What are you reading?

[Lukipela]

It is pretty awesome, even though I'd love to hear a bit more about every state. I'll try and see if the TV series is available somewhere, that ought to be good. His perspective is really good. He's not afraid to say he doesn't like something, but he isn't negatively predisposed, as many shows of this sort in Europe tend to be. Less "Look at the fat Americans" and more "This is such a different place".

And I too love Stephen Fry very much. He's simply amazing.

[Lukipela]

Apparently you don't "get" cheese in the US. Confirm/Deny?

[Sage]

If you mean "get" in the sense of "to have", uh yeah we do have a quite a lot of it.

If you mean "get" in the sense of "to understand", what is there to understand? You sit some milk out for a while, it goes bad in a highly specific way, and then you eat it.

Are you talking about the abomination known as American cheese? Granted it's not terrible compared to some other cheeses, but I'm too picky to eat it on anything except a cheeseburger.

Note: I don't represent the typical American viewpoint, or really any typical viewpoint.

[Eth]

  Well, I like to think that I "get" cheese, but how can you know what you don't know, you know?

  There is a sad percentage of Americans who eat revolting processed "cheese-food," though, which could be what Mr. Fry is referring to. 

[Cedric6014]

Being married to an American, and having spent a little time over there (in suburban bliss) I can confirm: American’s don’t “get” cheese. What they do get they have the cheek to call cheddar and it’s a remarkable orange colour. About as orange as Fanta.

You know how in the supermarket there’s usually a section which has all kind of delicious cheeses (gouda, edam, gruyere, port salut, the one with the peppercorns etc), well in America they also have several varieties, including yellow cheese in a tube and orange cheese in a tube. They also have Nachos cheese which is a viscous pourable version of the American cheese.

America does many things well, (basketball, highways, freedom etc) but cheese isn’t one of them. Neither is coffee but that’s another thread. Actually this should be in a another thread also.

[Lukipela]

Thanks for that Cedric, it seems you and Stephen Fry have visited the same store. opened a new thread for it as well, in case people have more to add.

[Draxas]

Honestly, if you want to get real cheese (I personally hate cheese in all its myriad forms, save for mozzarella, and that is only acceptable on my pizza, only in moderation, and may not under any circumstances be mixed with another cheese), you need to hit either a small corner store that specializes in that sort of thing (not viable unless you're in a major urban area), or you need to go to one of the more gourmet supermarkets (Wegmans must have a particularly nice cheese section, because it seems to last forever and makes me want to gag every time I walk past it while shopping).

[fossaman]

Fancy cheese is something we don't get a lot of, no. But it's available if you want it. There's a cheese shop somewhere in my city, I know. And the more expensive grocery stores like Safeway or the organic grocery store carry a little wider selection than just 'orange cheddar'.

But honestly? I prefer the yellow cheddar that comes in a brick and would make any self respecting cheese connoisseur shudder, or low moisture mozzarella. And Parmesan if I'm having pasta, or as an ingredient in a couple other foods. I have a rather sensitive sense of taste, and most of the 'nice' cheeses out there have this weird aftertaste that is just disgusting to me. And I categorically refuse to touch moldy cheese. (Literally. I won't touch it. It's gross. There's things growing on it.)

Flipside of that: I don't like processed cheese. The preservatives give it a nasty taste.

[Eth]

Being married to an American, and having spent a little time over there (in suburban bliss) I can confirm: American’s don’t “get” cheese. What they do get they have the cheek to call cheddar and it’s a remarkable orange colour. About as orange as Fanta.

You know how in the supermarket there’s usually a section which has all kind of delicious cheeses (gouda, edam, gruyere, port salut, the one with the peppercorns etc), well in America they also have several varieties, including yellow cheese in a tube and orange cheese in a tube. They also have Nachos cheese which is a viscous pourable version of the American cheese.

America does many things well, (basketball, highways, freedom etc) but cheese isn’t one of them. Neither is coffee but that’s another thread. Actually this should be in a another thread also.

