A Crisp and Moldy Cave
A lot of people love cheese, and a lot of people don’t know why. I love cheese (maybe not more than most people but definitely more loudly) and I don’t totally know why I love it either. I’ve read that cheese affects your body like a drug, in which case I suppose I’m an addict. But if I’m an addict, I feel less like a character in “Trainspotting” and more like Remy the rat in “Ratatouille.” Do you know the scene to which I’m referring? Remy is trying to explain flavor mixtures of food, and as he tastes, it triggers new color and pattern combinations that explode and dance in his mind. When I eat cheese, a similar phenomenon occurs. Except, of course, I imagine landscapes and architectural spaces.
Graham Harper, “RATATOUILLE - Remy experiencing food as colour, shape, sou,” YouTube video, 0:28, Dec 4, 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXoJjgxMj9M.
I’ll share an example.
A good cheddar cheese is familiar but not to be underestimated (see “The Daily Rind, episode 4” for my full rant on this matter). Montgomery’s Cheddar is a classic example of an “old world” English cheddar – a dense, yellow wheel, wrapped in cloth, with a beefy flavor profile and notes of musty horseradish. Visually, the cheese may seem nondescript: a lump of yellow and brown - just a part of a hearty farmer’s lunch, but for the occasional lightning strike of blue running through it.
There’s something about eating Montgomery’s Cheddar that reminds me of an older world, or even an Other world. While friendly and familiar, it possesses the danger that accompanies wisdom. I imagine hiding away in a cliffside cave, overlooking a turbulent, deep blue ocean. The cave is grey rock that has been smoothed over by time and the ocean spray, intermingled and indistinguishable from rain, sprinkles into the orifice and darkens the interior. Occasionally large drops gather at the top of the threshold and fall, hitting the floor with a jolt. The air is crisp and the smell of dampness drifts up from parts of the cave I’m not even sure exist. It’s a bit of a fearful scene, but it’s not a scary environment. The rain comes down in sheets but nurtures the plants below, who reach up to welcome it. The rolling waves seem to humans as dangerous, and to sea creatures like roller coasters. I notice that there’s an easy exit from the cave up winding pathway than climbs and lands in patches of long, soft grass, growing against all odds.
This scene is totally imaginary. Perhaps it’s a place I’ve been, but it’s more likely an amalgamation of my own experiences and emotions mixed up with the sensory immersion of Montgomery’s Cheddar. Someone else’s image would be based off of different experiences, different taste buds, and a different background in cheese knowledge. Because cheese is not just about the flavors one tastes upon delivery, whether that’s served in a block or artfully arranged with a pairing of cured sausage and blueberries. No, cheese is about culture (pun intended) that includes the people who monitor cathedral-like caves full of aging wheels, who care for and milk the animals, and the consumers at the end of the food chain. Cheesemaking has been going on for hundreds, even thousands of years, as a backyard activity and as a full-scale production. Casual or artisan, cheese is a story of love.
But why should we care, or do we care at all? At the onset of COVID, when all the shelves in the grocery store were empty of toilet paper, produce, and pasta, there was always plenty of artisan cheese. Those coolers were untouched.
It’s hard work to be a cheesemaker, or even just someone involved in the cheese industry. And it’s an industry that can’t run away from the hardest questions facing our world right now. Farmers are the first to feel effects of climate change, but share the responsibility for contributing to it through fertilizer emissions and methane produced by livestock. Additionally, the cheese world must address its own history and current practices that stem from systemic racism, such as USDA policies that discriminated against Black, Indigenous, and minority farmers. Cheese is an old industry, steeped in tradition and in some places highly regulated and protected. But not all aspects of the cheese world need saving. “Tradition” is not a reason to stay in the past. Instead, we need to ask:
- How are we expanding our definition of cheese?
- Who is making cheese? Selling cheese? Eating cheese? And where?
- What sustainable practices are happening in the cheese world?
- What does resilience look like for dairy farms?
These are some questions I hope to start to address in this column. But don’t worry – I promise strange anecdotes and savory tangents along the way.