The Sophisticated Cheese

playboy's food & drink editor

To be a man of distinction you must learn to appreciate the unique flavor of certain urbane bacteria. For one of the chief joys of nature and gracious living is a chunk of ripe cheese.

Contrary to popular belief, sheer aroma in itself is not necessarily a guide to good cheese. An ambitious young gourmet will sometimes walk into an Italian grocery store with the Provoloni and Provolette hanging from the rafters and with twenty other foreign cheeses, each staring at him, each the soul of putrefaction. He takes one sniffle and the full blown odors send him reeling to the sawdust floor. After he regains consciousness and remains in the store a half hour or so, his olfactory sense becomes so numb that fragrance and stench are one. He can then begin to taste the assorted cheeses, shaking his head, smacking his lips, rolling his eyeballs and going through all the gestures of a stone deaf man listening to a symphony orchestra. He is now what is known as a foofoo epicure. He has about as much discrimination as a three-day drunk.

Some cheeses, like Liederkranz, must literally reek with ripeness or they are not good. But there are other cheeses, like Italian Bel Paese, in which the subtle flavor is not dependent on mere fragrance alone. The taste buds on the back of your tongue tell the real story. Of course, no raw cheese can create the divine bouquets that arise when cheese is cooked -- when Welsh Rabbit simmers in a chafing dish or Romano cheese browns under a brisk broiler flame.

The best kinds of cheese are never eaten by youngsters. A growing boy will gobble down a Swiss cheese on rye at the corner drug store, but he will consistently drown all cheese flavor with a double rich malted milk. After his graduation from college, when the lad joins a private men's club, he'll learn to appreciate a bubbling Welsh Rabbit, but he'll not be able to tell you the difference between French and Canadian Trappist cheese until he reaches his late thirties.

Only after a man enters the deep middle span of his life will his palate be educated to the point where he will fathom the difference between Gorgonzola and English Stilton. He'll be approaching his mellow fifties when he'll want to spend a half hour munching his dessert of medium soft Brie cheese, hard crackers and winesap apples.

Bernard Shaw knew well the mellowed tastes of maturity when he wrote his play, Pygmalion. Young Higgins, who shares his house with the saucy Eliza and the gray-templed Colonel Pickering, asks Eliza to order a Stilton cheese, and that knowing young lady replies, "Colonel Pickering prefers double Gloucester to Stilton, and you don't notice the difference!"

The coagulated protein we eat these days is a much more mellow dish than the cheese made from mare's milk described by Hippocrates. Our Olympic heroes today do not feed themselves on an exclusive diet of cheese and dates that the beefy rasslers of ancient Greece favored. But Playboy still believes, with the Elizabethan epicure, that "For healthie men, cheese be wholesome food." Only men with no trace of lavender in their veins can appreciate the old partnership of warm mince pie with aged Cheddar cheese or the union of peppery brown onion soup doused with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Women, too, are known by the cheese they eat. It's almost impossible to imagine a virgin eating and enjoying a piece of sharp Roquefort cheese marbled with the most delicate of blue moulds. A woman must have heard and told an off-color bon mot or two before she is sufficiently discriminating to see that Italian Ricotta is superior to the cottage cheese salad she ate in the Women's Exchange Tea Room. Escort the young lady who has not yet gotten her final divorce papers to the dark little restaurant in the east forties. There are no eavesdroppers and the headwaiter asks no questions. Unerringly she will choose the cream cheese and guava jelly for dessert rather than the platter of sickly French pastry a less experienced girl would select.

A glorious high wedge of cheese cake will be infinitely more appreciated by the type of girl who has blown her lid at a midnight frolic rather than the prim miss who has a mortal fear of calories in any form whatever. Cheese soufflé, that favorite of spinster home economics teachers, is distinguished only by the fact that it has a minimum of honest cheese flavor and a maximum of froth and foam.

The origin of cheese has come down to us in the form of an Arabian legend:

Centuries ago, a travelling salesman by the name of Kanana carried his lunch of dates and goat's milk. He kept his milk in a canteen which was made of the lining of a calf's stomach. Too busy to drink his milk at the 12 o'clock whistle, Kanana kept on travelling until dusk. When he finally stopped to eat, he started to drink his milk and discovered instead a thin almost tasteless liquid. In the canteen, however, was a mass of solid food -- cheese.

The cheese in Kanana's canteen was made by the same principle which has been used for centuries in the art of cheese making. The lining of the calf's stomach was not sufficiently dried and some of the rennet remained. The rennet, with the warm assistance of the sun's heat, separated the milk into curds and whey. Kanana had discovered a way of making a perishable food, milk, into a durable food, cheese. He had not yet discovered that the flavor of the cheese would improve further as it aged or became cured with the action of friendly bacteria.

The cheese legends came thick and fast as cheese became more and more popular through the Hebrew, Greek and Roman times. At Roman orgies there was a grand platter of cheese. If it was an expensive orgy, the platter included cheese from Switzerland.

