It's Just Milk and Bacteria -- my adventure in the world of cheese

Curiosity, shock, reality and reconciliation. What can cause such a mixture of emotions in a person?

I now have an idea of how our ang-mo (western) friends feel when they have their first attempt at durian -may it be the D24s, XO, tiger hill, Segamat, Thai monthong, or the Penang ice cream types. Thanks largely to Evonne, our host from Le Meridien Hotel, who sat us down to savour 30 types of cheese during their recently ended cheese promotion.

It goes like this - curiosity, shock, reality and reconciliation. In that order.

There was goat's cheese, camembert, blue cheese, creamy cheese, brie, roquefort, hard cheese, dessert cheese…goodness me! Charles de Gaulle once pondered as to how one can govern a country where there are more types of cheese than days in a year. And there was a story that cheese was suspiciously discovered when an Arabian merchant journeyed across the desert with a pouch of milk. And after a day's trekking in the heat, he wound up drinking the whey and eating the curdled cheese.

Of course, these days, you can eat them in cool comfort and down it with wine, champagne and even coffee, especially with the dessert raisin cheese (which was lovely to the palette especially over a piece of brioche bread). Our cheese binge was so intense that much of the details of what we ate escaped me. But I'll allow my right brain to elaborate.

Well, cheese is essentially milk teeming with bacteria. Its charm comes from the romantic link with brioche bread, candles, wine and champagne. When some of the creamy goat's cheese swirled in my tastebuds, I was transported into a kaleidoscope of colours, textures and places. One of the brie smelled and tasted like a fish market in Jakarta. But as advised by Beat, the cheese connoisseur among us, you could better appreciate these pungent types if you smell them less and just taste it. Then there were the hard cheeses, some looking like the ones that you would see in Disney cartoons. While you could chomp them like a hot biscuit, I preferred to gnaw at it to savour its fullness. The carrot cheese, particularly, was a delight.

Finally, out came the blue cheese - the ultimate hurdle. It is the cheese's answer to the bitter Segamat durians. The blue, as I understand, has a strain of penicillium roqueforti mold added to the process (don't ask me what penicillium roqueforti mold is). But surprisingly, just like I adore exotic durians and fermented bean curd, the blue mold cheese appealed to my palette. I reckoned that at a subconscious level in my sense of taste, they have the same charms.

Perhaps blue cheese equates with bitter D24s, but never will the twain meet (and please…don't contemplate a durian-cheese cake, yikes!).

The French Cheese Promotion at Le Meridien Singapore.

The sixth annual French Cheese Promotion was held at Café Georges in Le Meridien Singapore from 1-10 March 2000. Cheese Champ Gerard Poulard brought 300 French cheeses for this promotion this year and who knows---there may be more varieties next year! It is his passion to collect all these cheeses from the different regions of France and he treats them like his own babies with loving care.

You get an educational lesson on cheese when you approach Poulard's cheese trolley. He will first ask what type of cheese you prefer. And if you are totally blur (ignorant) about cheeses, he will recommend and advise you on how to consume them; arranging the milder types and progressing to more mature ones in a clockwise manner, the right type of appetiser and what type of wine or port should complement the cheese.

So, if you missed Poulard's Cheese Promotion this year, make a date with him next year--and begin your adventure in the pungent world of cheese.

 

Picture and story by kfseetoh.