h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Three pages in and no one has mentioned Canadian Cheddar.

500 gram blocks wrapped in some sort of plastic 'cellophane'
offer Mild, Medium and Old varieties and are the staple cheese
product for households who have outgrown Kraft CheezWhiz spread.

There are many regional cottage industry cheese-makers and some
do manage to achieve some shelf-space in the supermarkets but
most enjoy a more lively out-the-door trade from the barn out back
of the cottage. There are at least two big outfits in Nova Scotia
operated by Dutch immigrants. And literally dozens in Quebec, of
whom several manage to get their 'Euro' style cheeses more widely
distributed in the deli sections of the supermarkets alongside
the assortment of smoked meats and Euro-sausage thingies that
always seem to appear at 'meet-and-greets' and 'wine-tastings'.

But just try to get a good non-pasteurized, non-homogenised,
non-processed liverwurst, anywhere! It's all machine made pates.

~jwf~

One thing that discourages import of European cheeses to the U.S. is the restrictions on cheese made from raw milk. Raw-milk cheese is almost unknown in the U.S., but fairly common in France and some other European countries.

Paulh, if Latvia etc are similar to Russia, there will be no good native cheeses to be had. There's a sort of cheddaresque lump which tastes decidedly vinegary and that's about it. Brinza, maybe, but that's probably Georgian. It's a bit like feta cheese. They do import good cheese - all the classic French, Swiss, Dutch types, so decent cheese exists in quantity, but for some reason they don't eat British cheeses there either. God I missed British cheeses when I lived there.

There's a much more extensive range of milk products than here though. All sorts of different types of drinking yoghurtesque things for example. Kefir is very sour and fizzy, but I prefer Ryjinka, which is creamy and only slightly sour. They also have both yoghurt and something called tvorug which you can eat out of yoghurt pots, flavoured with fruit and such just like yoghurt, but with a different texture.

Anyway. I have never really understood why Russians don't have a homegrown good cheese culture.

Yeah, but boy, can Armenians make yoghurt and Bulgarians feta.

Bulgarian feta is to die for.

Much as I enjoy cow cheeses, I'd trade it all for decent feta and good yoghurt. Gourmet delights for the lactose intolerant.

Kefir, too. Yum.

The only American cheese I ever remember buying here is Monterey Jack.Quite nice it was too.

And there is horrible British processed cheese as well..very nasty stuff.

Oh, totally, Dmitri. Also, the Russians at least make excellent ice cream.

Well, perhaps I wouldn't actually trade in my wenslydale...

I forgot to say how VERY MUCH I want to go and have someone make up my own fondue mix, TC.

You lived in Latvia, Solnushka? May I pick your brain about the country? I have so much to learn before I go there.

Nah, Russia, paulh. But while I wouldn't say they are the same, 70 odd years of shared Soviet experience breeds some similarities.

We should all thank our lucky stars we don't live in Jasper Fforde's Britain. Then cheese really would be an issue:

http://www.jasperfforde.com/specops/cheesewhat.html

"The Cheese Enforcement Agency is the government body given the task of policing the trading and consumption of all types of cheese, whether they be hard, smelly, foreign, or processed. ..."

Deb

Oh, thank you, thank you, I didn't know there was a Jasper Fforde cheese site. This page looks like it was written by 2legs:

http://www.jasperfforde.com/specops/cheeseindex.html

Those cheeses from the Welsh Socialist Republic are amazing.

>>We should all thank our lucky stars we don't live in Jasper Fforde's Britain.<<

You're, er, totally sure you don't?

They don't explain what X14 is. What is it?

Go to 'Legality' - it's a tab - choose 'illegal cheeses', and scroll down. These Welsh cheeses are intriguing...

Oh, and if you haven't read Jasper Fforde, you might want to tread cautiously...

Jarlsberg and Gorgonzola and brie are respected cheeses with international reputations for quality and tastiness. I can't respect a website that says such awful things about them!

Especially combinations of them-

https://www.worldsfoods.com/shop/pc/catalog/m/cambozola%20brie%20with%20blue.jpg

Cambozola is one of my favourites- my best friend has referred to it as having heroin as a main ingredient.

This edge of the world has several small cheeseries (?) with merit, notably the Little Qualicum Cheeseworks,

http://www.cheeseworks.ca/

The 'little' refers to the smaller Qualicum river, not the size of the farm. Strangely the Little Qualicum River has a larger set of falls than the Big Qualicum River. Both bracket the place where Rodderick Haig Brown wrote a lot of his output.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/roderick-haigbrown

Here endeth the lesson.


Not too much of a topic drift?

I also missed the esse-

http://www.worldsfoods.com/shop/pc/catalog/m/cambozola%20brie%20with%20blue.jpg

mmmmhhh Cambazola. Yummy.

[Gets hungry just thinking about camembert blended with gorgonzola. ]

American cheese is in dire danger from the dairy cliff. http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=4b0e8fe3-ee31-4528-be96-338d2d0f6c1b

The U.S.ranked 12th in the world for per-capita cheese consumption in 2003.
http://rankingamerica.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/the-us-ranks-12th-for-cheese-consumption/

The top five countries were Greece, Denmark, France, Austria, and Italy.

That's an interesting statistic paulh, although it's worth looking at other statistics to put it in perspective. For example, Americans eat a lot of everything, and indeed consume 3770 calories per day, more than anyone else in the world apart from Austrians (3880), so we might expect them to eat proportionately more cheese, too.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2012/07/30the-olympics-of-overeating-which-country-eats-the-most