Memories

There is a time in everyones life, when the waistline gets too big and it becomes all too comfortable in that easy routine that they call life. They have "no time" for anything but to slump upon the TV of live and let it flow in. So before Thomswoon gets to obese and struggles to fit into those skinny jeans he has fled to wordpress greener

http://onemanandhischeese.wordpress.com/

They were the best of times, they were the blurst of times....

So with this final post I say goodbye, arrivederci, totsiens, adjö, güle güle, hüvasti, 작별 인사, comiat, збогум, αντίο, beannacht! Thanks for the memories....

On Your Whey....

"She sends me blue valentines,
"To remind me of my cardinal sin.
"I can never wash the guilt,
"Or get these bloodstains off my hands,
"And it takes a lot of whiskey,
"To make these nightmares go away.

Tis the season to be merry, or at least mildly contrary. The lovers love, the indifferent conceal to to be indifferent and the lonely listen to good music and thank the lord that they don't have to make the dash to the vivo down the street and make an empty purchase of dead flowers. Cut down in their prime only to wilt in the mouldy vase of a dissatisfied lover. Flowers. The symbol of no more. Propped against a gravestone, thrown to the unfortunate next to be wed and the gift of man who no longer cares. Tis a meek existence....

He drinks himself into a stupor, only realising in his inebriated state what a waste he has made of his life. Tied down to a woman he is indifferent about for the sole reason of his lack of backbone. His perpetual fear of being alone. His resentment for her grows, every movement she makes is multiplied in his mind. The scratch of her nails along her supple neck sounds like 100 fingernails scrapping down a blackboard and every several seconds a nail breaks and not only does the sound send shivers down his back but the sight of the brittle polished nail shattering sends him over the edge. He jettisons out of his chair and towards her. Unable to take this torture anymore he stands above her, knuckles marbled white and red and what does he do? Nothing, just stands and takes it...

*Onemanandhischeese doesnt condone domestic violence.

But for all you romancers who are blissfully in love on this day, that celebrates the death of the martyr Mr Valentine, hope is not gone. In todays society of heavy social drinking many women might be worried that the full romance of the evening may not be met. But worry no longer ladies as Austian brewers from Brauerei Egg have come up with this....

Cheesy beer. Well not exactly, whey beer. One of the main by products of cheese making whey can pose a tricky waste product as you can just wash it down the drain as it is quite acidic. So this Austrian brewer has decided to ferment and use it in his beer. Possibly why it has a low alcohol content is while there is still some sugar in the whey, in the form of lactose, for a more alcoholic brew dextrose can be added to help the ferment. The lack of whey products on the market is peculiar, as it is claimed to have a similar probiotic content of the ridiculously expensive yakult. Why not crank it up another level distill the whey. It is said that the alcohol in Baileys comes from fermented whey, but when I got in contact with Diageo they had nothing to say on that matter but did let me know of their fabulous product range. Its like hitting your head against a wall trying to get information from any large company the paranoia is insane. Sooner or later God is gonna cut them down....

Like hitting your head against a wall, or at the least a drinks tray...

Laboratorio Artigianle

"Ice cream is exquisite, what a pity it isn't illegal"

The words of Francois-Marie Arouet, who soon would be known to the common man as Voltaire. A French writer, poet and philosopher his sharp tongue would get him into trouble time and time again. Voltaire, like many other encyclopedistes during the French enlightenment would gather at the brasserie by the name of Cafe Procope. The men of fashion would spend hours guzzling down caffeine laden coffee alongside ice cream and sorbet served in the finest porcelain. But as exotic as ice cream may have been back then, it has become part of our daily life. Whole isles at the unsupermarket, the jangle of the ice cream bus, memories of fallen scoops in a windy seaside car park, ice cream is part of our life. But times they are a changing. What is your favourite flavour? Vanilla? Mint choc chip? Rum n raisin? Cookie dough? Dull. Dull. Dull. Why does the flavour have to be limited to the weather in which we consume our ice cream on the grey beach? Japan just shock things up.

