1 post tagged “cheese”

Last night at our holiday party, we served a large selection of cheeses. There were hard cheeses and soft, goat and cow, strong and mild. A plethora of cheese choices. After the party was over and we were cleaning up, I was visually reminded that most Americans have no idea how to eat cheese. It's not that it's hard, but most of us didn't grow up eating a regular cheese course with dinner and we never learned the rules. Don't worry, they're pretty simple:

1. Approach the table or take the cheese plate that is passed to you

2. Determine which cheese you would like to sample

3. Take the cheese knife that is on the plate - do NOT use your own knife unless you are in your own house, eating with your family and there is no cheese knife available. Do not hesitate to ask for a separate knife - often your hosts have simply neglected to put the knife on the plate.

4. Slice the cheese from the side that has already been cut. Make a clean slice from top to bottom

5. If no one has yet cut the cheese (ha ha) cut a straight piece from the end
  5a. if the cheese is round, cut a small wedge as you would cut a piece of pie
  5b. Cutting is important, don't dink around with it. Cut cleanly and quickly.

6. It is totally fine to take more than one piece of cheese, take a small slice of each of how ever many types of cheese you wish to eat and lay them side by side on your plate.
 6a. You can also take some of the fruit and nuts that are on the plate, grapes, pears and walnuts are especially delicious with cheese (as is red wine).

7. Return the cheese knife to the cheese plate - don't worry if it still has some cheese on it, it's nice if it's not too schmutzy, but it's cheese after all and no one expects or even wants you to clean the cheese knife.

8. Take only 1-2 pieces of bread. You can usually get more later and you need to make sure there is enough for everyone.

9. Don't follow your nose. Cheese is one of those complicated foods where your nose can't always help you to know what to do. Some cheeses smell great and taste great. Others don't smell at all and hardly taste like anything.  Many  stink to the point where your tablemates might insist that you to eat it outside in the rain by yourself, and you will because it tastes heavenly.
9a. Don't trust your eyes either. There is a lot of mold involved in cheese and most of the time, those scary blotchy discolored veins are supposed to be there. 

10. DO NOT, and I mean NEVER, EVER EVER scoop out the creamy cheese from the middle of the wheel. I hate to say it, but it is beyond rude - it is gross. It says to everyone who sees you "I don't know how to eat cheese and I don't like the crust, even though most of the time it is delicious and perfectly edible. I just can't deal with it." The guests who follow you and who know better will look at you in horror, then quickly divert their eyes and pretend not to have seen your mistake.

Here's why scooping is such a problem: it leaves the next person in line for cheese with a rotten choice: cut a nice slice of rind with no cheese in the middle, or excavate deeper into the cheese cave and hope for gold. From experience I know that most Americans will choose to become miners and most Europeans will slice away in the hope of fixing the mess. Without this cleanup effort the entire cheese will eventually collapse, walls crumbing in a heap, forever trapping the cheese that remains. This is more than an eyesore, it's wasteful. Last night we threw away five cheeses that had been mined to the point of inedibility.

11. No one cares about your cheese once it is on your plate. Don't want to eat the crust? Don't. Tasted a new cheese you don't actually like? Try to remember it's name for next time and then don't eat it.  

It's as easy as one two three um, eleven. As long as you are neat and keep your cheese on your plate you are golden.  But make a mess of the lovely and, by the way, very expensive cheese plate and your hostess will be less enamored of you.

You want to get invited back, right?