S. Worthen | Weblog

Soup and Cheese news
The latest in historical soup news: bone soup from the Warring States period.

Last week's cheese in space was not the first cheese in space, although it probably was the first gruyère. Last year, a piece of cheddar went into space with a weather balloon. I thought you should know. I wonder what kind of cheese will be next?

Filk and Eurovision news
For Heather Dale fans: she will be performing in the UK in February.

Were you thinking, however transiently, of attending the Eurovision finals in 2011, especially now that Italy is back in the competition? Tough luck. All 32,000 sold out in a few hours on Sunday. A few more small blocks of 1000 will be released in the coming weeks, and the semis go on sale in January.

saffronjan's been pining away for good cheese conversations and stormwindz recently asked me about my favorite cheeses. So this post is for both of them.

I'm fond of soft goat's cheese, fresh mozzarella, and blues, not to mention Wensleydale and apricot. La Fromagerie (College and Ossington, Toronto) introduced me to a lovely Quebeçois blue called Benedictin, which I miss. But really, I'm a beginner when it comes to cheese. I only really started thinking about it this past January.

[Poll #552268]

It's spelled existence. If only polls were editable...

Wandering through my often-disappointing local grocery store today, I was sorry to find they were out of grapes and the few remaining onions were sprouting. However, the cheese section was well-stocked with a variety of provolone, which reminded me of something.

When shopping at a Waitrose last month in London, they stocked no provolone at all. My U.S.-based recipe called for some, so I chose a replacement based on texture more than taste. On this side of the ocean, provolone, non-fresh mozzarella, and cheddar are the usual staple cheeses, available in variety even in stores with a good, well-stocked cheese counter. Waitrose was a peculiar grocery store from many angles, and taste in cheese varies substantially from country to country. Was Waitrose's complete lack of provolone symptomatic of the UK or the store?

Although manufacturers may complain that names like 'parmesan' and 'champagne' ought to designate a generic product of the right ilk by now, I'm still rather charmed by the idea that local names can designate a local product. I don't mind that Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate must be referred to as a being a milk-chocolate-like product. And I certainly don't mind that the EU has just ruled against non-Parma area parmesan makers, saying that it is not "real" parmesan cheese.

In the same vein, I'm often struck by how few cheeses the US bothers with. Cheese is something richly varying and extremely local, at least in Italy, England, and France. There's an astounding lack of variation and creativity in mass market American (or Canadian) cheeses. I'm not saying there aren't good cheese out there... but there's certainly no real tradition of distributing them.