Various Things

2-YEAR CHEDDAR

from GRAFTON VILLAGE

I usually try to review cheeses virginally - that is, ones that I’ve never had before. In this case, this is a cheddar I’ve had many times before. But I couldn’t leave it off the blog, what with its obvious appeal to leather and rubber fetishists.

As far as cheddars go, Grafton’s 2-year aged isn’t going to shock you. It’s mild, light on the salt, with a slightly sweet and grassy flavour. It’s got a nice texture. It’s dense, more moist than I expected, and smooth.

So what is the deal with the gummi suit on this cheese anyway? Well, cheese has obviously been around a lot longer than fridges. Fresh cheeses like mozzarella are too moist to last very long outside of a cold place (bacteria and fungi do so love damp places), though I don’t think anyone was too mad about eating that stuff quickly. But cheeses that have been aged (and dried) more have some more preservation options, which is where cheese wax comes in. The wax is a physical barrier, stopping fungal spores from landing, and also blocks moisture and air, making the cheese a pretty unfriendly place to grow. Even drier cheeses can be bandaged in cheesecloth and then slathered in lard to preserve them while allowing some ventilation.

“Not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you” is such a powerful statement to throw at straight cis people. In dark times, though, it’s important for us to remember that we can be queer AND happy.

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.