cheddah

These days I've been losing my battle against cheese addiction. Everyday, a hunk of cheese. Sometimes two or three different kinds. Everything from your standard grocery store muenster to hand-crafted Ascutney Mountain cheese.

At work I've been seen hacking off chunks of cheddar and smearing all kinds of things on top--apple butter, fruit spread, mustard-- and just gnawing on it like a ravenous monkey. At home I've been a little more graceful: delicately slicing gouda, gruyere or goat cheese over fresh baguette with honey or quince paste or seasoned nuts.

The other day, I shaved off 1/3 cup of parmigiano reggiano and threw it into my butternut squash soup with cubed avocado. Tasty. Earlier today I ate all the cheese off of my tuna melt and then left the tuna on my plate.

I'm totally out of control.
And lactose intolerant.
And sadly lacking in omega-3.

Given my complete obsession with cheese, I was pretty upset to find out that because of the new 300% luxury tariff on French imports, U.S. supplies of Roquefort cheese will fall as prices skyrocket from $7.90/pound to $31.60/pound. This is where we gasp collectively in horror.

According to this article, the tariff was George W. Bush's "great retaliation for the European Union ban on imports of U.S. beef containing hormones. Not explicitly, of course, but when the EU continued to refuse our feedlot-raised, corn-, hormone- and antibiotic-stuffed beef, we lobbed this taxation their way."

Trade wars. How dare they protect their citizens from our disgusting, steroid-ravaged meat? Let's show 'em who's boss. Freedom fries!

Stuff like this gets me thinking about how political food can be. That piece of American cheese I nibbled off of my tuna melt at lunch? That was the result of long-standing American food policy driven by corporate interest. So "American cheese" is just that.

The turning point was 1973, when the food industry was able to lobby the U.S. government to lift a federal regulation requiring all imitation food be labeled as such. Now, with decidedly lax regulations in place, we are so inundated with frankenfoods that (1) it's affecting the general health of Americans and (2) many people can no longer distinguish between food and, well, not food.

Perhaps that's why I have a bag of Kraft singles in my fridge. Sitting right there next to a $12 wedge of imported artisan comte. As much as I appreciate actual food made with real ingredients found in nature, I still can't stay away from wannabe foods created entirely by evil geniuses in their climate-controlled laboratories.

And thus, I leave you with this: Chemical No Apple Apple Pie. Is it strange that I want to try it?


- the traveling cupcake