When Rome fell, the art of cheese making was carried on by the Church. Just as the monks learned to make rare brandies and liqueurs, so they learned to cure the finest cheese. One of their formulas, kept secret for many generations, exists until this very day in the famous cheese made by the Trappist monks known as Oka or Port du Salut cheese. The domestic version of this same cheese does not begin to come up to the deeply sensuous flavor which the monks developed in their Port du Salut cheese.

Even cheese dishes which we think of as modern are really old hat to cheese fanciers. To most of us, the melted cheese sandwich seems like a modern gimmick, but as a matter of fact, in the 1600's Sir Kenelme Digby was describing the delights of a "quick, fat, rich, well tasted cheese to serve melted upon a piece of toast."

We think of such slang as "He's the big cheese" as belonging to the Twentieth Century. Well, several hundred years ago the English were describing something that was quite special with such phrases as "That's prime Stilton," or "That's double Gloucester."

Our big cheeses are bigger than they used to be. When Queen Victoria was married in 1840, British farmers presented the bride with a round of Cheddar weighing 1100 pounds. It was an impressive gift for the British Royalty, but it was a poor cheese alongside the one made for a supermarket in Tuscon, Arizona, a few years ago. This single hunk of casein manufactured in Wisconsin weighed a neat 5000 pounds.

Of all cheese customs perhaps the most illustrious was the famous "groaning cheese." Years ago in Europe a prospective pappy would numb his nerves by nibbling cheese. Instead of pacing outside the bedroom door, the father would eat from the center of the cheese until a large hole, like a doughnut center, had been scooped out. Later the new born infant was ceremoniously passed through the hole. Whether this wholesale cheese eating by the father was intended to restore vital protein for future impregnations is open to conjecture.

In Switzerland, wheels of cheese are kept during an entire lifetime to be taken off the shelf and nibbled at during important events such as engagements, weddings and christenings. In 1910 a cheese made in 1785 was discovered near Les Ormonts. The cheese had to be cut with a large saw, but it was still edible.

One of the unintentional benefits of World War II was the fact that it forced American cheese makers to duplicate many of the better imported cheeses. American cheese makers started to produce a wonderfully mellow and smooth Camembert cheese when shipments stopped from France. Roquefort cheese, which is made from sheep's milk in France, was produced here from cow's milk as Bleu cheese. Each succeeding year finds it richer and finer in flavor.

Domestic Swiss cheese can never be the same as imported for the simple reason that the climate, soil, water, etc. in Switzerland cannot be duplicated in this country, and these factors determine the composition of the milk from which the cheese is made. Cheese chemists are, nevertheless, bringing the foreign and native products closer all the time.

Although there are literally thousands of kinds of cheese made over the world, the enlightened playboy is only interested in what he can buy in this country and in what he can do with what he buys.

[recipe_title]Hard Cheeses[/recipe_title]

These are the hard types like Cheddar, Swiss and Edam. Cheddar cheese is often sold as "American" cheese or store cheese. It makes up about two-thirds of the cheese sold in this country. It originated in the Cheddar district of England. It may have a deep orange color given it by the addition of artificial color or it may be naturally yellow. It may be mild, medium or sharp but the flavor must always be clean. It should never have a "cowy" or "barny" taste. It should have a smooth waxy body. It should not be so hard that (continued on page 40) Cheese (continued from page 18) it crumbles excessively when sliced nor on the other hand should it be rubbery in texture.

The best Swiss cheese has a semi-sharp nutty flavor and a deep yellow color. It should have the large "eyes" or holes which form during the ripening process.

From Italy come the famous hard cheeses, Parmesan and Romano. Both have a grainy texture and a sharp natural flavor which makes them perfect for grating and for dousing casseroles, onion soup, petite marmite and any possible spaghetti or macaroni dish. Also from Italy is the magnificent Provoloni with its pungent smoky flavor.

Norway sends us the deep brown sweet Gjetost cheese as well as the Mysost, milder than Gjetost, both of them magnificent dessert cheeses.

Edam or Gouda cheese, in the shape of round cakes and recognized by their coating of bright red wax, are imported from Holland and also made in the United States. The imported specimens have a more well-developed flavor than their domestic cousins. Both of these cheeses are excellent for scooping. A flat slice is cut off the top and then replaced to keep the cheese fresh after the center is eaten.

The cheeses marbled with mould are Gorgonzola from Italy, Roquefort from France, Stilton from England and Bleu cheese from the Scandinavian countries. All of them are crumbly in texture and sharp but nevertheless creamy when taken in the mouth. All of them beg for Port or Sherry. All of them are delightful with cold fresh fruit -- pears, apples or grapes.

[recipe_title]Semi-Soft Cheeses[/recipe_title]

Munster cheese, in its domestic version, is so mild as to be almost completely flavorless. To be tolerated it must be eaten with crisp French or Italian bread or doused with sharp mustard. There are several imported brands of Munster cheese, however, with a tipsy, smart-aleck flavor, making them wonderful for beer parties. Bel Paese cheese from Italy and Port du Salut cheese from France or Canada are wonderful at the end of a meal or as night snacks with bourbon or brandy. Mozzarella from Italy is a white unsalted cheese, used in such things as Pizza pies and Lasagna.