Fish, curry, garlic, ox tongue, chicken wing ICE CREAM

They never seem to disappoint. From gastronomical delights to the exit of those gastronomical delights into the high tech sanitary basins, from insane Japanoise androgynous bands to unspeakable pornographic offerings they have a mind set like no other. DA DA DA DA DADA, DA DA DA DA DADA......

Just waiting for zebra ice cream now. After all the chaos and mind twisting logic of the Japanese give me a tropical zebra ice cream sitting in my South African beach house. Wilderness for miles, eyes so mild and wise.

Milk it...

Never has such a piece of work been talked so irrelevantly without citing its influences. In the time I have been waffling about cheese this and cheese that and cheese the other. I have rarely mentioned the said milk. But what wonderful magical animal excretes pure cheese?

Exactly, that collective "none" has put shame onto my neglect of the raw materials. The essence, the original, in the beginning there was the word. But what of milk?

There is a fear of milk. We are always waiting for it to die. We are wary as every time we grab milk from the fridge the first thing we do it sheepishly whiff the opened jug. The relief on our faces it has lived another day. We show no trust to the milk we buy from the supermarkets and correctly so. Why does it go bad several days before if says on the label? Is it the collective fridges throughout the country are of a poor quality? No it is the milk that is of a poor quality.

This man bes a Mr Louis Pasteur the pioneer of milk as we know it today... pasteurised. People run and hide under their bed when they are confronted with raw milk. But run no longer. The reason the pasteurised milk is going bad is because its TVC (Total viable count, ie what bacteria is in the milk) is of a high level. Raw milk has been proven to be kept more hygienic as the producers of pasteurised milk think once it is pasteurised it is infallible and can be abused. Most counts pushing the legel limit of 100000, but raw milk counts could be closer to this....

So lets up rise. This cleaner milk is deemed unsuitable for human consumption?! Do we need to be wrapped up so, should we not have free choice, without having to travel many a mile to find some raw milk by a farmers gate? Let us drink in celebration of the milk....

"Milk is for babies. When you grow up you have to drink beer. "

Not so Mr Schwarzenegger, why limit ourselves. Milk should negotiate its way towards alcohol. Head to The Korova Milk Bar. Sit on the nearest naked lady and pour yourself a cold one from her nipple. Drink the milk with knives in it, it will sharpen you up as...

"No animal ever invented anything so bad as drunkenness--or so good as drink"

Jackass

When you think of things of great wealth one of the last things you would think off would be a donkey. Many a time as I strode through the pouring rain to make it through to a one on one with the goalkeeper only to have my boot catch the muddy turf and fall flat on my face. DONKEY! DONKEY! DONKEY! they would chant as I lay there, the mud hiding the tears on my cheeks. It hard to imagine that they are making a reference to, maybe the fact that the donkey was once responsible for the wealth of the Egyptians due to it being the means for transport of precious metals carried from Africa by donkeys? Or maybe it was them parodying my twisting silky dribbling referring to the donkeys carrying silk along the 'Silk Road' from Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean, but I feel they were using it in the vain of the derogatory slant it has become. But fear not donkey lovers as the worth of donkeys is again to rise....

DONKEY CHEESE

It has taken the throne as the worlds most expensive cheese. I have touched on this before in the usual roundabout way here, but there is a new king in town and that king is 'Pule'. Pule comes from the Serbian word for 'foal'. Cue donkey fact....In the desert environment a donkey is able to hear the call of another donkey 60 miles away, they have far larger ears than horses.

But back to the cheese... This donkeys cheese comes in at a whopping £1000/kg. But whats so special about these donkeys I hear you say? Nothing really it is just that there is a terrible yield from donkey milk due to the very low percentage of fat and protein available. No wonder the coachman in Pinochio set up Pleasure Island. But surely everyone is a winner, you get to play pool, drink, smoke, fight, gamble and then when you have made enough of a 'jackass' of yourself you turn into a donkey and produce some of the most expensive cheese in the world. This is basically a metaphor for my life....

Another reason for why the cheese may cost so much is the danger that surrounds the milking of the donkeys. Due to there cautious and untrusting nature they are forever bucking their legs and this would be hazardous during milking as they would be forever kicking off their milking clusters. This could lead too many pathogens such as escherichia coli and salmonella getting into the milk through fecal contamination. ie Pony crap....

