Choosing cheese

Cheese meant only one thing to children growing up in a small Caribbean island with hardly any dairy products beyond pasteurized milk. It meant the cheddar that was imported in slabs and sold across shop counters by the ounce. This generic cheese went into cheese sandwiches in slices or in the form of "cheese paste"; in macaroni pie, and in cubes with pickled pearl onions or hard salami on toothpicks, served as an hors d'oeuvre at weddings and special functions. 

I was an adult before I sampled "fondue pots" of melted jarlsberg and white wine, and realised that there were many many more varieties of cheese than "rat." At first I loved the ones that were closest in texture and flavour to what we had - gouda, edam, jarlsberg and the flavoured American cheddars. Cream cheese was probably the only soft cheese that appealed to my uneducated palate. And it took many more years before consideration would be given to those that were stinky, runny or had veins of blue mould. Still later, I discovered cheeses made from cow's, goat's, sheep's and even buffalo milks! What a revelation!

Imagine the delight now presented by cheese shops like this Neal'sYard Dairy in London's Borough Market; or that in Zaanse Schans, the model Dutch village just outside of Amsterdam.

At Neal's Yard Dairy shop at Borough Market, we sampled and bought a delightful Crozier's Blue made from sheep's milk; a tangy spicy goat's blue and a small piece of feta for the salad.

 This is the sheep's blue made on a family farm in Ireland. A lovely circle of chewy potato bread was the perfect accompaniment to this cheese as well as a tender Brie.

Patented in Italy, Parmigiano Reggiano can be made by no one else in the world! Take a small slab home and shave pieces off as you need - far superior to the packaged pre-grated supermarket stuff.