Did Anyone Else Read the Stinky Cheese Man?

I read somewhere recently that cheese can be as addictive as heroin, as it releases a chemical during digestion that can react with opiate receptors in much the same way as the drug.***

I would assume that the addictive qualities of cheese have much more to do with the pleasures of eating it and not what it is doing to your body once swallowed.

Either way, I like to think that my addiction to cheese is on the healthy side, so long as we can agree that everyone has their thing.

I don’t feel that I talk about cheese a lot in my everyday life.
When I tell people, however, about my cheese aspirations--that my retirement plan is to run a cheese and wine bar or that I asked my parents for a cheese-making kit for my most recent birthday--they are not at all surprised.
“You just really like cheese, huh…” is typically their distracted response.

I mean, what’s not to like?

There is a texture and flavor for every occasion
I made brie en croute for a family holiday get-together one year. Nobody cared, no one was impressed. The fancy phyllo designs that decorated the top did not elicit the oohs and ahhs I had hoped for.
But when you slice into hot brie en croute, the exquisite white cream oozes out and creates a string of cheese from plate to mouth. The flaky pastry braids itself within the brie for an ultimate bite.
Cheese and bread. Heaven. Perhaps I didn’t need the oohs and ahhs. Perhaps the cleaned serving dish was enough.

Sweet or savory
Herbed goat cheese or apricot goat cheese. Cheddar and apples. Blue cheese crumbles and poppy seed dressing.
Not only does cheese come in sweet or savory options (Or smoked, or earthy… the list goes on) but combining these two profiles with a complementing partner creates an incredible treat for the senses. When something is as flavor-packed as cheese is, a little goes a long way. Which is a bonus for the wallet and the waistline.

Grainy, hard, soft, creamy
What exactly are you looking for in your bite? I enjoy a grainy cheese, such as Parmesan, because I feel it makes its presence known, even when mixed with other loud ingredients such as pasta sauce. It really holds its own. And a dry crumble of feta cheese practically explodes in your mouth as you chomp through a quinoa salad.
Hard cheeses are easier on the digestion for those with lactose issues.
Soft cheese can be an important and delightful component of desserts.
Your choice in cheese texture depends on your recipe and preference, but every cheese has a purpose!

Melted, room temp, cold
I think it is so neat that the temperature a cheese is held at can completely change its flavor and experience. I like to buy those mini Babybel round cheeses--the little circles encompassed in the red wax--and I often keep some in my purse for an on-the-go snack. These babies (ba-dum!) are an excellent hard cheese just out of the fridge, but their flavor is definitely more subtle. Sometimes that’s what I want, but when they have been sitting at room temperature for a while, or in my hot car, the flavor gets much more intense as the cheese softens and warms. And sometimes THAT’s exactly what I want. It’s like two snack options in one.
***DISCLAIMER--I should mention that I have no regard for the danger zone. I LOVE the danger zone and am pretty sure I have a stomach of steel. So if you are concerned about food safety and temperature, follow your gut! (Ba dum!)

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that melted cheese is not my favorite.
I KNOW this makes me a heretic.
Melted cheese does have its time and place: on top of a pizza? Absolutely. Three layers, please.
Nachos? Duh. If the cheese is not melted, take them back.
Stir some cheddar in a good roux to dance with noodles? Cheat-day utopia.
But melted ricotta in lasagna? Not a fan. And melted cheese on a burger, with the exception of blue crumbles, is almost a waste of a really good ingredient, IMO. The flavor of the cheese all but disappears on a cheeseburger.
Next time you grill a burger, add a slice of unmelted cheese once the patty is cooked. Ah-mazing. Trust me.

Low carb, high fat, moderate protein--it is the ultimate keto food
I’m not much for moderation, so I need to be careful with calories when I am blinded by these stats. But the macros in cheese make it the perfect keto snack, especially to stave off hunger or as a bedtime treat when your carbs are maxed but you have the munchies! What other diet/lifestyle can say that?!

Mild, sharp or sharper
Sharp is always better. Always. Imagine my amazement when I discovered extra sharp cheddar at the store. It was as if someone had heard my prayers.
I bought two bricks of extra sharp white cheddar cheese at Costco for an obscenely low price and used them to create a cheese sauce in my Crock-pot for a nacho party. It was smooth and pungent and inarguably the star of the show.

Smelly cheese
There are different kinds of stink when it comes to cheese. I could not appreciate Swiss cheese until I fell in love with Reubens in my early twenties, but now sometimes I just crave that dirty taste. Goat cheese is light on smell, but heavy on earthy flavor--I usually get nods of agreement when I say it kind of tastes like dust. But in a good way.
And blue cheese is truly polarizing--you either love it or you hate it. But I LOVE it and, almost always, the stinkier the better.

Perhaps I do actually have a lot to say about cheese. I could go on. But I really want to hear your thoughts. Let’s have a cheese conversation.

***I realized after going back to search for this information that it was linked to the PETA UK web site, so there is obviously some bias in the reporting but this post was meant to be for fun!

For reference, the information was found at https://www.peta.org.uk/blog/9