Death By Cheese....

"McCormack and Richard Tauber are singing by the bed

There's a glass of punch below your feet and an angel at your head"

Financial crisis isn't the only thing that Ireland has in common with the Greeks, they also have some exceptional mythology. An underrated mythology if you will. Its got everything a good myth needs. Deceit, seductive ladies, death, moider! Like a good Saturday night in Galway.

Mr Shane MacGowan references an old tale of woe for Cú Chulainn. Trouble began for poor Cu Chulainn before he was even born. His mother was called Deichtineand she was the daughter of the King of Ulster. She was out with her father one night in search of a wondrous flock of beautiful birds. A snowstorm ensues and they take refuse at a near by house. The lady of the house goes into labour that evening and Deichtineand helps to birth that child and just like a 50s horror film there is a crash of lightening that preempts a mare in the stables giving birth to 2 colts.

A joyous evening for everyone, as the storm rages on outside. As dawn was breaking and everyone resurfacing with megalithic hangovers only for the parents of the new born to have disappeared so Deichtineand mothered that child unfortunelty only for the child to fall sick and die.

The god Lug appears to her and tells her he was their host that night, and that he has put his child in her womb, who is to be called Sétanta. Her pregnancy is a scandal as she is betrothed to Sulatam mac Róich, and the Ulstermen suspect Conchobar of being the father, so she aborts the child and goes to her husband's bed "virgin-whole". She then conceives a son whom she names Sétanta. Later changes his name after killing a dog. Jeremy Kyle eat your heart out.

And what a stunner he was not only was he a head turner his beauty could melt snow. I'm sure he would have had no problems with the ladies. He could walk up to the tallest and blondest girl, he would say....

It is the Greek mythology though that ties this all into cheese this very eve. Queen Maeve of Connaught meet an untimely demise at the hands of some hard curd. She was slain by her own nephew. She was bathing in the waters of Lough Ree when after hours of practice killed her by firing Tanag though a sling shot. Tanag being a hard pressed cheese. What a way to go.

Unfortunately many of the indigenous cheeses from Ireland have been lost over time. They had a Fraisce Grotha which translates as compression of curds. This would have been a fresh cheese. There are others to many a few Millsen, Gruth, That and Mulchan. But what they really strived at was butter, which would be buried in the bogs. Whether this was to preserve or to make it rancid is unclear.


Looks good. As traditional as an Irish wedding or a horse riding thorough a council estate....

Teller of Untruths, Your Trousers Have Combusted

It's 12:36 PM on a leafy suburb of any given generic city. All to be heard are the fleeting cars on the duel carriage way nearby. Then a bell echoes around. Starting in the marble corridors and making its way to the cochlea of a child. It is now time for the sacred ritual that is kids lunchtime. The yard is full. Groups of boys and girls scream, running around with not a care in the world. But then one boy tries to exaggerate a tale of his to gain some playground respect. But hes pushed it too far. The dreaded chant bellows out creating a silence and all eyes gaze upon him....

"LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE!"

But what does this mean? Why are his pants on fire? Is it literal or maybe just a good rhyme? Well legend has it, it originates from the fact that lying is considered an immoral act that is punishable by spanking. Henceforth one who lies bottom will be hit causing his or her pants to be on fire.

And well we all know who are the biggest liars and contradictors of the lot? Not the poor school child trying to navigate the social maze of primary school, but the GOVERNMENT!!!

They need to get their stories straight....

Here is an article from the NY Times about the government scaremongering about fat and then pushing cheese sales.

Now neither of these are necessarily bad things. But they need to put their message across differently. People shouldn't just be worrying about their fat intake, but looking at their all round health. Be active, eat healthily, have some sense, instead of frightening people about fat they should be encouraging educating ourselves so we can make informed decisions not just be told eat less of this and more of the other.

Cheese does have quite a high fat content, but its has its advantages being calcium rich. But were not expected to eat 100g at a time. Its not going to kill you unless you have one of these a day....

Then it would be goodbye friend...

Dead or Alive

Zombies. The walking DEAD. The living DEAD. The unDEAD. But are they really dead??