M'yeah, that doesn't sound anything like the cheese in the places where I shop.  It probably varies by region of the size of the town/city you're in.  Well, we do still have the orange cheddar...     I live in a decent-sized city, full of white people, and situated pretty near a major dairy production area, though, so that could have something to do with it. 

[Bleeding Star]

But honestly? I prefer the yellow cheddar that comes in a brick and would make any self respecting cheese connoisseur shudder..

Yeah. While I don't mind fancy foreign cheese every now and then, my favourite has to be a nice, crumbly, vintage/super-tasty cheddar. Yum.

[Sage]

I don't know, I'd say I've had a pretty fair variety of cheeses. Just off the top of my head: American, mozzarella, cheddar, sharp cheddar, Swiss, provolone, Parmesan, colby, jack, colby jack, some kind of four cheese "Mexican" blend, goat cheese, and at least one form of blue cheese that I wasn't fond of. I know I'm forgetting some types in there somewhere. That may not be a taste of every kind of cheese out there, but it's not a question of what cheese I want, more like what the recipes call for.

[Lukipela]

Leaving Cheese behind (although it was quite interesting), I'm almost done with "Born in Blood and Fire: A concise history of Latin America". It's an interesting and concise history of how South America came to be what it is today. I've never read much South American history, so it is a fascinating read. Although it does tend to get slightly repetitive. Essentially South America was screwed over by The Portuguese, the Spanish, then the English and French, then the Americans and all along the way by the class structure.

Did you know it wasn't known as Latin America until the French started using that name to give their claims on it some form of legality? they'd never colonised it or anything, but Spanish and Portuguese are Latin languages just as French, so that was their in. Then they put a Emperor in Mexico who was promptly executed.

[Cedric6014]

Sorry Lukipela, but briefly getting back to cheese…

I was perhaps a little unfair on the cheese front – the Italian type cheeses like ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella were widely available in the area I was exposed to. But I was disappointed in the lack of mouldy pungent cheeses that Fossa refers to. Some are disgusting, must most are delicious. Maybe it’s the northern European cheeses they don’t have. And I’m not sure what you call Swiss cheese is actually swiss cheese.

My sample was limited to a town of 90,000 just outside of Sacramento. I would guess that the cheese variety in such a place might be inferior to a larger more cosmopolitan centre.  I never went cheese hunting in San Francisco when I was there.

How about this – has anyone read any good books about cheese recently?

[Lukipela]

How about this – has anyone read any good books about cheese recently?

I've been meaning to read a book called "My Bachelor Party - Part II" by a certain fellow from New Zealand, but it hasn't come out yet. Apparently this is something that pisses Australians off. I guess they know quality penmanship.

[fossaman]

Just finished two of the books from my most recent library run, with mixed results.

The first book was "Beginning Operations" by James White, and it's a collection of three novels/novellas. Basically it's about a giant hospital space station that is set up to treat just about any conceivable species, whether the breathe oxygen, chlorine, superheated steam, or vacuum. The actual plot follows one of the physicians who works there. A fairly spoiler-safe high point: Conducting surgery on an organism the size of a small continent using space-based weaponry. How cool is that? I highly recommend this one, and I'm definitely going to try and get my hands on the sequels. It's almost worth reading just for the cool aliens.

The second book was "Sir Apropos of Nothing" by some dude whose name I didn't bother to recall. I liked the clever title, and it starts off briskly with the main character standing over a corpse. Unfortunately the main character turns out to be an amoral misanthrope, which rubs quite a bit of the shine off of the otherwise interesting plot and dialogue. I honestly enjoyed a lot of the book...but then I got to the ending. The main character's love interest, who he's just had sex with and is engaged to marry, turns out to be his half sister. Awwwkward. So then he runs off (Escapes from the royal dungeon actually; his love interest was a princess and they got caught because of his epic "Nooooooooo!" moment.) and meets up with some random chick who appeared about 300 pages earlier and was on scene for less than 10. Then they go off and have sequels together, I guess. It was very unsatisfying. It really felt like the author sold out on the entire beginning and middle of the book so he would have an easier time writing his sequels. It felt like a backstory by the time I was done.