Complex Numbers

The Myths of Cheeses

Warning: this one might make you hungry.

Fromage fictions: the 14 biggest cheese myths – debunked!  

You're stretching when you have to pull in a word from another language to force alliteration in the headline. But at least that's better than making a cheese pun, which I'll brie trying to avoid here.

‘I hate to dictate to people. I don’t like too many rules,” says Iain Mellis, a cheesemonger of 40 years, with cheese shops bearing his name scattered across Scotland.

Before you go "Scotland? Cheese?" keep in mind just how many sheep there are up there.

As we enter the season of cheese – and the month during which we will buy (and eat) more cheese than in any other – it is worth debunking some of the more commonly held fictions regarding fromage.

Article is from early December, so I guess they're asserting that winter is the season of cheese? I mean, I guess, technically, it was originally created to provide extra food over a long winter, and everyone loves cheese around the winter solstice, but as far as I'm concerned, it is always the season of cheese.

Remember, the things mentioned in bold are what this guy considers false.

You can cook with cheap cheese
“That is a false economy,” says Mellis. “Our cheese might be double the price [of supermarket varieties], but you’ll only need half the quantity.”

Blatant ad here, but it's okay because it's about cheese.

Right now some of my fellow Americans are thinking about Velveeta or Kraft Singles. Those are cheap, but they are not cheese. Stop it.

Pre-grated cheese is fine
Grated parmesan, mozzarella or cheddar, for example, are “a terrible addition to your recipes”, says Luca Dusi of the wine and cheese bar Passione Vino in east London. “Once grated, cheese will start oxidising” – meaning it also begins to lose flavour.

I don't doubt that, but never underestimate the utter depths of my laziness. Not only is it work to grate cheese, and not only do you then have another utensil to clean afterward, but also there's always that little bit left over, generally covered with blood from where you shredded your fingers instead.

The older, the better
The “most pernicious myth of all”, according to Dominic Coyte of Borough Cheese Company. “All cheeses have a peak period, during which they are their best, and then they decline.

I mean, that should be obvious, if only when taken to extremes. I don't care how excellent the cheese is, anything left of a block of cheese after 100 years is going to be of questionable quality.

Yes, I know they've found cheese from longer ago than that. My point stands.

And some cheese is simply meant to be enjoyed young.

Wrap in clingfilm or keep in an airtight container
“Clingfilm is the worst environment for cheese, because it traps the moisture,” says Mellis. The same goes for a plastic container, says Jason Hinds, the director at Neal’s Yard Dairy.

Again, don't forget laziness. If I know I'm going to eat the entire block within a week (not a rare occurrence), I'll wrap it in whatever's at hand, which is usually a zipper sandwich bag.

You can store it in the fridge door (the space often marked “dairy”)
“The fridge is an exceptionally dry environment – and the door is particularly dry,” says Hinds. Ideally, you should avoid the fridge entirely and go for a cellar or larder, says Mellis – but not everyone has that option. If a fridge is your most hygienic choice, Hinds recommends the salad drawer.

Which is fine; it's not like I keep salad in there.

If it goes mouldy, it’s bad
Cheese – good cheese – is a living product. If given a chance, it will develop mould – but that mould is rarely, if ever, bad for you. “Like the rind, it will penetrate in a tiny way and may change the taste of the cheese very slightly,” says Mellis, “but it’s not dangerous.”

I mean, sure, for some cheese, mold (American spelling) is the entire point. Stilton, e.g. But I don't care if other cheese is "okay" to eat moldy; it can look disgusting.

The temperature of your room is “room temperature”
“The biggest mistake you can make is eating cheese straight from the fridge,” says Em Brightman, the head chef at Angela Hartnett’s London restaurant Murano – but it is also worth remembering that “room temperature” in cheese terms “means 14C to 18C.

Yes, I speak C, but even the upper end of that range -- 18 -- is entirely too damn cold for me to live in. (It's around 64 in Freedom Units). What they're describing isn't what I would call room temperature, but cellar temperature, also useful for some beer and wine.

I keep my house around 23 Commie in the winter, a bit higher in the summer, or else I'm entirely uncomfortable. At those temperatures (mid-70s Freedom), cheese left out indeed starts to sweat, even though I don't.