Well the idea of a zombie originates from Haiti and a young man by the name of Wade Davis was fascinated by the tales of voodoo. He had read stories of zombies and their link with voodoo, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerers or bokors. In the 80s he presented a pharmacological case that could explain zombie like states. So the bokor would introduce 2 chemicals to the victim. Straight to the blood, usually via a wound. Assumably this is where the grotesque name of the modern pop culture zombie comes from. First he we add a toxin "coup de poudre" the main component being tetrodotoxin which is found in the flesh of puffer fish, fugu, which when not prepared correctly can be deadly as popularised by a certain Mr. Homer J. Simpson, well he wasn't a friend to the salad....

Together which another drug these powders were said to induce a death-like state in which the victim's will would be entirely subjected to that of the bokor. Then they would be reanimated after being buried. Thus breaking up through the soil comes the iconic zombie. But is it immortal now or is it just a corpse?

This point can be transferred to other debates. The one we'll choose is the philosophical hot pot that is cheese of course. So what is cheese. It is one of life's great conundrum. Is the cheese the immortal embodiment of milk? Or is it a corpse vessel that is the Tumuli of the milk? The opposing sides of the argument go as such....

The late great American author Clifton Fadiman argued...

"A cheese may disappoint.
It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be oversophisticated.
Yet it remains, cheese, milk’s leap toward immortality"

Where as a certain James Joyce disagreed with him...

"A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what’s cheese? Corpse of milk."

NO, NO, NO, NO......... Yes..........

Homeopathy Apathy?

You wake up. Look out the window. Grey. You go to the bathroom and see a pale version of your former self staring back at you. You haven't been abusing your body with the usual concoction of cheap booze and expensive second hand smoking. But you still have this throbbing in the deep of your throat. So what do you do, straight and grab the Covonia?

FOOL!!! Look at how the cheap advertising has lured you into this rash self harming decision. What is wrong with the good old homoeopathic remedies of days gone by? Sure people used to live to the tender age of 56 back then. If its good enough for them its good enough for me!

Homoeopathy has been kicking around since 1796 when a German by the name Samuel Hahnemann put foreward the idea to treat ill patients with a diluted sustance that would give the ill effects to a healthy patient. Hmmmm maybe a home remedy might be better for that sore throat then....

So the pain of the sore throat has you paralyised. You cant bare to venture out in the grey surely there must be something in the house you can use to you own advantage. So you pull open the fridge and its there staring straight at you in all its cheeesy glory. Cottage cheese!

Yes for many a year people have been using this to clear a sore throat. So here how it goes down. You make a cottage cheese poultice. You do this by getting some cottage cheese spreading it on a cloth and heating it with a hair dyer. Then wrap this cloth around your throat. Leave for 3-4hrs and hey presto sore throat is gone. Or is it??? Id prefer a we gurle in the bathroom...

Cracking Up

Last night I ventured into the depths of the past for a gig in Sheffield. It was in a venue called skate central. I thought, oh a nice we throw back to times of yore, bubblegum, slush puppies and hotdawgs, old LED scoreboard, the blood of a grazed knee on the floor, but essentially now converted into a music venue.

But when I arrived and entered up the marble stairs a pair of skates were thrust apont me. Several nerve calming drinks later and I can say I could imagine myself to be as smooth as these boys....

Even to glide like this guy would have been acceptable....

But no doubt this is who I was aspiring to be....

Mother Goose

"Old Mother Goose,

When she wanted to wander,
Would ride through the air
On a very fine gander.

Jack's mother came in,

And caught the goose soon,

And mounting its back,

Flew up to the moon"

Ma, mum, mother dearest, mama, mummy, mom. Whatever the name the beast remains the same. The bond from mother to son is one of the strongest history has seen. It is a theme explored from as far back as ancient Greek mythology. However due to a certain Mr Freud naming a complex, relating to a child's unconscious desire for his mother and resentment or jealously of his father, after Oedipus, people believe that Oedipus felt this bond also. When in fact Oedipus' parents, Jocasta and Laius, never intended to encounter their son. After hearing from the Oracle that their first born male would kill his father and marry the mother they did what any parents would do. They bound him by the ankles and asked a servant to dispose of him.