[recipe_title]Soft Cheeses[/recipe_title]

Besides the two well-known smoothies, cream cheese and cottage cheese, there are Liederkranz and Limburger. Years ago it was impossible to handle Limburger cheese without wearing a gas mask. The pungent odor came from the rind. Today it is put up in rindless form and is still magnificent fun with beer, ale or stout. Liederkranz is the pride of the American cheese fraternity, smooth, creamy and the perfect ending for a steak or seafood dinner or the perfect beginning for a midnight beer and pretzel party.

Finally there are Brie and Camembert cheeses from France and the United States. Camembert cheese comes in small disc-shaped packages about 4 to 5 inches in diameter. It is also available in half packages. It is not ready for eating until the hard center turns soft and almost liquid. If the cheese is unripe when you buy it, you let it set at room temperature for a day or two until the center changes from a grayish white to a deep yellow. If the cheese is over-ripened, it will acquire a sharp ammonia-like flavor which is harmless but unesthetic.

Again we must refer to the worldly knowledge of Bernard Shaw. One of the characters in his play The Man of Destiny tells Napoleon that a young lady, waiting to see him, is the "right age." Napoleon sensibly asks him what he means by the "right age" -- sixteen or thirty? Camembert cheese, although it only takes a few months to process, is the thirty-year-old type of beauty: lovely, subtle and sensuous. It is primarily a dessert cheese.

Process cheeses are generally damned by cheese connoisseurs because of their soapy taste and their rubbery texture, although one process cheese, Swiss Gruyere, has been a classic of the cheese market for years. Another recent phenomena in the cheese world is the so-called club cheese. Unlike process cheese which has an emulsion added to it, club cheese is simply natural cheese ground until it is soft and then blended with other cheeses or flavors. One of the club cheeses, McClaren's imported Cheddar cheese, marketed by Kraft, is really a delight worth smacking your lips over.

[recipe_title]Cheese Spreads[/recipe_title]

At all hen-parties, meetings of the Ladies Aid Society, women's club conventions and similar sessions, sweet cheese spreads are the order of the day. Cheese is mixed with anything from chopped dates to strawberry jam, spread on tiny triangles of bread or rolled into pinwheel sandwiches.

Men seldom tolerate such fluffs. If they eat a cheese spread, they want it to quicken the appetite, not kill it. For instance, one of the slickest cheese spreads is a mixture of cream cheese and chopped clams. To charge the mild cream cheese with life, the cheese should be pepped up by rubbing the bowl, in which the spread is mixed, with a large cut clove of garlic. The clams should be fresh clams chopped fine, not the canned clams which women customarily use for this spread. Finally the cheese should be generously spiked with Worcestershire sauce. The spread is put into a small bowl. Alongside it you place fresh crackers, thinly sliced salt rye bread or thinly sliced pumpernickel. The spread is a magnificent obligato for cocktails, highballs, champagne or brandy.

If you're getting on the high ropes for a new girl friend, you might make a spread of Stilton cheese and Port wine or Cheddar cheese and Sauterne. Both cheeses may be softened by forcing them through a colander or through a meat grinder. The wine is then added to (concluded on page 52)Cheese(continued from page 40) taste. If the combination seems too sharp, it may be toned down by adding softened sweet butter to taste. Spreads of this type can be bought professionally blended in small crocks, sold at specialty stores.

Finally, there are scores of such spreads as cream cheese with chive, bacon and cheddar cheese, garlic cheese and others put up in jars, cans, tubes, casings and other varied forms.

[recipe_title]Tomato Rabbit[/recipe_title]

For all mulligan mixers, chafing dish chefs and men who like to elbow up to a bright blue flame with a well seasoned saucepan, Playboy recommends the following variation on the usual Welsh Rabbit recipe. It will satisfy four men at your next bull session.

Cut out the stem ends of two tomatoes. Cut the tomatoes in half crosswise. Sprinkle the tomatoes generously with salt, pepper and sugar. Broil the tomatoes until tender, turning once to cook both sides.

In the top part of a chafing dish or the top part of a double boiler, place 1 tablespoon butter. Heat over simmering water until the butter melts. Add 1 tablespoon prepared mustard, 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard, 1/2 teaspoon paprika, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce. Stir well. Add 1 pound sharp American or Cheddar cheese cut into 1/2 inch cubes.

Keep the water in the lower part of the double boiler or the lower part of the chafing dish simmering. If it boils too rapidly, it may cause the cheese to become stringy. Stir frequently as the cheese melts.

When the cheese is about half melted, add 1/2 cup ale or beer. Continue cooking until the cheese is entirely melted and very hot. Beat two egg yolks with 1/4 cup cream or milk and slowly add to the cheese. Stir and cook until thickened.

Pour the hot Rabbit over the broiled tomatoes on serving dishes or casseroles. Flank the Tomato Rabbit with crisp hot toast. Keep refilling the tall steins with cold beer or ale until every morsel of cheese is happily washed down.