You need specialist cheese knives …
“I have a couple of cheese knives, but I don’t put them out,” says Mellis. “I tend to serve cheese with paring knives, which are sharp and small.” The most important thing is that the knife is thin.

I mean, sure, if you have 'em, use 'em. If you're on a budget, use whatever else you got.

… and a cheese board
While lovely to look at, they can leave cheese at the mercy of guests, who might not appreciate the nuances of cutting cheeses or the order in which to eat them. “Be sure to eat your way from the mildest cheese to the strongest in flavour,” advises Brightman.

Let's get over the "cutting the cheese" jokes right now: heh. hehhuhheheheh. Okay, with that out of the way, here's my take on this: First of all, having a cheese board or not has nothing to do with what this Brightman person is saying. But here's the thing: your "guests" may be all over the place in terms of cheese knowledge. I certainly can't always identify a cheese by its looks, any more than I can a beer. And people aren't going to learn by, as this article points out, having a lot of rules imposed upon them.

In other words, trust your guests and don't restrict them any more than you have to. So they eat cheese out of order; so what? If they do that, they'll figure out the "mild to strong" order quickly enough, just like with beer or wine.

Rinds are inedible
With the obvious exception of rinds that are made of cloth, wax or plastic, most rinds are edible – even on hard cheeses. “It has its own flavour, and sometimes the best flavours, as the result of mould ripening,” says Hinds.

To me, it's not always obvious which rinds are edible and which are not. Usually, but not always. For instance, gouda usually comes wrapped in wax. Some wax is edible. Some isn't. I figure if it looks like it's supposed to be part of the cheese (as with brie), I'll give it a try.

Red wine is the best pairing …
“The truth is, the tannins in red wine can seriously clash with many cheeses,” says Alan Watson, the head cheesemonger at Funk in London. “I would recommend searching for more sparkling whites and even orange wines.”

I have had great luck pairing ordinary white wine with cheese. It depends on the wine, of course. The beauty is not only in the consumption, though, but in the experimentation to find out what works for you. Just as not everyone is going to like every cheese, not everyone is going to be on board with the same wine/cheese pairing.

… but beer is a no-go
“Beer and cheese were born to go together and share a lot of history,” says Jonny Garrett, the founder of the Craft Beer Channel and the author of A Year in Beer. “For centuries, they were made using local ingredients by women at home. The fact they have always shared the table means they have similar or complementary flavours.”

I gotta say, I'd never heard that one shouldn't pair beer with cheese. It is, of course, bullshit. Again, experimentation is key here. I volunteer as tribute.

Cheese gives you nightmares
Chances are you will have cheese quite late at night at this time of year – and it is eating (and drinking) late that results in poor-quality sleep, which in turn makes you more likely to remember your dreams, rather than an inherent property of cheese.

Me, I like remembering my dreams, and sometimes eat before bed to test this theory. Sometimes it works.

You can’t eat any cheese if you are lactose intolerant
On the contrary, one of the reasons humans developed cheese in the first place was in order to digest the milk of ruminants, argues Ned Palmer, the author of A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles and A Cheesemonger’s Compendium of British and Irish Cheese. During the cheesemaking process, bacteria convert the lactose in the milk into lactic acid, which those with lactose intolerance can tolerate.

I think this is important to note, so I'm leaving it here. Cheese provides protein, and in a more digestible form than milk. I have a slight lactose intolerance, myself, so I don't drink milk, but I'll eat the hell out of cheese.

Just slice any way you like
No. While you don’t need a set of designated cheese knives, you do need an array of sharp knives, in order to avoid getting blue cheese on other cheeses or vice versa. The biggest faux pas in fromage is cutting the nose off a cheese, rather than slicing it lengthways – not for reasons of etiquette, but because “the cheese tastes differently from the centre to the outside,” says Hinds.

Again, are we just going to tell everyone what to do? Maybe some people like it that way. This can, of course, lead to conflict among you and the guests at your cheese party, however.

So I hope you enjoyed learning about Our Lord Cheeses today. I certainly did. And now I think I have part of a block of Swiss wrapped in a sandwich bag in my dairy door; I'mma go eat that sucker. With beer.