Of course the servant couldn't carry this through and off loaded him to a shepherd in a near by town. Life is good for Oedipus until a drunk tells him that his "da" ain't his da. So he goes to his local Oracle who doesn't tell him who his real father is but informs him of the prophecy.

Afraid of fulfilling the prophecy he runs away to the nearest town, which just happens to be his birth place Thebes. On his journey he comes to a point where 3 roads meet and encounters a Chariot driven by, unbeknown to him, his birth father, King Laius. So in a fit of road rage Oedipus slays his dad over who has right of the road. Don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same.

Continuing on towards Thebes he came in contact with Sphinx, who would stop all those who traveled to Thebes and ask them a riddle.

"What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?"

Oedipus answered correctly. Can you? The Sphinx is astounded and inexplicably kills itself, freeing Thebes. In turn this earns him the recently widowed Jocasta's hand in marriage, completing the prophecy. The rest is your usually Monday night soap affair. Mythical kings eh?

There is an old Spanish proverb that reads:

"An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy"

If this be true then this New Yorker is worth a few Monasteries. Daniel Angerer has posted up a recipe for breast milk cheese. Unsettlingly called Mommy's milk cheese. It was interesting to see that the same rules and procedure still apply. Interesting to note that it would have different tastes depending on the diet of his wife at the time. This is surely a new market. With the limited types of feed you can give to a goat/cow/sheep it can be hard to find new unique tastes, but with the female they have a multitude of options to alter the taste of the milk. and inturn the taste of the cheese. Do women ever cease to amaze?

Day Zero

In the beginning was the Fermentation

Today I embarked on a new path. From the humble surroundings of Belfasts finest family run delicatessens to a new world filled with fermentation. I enrolled today at the School of Artisan Food...

"I have changed my name so often,
I've lost my wife and children"

The school is nestled away in the corner of the Welbeck Estate. Home to thousands of acres of farm, forest and fields peppered with imposing stone buildings. Also on the estate is the impressive Welbeck Abbey. A Monastery that dates back to 1143. And how things have changed in a mere 900 years. The premonstratensian order that originated in Germany were believers in strict self denial. How they could manage that with the smell of baking bread to compliment the Stichelton made just down the road. They were known as the white monks.

And here is a sneak peak of further things to come. Rough ladies and gentle men I give you. Stichelton...

Day onehundredandthirtynine.....

And On The 39th Day He Rose Again

Like a phoenix from the flames, Thomswoon has risen from cutting floor of the fromagerie. And how the world has changed in those 39days. But why wait 39days. Does that make me 13times less of a being as Jesus? Or maybe more, or perhaps I was on a trip?

http://news.discovery.com/space/mars-rocket-vasimr-nasa.html

Cheese will not stop for any man. Cuisine is forever changing. Throughout the ages, different cultures have banqueted in many different ways.


But now thanks to a wise aunt of mine I have seen the future of dining...

Cheese Restaurants

All the menu sounding pongingly delicious however I did stumble across one anomaly. L'Assiette de l'Etable. It is described in the article as.

"An assortment of three cheeses on toast, served with lettuce and cooked sliced ham."

Aye, cheese and ham toastie? But fear not many a dish even for the concerned vegetarian.

"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants"

The words of comedian Whitney Brown. I wonder if that's why some people are carnivores?

Day nintynine....

This Is The End

This is the last post, for the time being that I shall make. The end is nigh. It was written that on the 100th day the world would stop, cheese would cease to be, turning to dust. Every animals milk would dry up and the rivers of dairy will end. So I will make the final pilgrimage to Dalston, to worship our leader. The one whom we strove to improve ourselves with for the past 100days. Together we will all stand when the sands of time run out.

"Don't leave me, it is necessary to forget everything you need to forget,
which is already over.Forget the times of the misunderstandings, the lost time,
to know how to forget the hours, which sometimes kill,the reasons why, the heart full of joy.

Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me

I offer you pearls of rain, coming fro countries where is never rains,
I will cross the world until after my death,
for to cover your body with gold and bright light,
I will give you a kingdom where love will be the king,
Where love will be the law
and where you will be queen.
Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me
Don't leave me."

