25 March 2021

Things you only know if you totally adore cheese

25 March 2021

Getting through a day without a corner of cheese – be it extra mature cheddar, a slick of brie, or a hunk of Parmesan grated over your dinner – is unfathomable to many of us. Imagine pizza or burgers without it, or a life free of grilled cheese sandwiches…

If you too feel incredibly indebted to the sheep, goats and cows of this world, as well as the producers who turn milk into golden deliciousness, we know exactly how your brain works…

People who order pudding and say no to the cheese course massively confuse you. Do they not know what they’re missing? Ideally you have cheesecake and a cheeseboard.

Your fridge is mainly dairy. As is your freezer, because you save all the odds and ends from all your cheeses, grate ’em, freeze ’em, and use them to make the ultimate mac and cheese.

The other half of your fridge is mainly dedicated to things that go well with cheese. You have every pickle, chutney and jam known to taste buds, and for each, you have a favourite pairing cheese.

Your dream holiday involves cheese fondue in a log cabin in Switzerland. Molten cheese and dipping items. Mmmm.

It may surprise people, but actually, you fully appreciate orange plastic squares of burger cheese. Yes, they have their own melting charm.

Christmas is not about the turkey, but about grazing on a variety of cheeseboards for the whole of December. Yes, you can – and will – eat your bodyweight in Stilton.

You can spend many an hour in the cracker aisle at the supermarket. Snap, heft, seed content and crispiness take time to analyse, and cheese deserves the best.

Fruit looks strange to you now when not presented alongside a shard of cheese, be it blue cheese and figs, feta and watermelon, Gouda and pears, mozzarella and peaches, burrata and blood orange, or just cheddar and a handful of grapes.

The cheese bit of a meal is always the best bit. Please see: the crispy cheesy top on lasagne and mac and cheese. Also, on nachos.

Yes, you do own a proper cheese knife. And yes, you also have very strong ideas on etiquette around slicing off the nose of a cheese.

When you return from holiday, your suitcase is 90% smelly cheeses you picked up in all the markets you visited.

Some people say you shouldn’t have cheese with fish. You laugh at these people, adept as you are at sneaking some kind of fromage into any meal.

In the middle of the night, you dream of jacking your job in and becoming a cheesemaker, or just moving to France, so you can spend your days surrounded by giant aging wheels of the glorious yellow stuff.

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