_ Saint-Ivel.

Aettekees _Belgium_

November to May--winter-made and eaten.

Affine, Carre _see_ Ancien Imperial.

Affumicata, Mozzarella _see_ Mozzarella.

After-dinner cheeses _see_ Chapter 8.

Agricultural school cheeses _see_ College-educated.

Aiguilles, Fromage d'

_Alpine France_

Named "Cheese of the Needles" from the sharp Alpine peaks of the district where it is made.

Aizy, Cendree d' _see_ Cendree.

Ajacilo, Ajaccio _Corsica_

Semihard; piquant; nut-flavor. Named after the chief city of French Corsica where a cheese-lover, Napoleon, was born.

a la Creme _see_ Fromage, Fromage Blanc, Chevretons.