Thomswoon could no longer take it anymore. A knife through his heart of cheese. Mouth stuffed with Baby Belle. He could no longer bare the sight from his window. He would rather have died looking at cheese than live and see merely cheese once every now and again. And his final message scrolled across his chest in squeeze cheese, the end.........

Day nintyeight....

What's In A Name

"For a moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life.
She was here on earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment,
and to call each thing by its right name.
By its right name."

This is a quote from Dr Zhivago and is later recalled in a film called Into The Wild. A beautiful film it is. Based on a true story about Chrispoher McCandless, he shuns society, gives all his college money to Oxfam, leaves his comfortable middle class life, and after 2 years hitching around USA ends up as far away from society as possible living in an unused bus in the Alaskan wilderness. But it isn't until he is reading this passage that he realises that his happiness is not in the beauty of the world but the relationship with the people he met as he explored it. But it is too late he knows that he will die and writes through this passage...

"Happiness is only real when it is shared."

And how true this is. For the past 98 days it has been onemanandhischeese, Thomswoon. Am I doomed to be trapped in this blog.

"Happiness is only real when it is shared."

Tis only too true and I am only too lucky to have had many friends around to help contribute ideas when my mind was lacking. My better half Raymona Crozier, a Mexican with one of the finest minds Mr Tony Moore, the only other person who appreciates the female form more than myself Jemima Cartin and nighthawk, ChatRoulette harlequin Rosemary Kirton. I thank you all. But that's enough of all this "cheesiness" time for the hard hitting headlines...

"Teen Pleads Guilty To Hiring Hit Man To Steal Block Of Cheese"

What fine cheese must this be? Caciocavallo Podolico perhaps? A cheese made in Italy and costs the same per lb as silver. Well no its not that. Maybe is Mouse House cheese in Bjursholm? Costing $500 per lb? No in fact it was Queso Fresco.

Jessica Sandy Booth mistook this cheese for a block of cocaine. The homemaking of Queso Fresco is quite common with Hispanics as it is seen as safer, due to TB outbreaks linked with the raw milk. So she mistook at this home cheese making as a cocaine production line. She then compounded this mistake by hiring an undercover police man to steal the cheese and kill the four men in the house. The worst case of mistaken identity since this unfortunate incident.

Day nintysix....

What Next?

"My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there."

This quote is from inventor Charles F Kettering. He was head of research for general motors and would have bestowed this knowledge around the early 1900s. It must have been a very exciting time and look at the change 100 years has made.

This is an image of Belfast's Vitoria Square taken around 1910. And here it is 100 years on.

But today nostalgia seems to have over taken our desire to look to the future. Which is surprising as the future has never been so exciting with nanotechnology the world is our oyster, even being able to replicate conditions of how the world was created. But many arts, fashion and media look back to the "good old days" but not these boys...

These are the good old days but what was I talking about....

But where does cheese belong in the future? There are again two major camps on this. The artisan cheese makers, who want to bring cheese back to the singular farms and use traditional methods. And then there are these people...

http://www.dairy-journal.org/index.php?option=article&access=doi&doi=10.1051/dst/2008038

This is an article about a study into using cryogenics in the cooling of the cheese curd. Cryogenic cheese?

So do we embrace the traditional, tried and trusted methods? They must be the best as they have lasted for many a moon?

But don't be afraid of the future. For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.

Day nintyfive....

Ice Cream Man, Ring Your Bell

"Clickin' by your house about two forty-five
With a sidewalk sundae strawberry surprise,
I got a cherry popsicle right on time

A big stick, mamma, that'll blow your mind"

When most people think of ice cream I'm sure they conjure up such picturesque images of a summers walk through a park, as the sun begins to lower in the sky, it's cooling after a baking day and the ice cream can be enjoyed without dripping down over the grasping hand. Sweet flavours. Strawberry, bubblegum, mint choc chip, rum n raisin. But what's this... Fromaggio Gelato? Cheese Ice Cream? Yes don't let your eyes deceive you. And after thinking about it I suppose it makes sense. Cheese is made from milk and cream. Heres is a recipe...

http://italianfood.about.com/od/gelatoandsherbet/r/blr0546.htm

When first invented in 500Ad in China, they would serve ice cream with saffron and vermicelli. Again sounding strange but the Asian use of vermicelli is not like the dried pasta variety you would find in the shop, it is more akin to a rice pudding.

What would King Tang of Shang think? He was the first king of the Shang dinasty, and it was he who commanded 94 to make a frozen dish using buffalo milk and flour. Think of his face as you suckle upon that icy treat, and thank him for his foresight.

Day nintyfour....

From Cheddar With Love

It has been a long and arduous week. The past 90 days had caught up with me. My brian numbed (yes I meant brian, tis a joke referencing my tiredom), and I was cheesed out. I stared at the black screen ahead of me. Nothing could live up to the reasonably low standards I had been churning out, that's how low it went. With the finish line in sight I seemed to give up. A bit like the story of the tortoise and the man.

http://www.stewartlee.co.uk/youtube/fistoffun1-1.htm
(Watch it all as it is one of the best TV shows ever made, but for this reference skip to 18:58)

But then in my mailbox today I did receive, a message, a sign, a gift. Go forth and complete the 100days, stop being so lazy, I know "15 storeys high" by Sean Lock is a great show but really 2 series in a few days, think of the cheese. This was the gift....

A program from the comedian Richard Herring's latest show "Hilter Moustache", in which he is trying to reclaim the swastika(refer to day33 for onemanandhischeese's efforts) and also the comedians toothbrush moustache. It was signed "Michael, you cheesy c***. I like Cheddar." And I realised I have only flited with the worlds most popular cheese. Mr Herring himself is from Cheddar, Somerset. And for you who have never visited here is a brief synopsis of the way of the world in Cheddar.

http://www.stewartlee.co.uk/youtube/fistoffun1-2.htm
(01:48)

Cheddar cheeses first record of being used in UK was in one of King Henry ii banquets were he purchased 10, 000 lbs. But the favourite cheese of the English isn't exactly, well English. The recipe is from a French cheese Cantal. But after a few minor adjustments it is now the worlds most popular cheese. This is mainly through the fact that Cheddar doesn't have a PDO, a protected designation of origin, so any thing hard and yellow is usually called Cheddar. Whereas traditionalyl it was only cheese made within 30 miles of Well Cathedral that could claim this. I can imagine the people of Somerset singing this next tune, shouting out about the world stealing the traditional methods of making Cheddar and exploiting their heritage.

Day ninty....

Fromage De Santa

"Go often to the house of thy friend; for weeds soon choke up the unused path."

This is an ancient Scandinavian proverb. Its roots lie with the original makers of Lapland Cheese.

The packaging is very modern for such a traditional cheese. Lapland Cheese is one of the oldest cheeses in Finland. It is mainly produced in the summer due to the high milk production. The fresh farm milk was warmed up in the big kettle, few drops of rennet added and after the coagulation the cheese mass was stirred and loosely pressed. The pressed cheese was baked next to an open fire until the surface of this ‘’bread’’ was brown spotted. The baking board was very special, a wooden disc with base. Traditional surface treatment of the Lapland Cheese by open fire improved the quality and killed the bacteria which cause taste defects.

This above picture is not the first thought of mine when I hear Lapland. Many a night wandering through the back streets in soho I often walked past a neon sign reading Lapland. It must have been the UK distribution centre for the cheese. Staff all seemed very friendly trying to entice me in. They must have been followers and knew Thomswoons face.

Day eightynine....

In The Dark

Fed up of running out of your favourite fromage delight in the small hours of the morning and you need that sweet nutty hit to get rid of the sweats so you can get hours of peace and nightmares? Just me then? But why not make your own homemade cheese cave.

Not exactly like this. Back in days of yore caves were perfect for maturing cheese in due to the consistent humidity. But now you can replicate this. All you need is an old refrigerator, a temperature regulator and bowl of water.

http://www.cheesemaking.com/includes/modules/jWallace/OnLineNews/NewsFiles/Cave/Cave1.html

But that is the history. What does the future hold in store for caves. Here is a piece of work by Mexican artist Alan Ruiz titled "Cave".

I think the shapes on the floor represent cheese. Hmmmm. Ponder this with another famous Cave lilting in the background.