The Power Of Cheese

I’m reasonably confident that this will be the best blog article I’ll ever write.  Because it’s about cheese, and cheese brings out the best in everything.  And even if it’s only 10% as good as cheese, it’ll be pretty close to perfect. 

But before we get to the actual article, I think that we should take a look at some of the things I’ve previously written about what I have referred to as “my possibly illegal love of cheese”:

                                                                                                                                                                                         

CHEESE CHEESE CHEESE!!!!!!!!!!!

I loves me some cheese. Largest block you can carry out of town without causing stress fractures, say I.

Bigger lasts longer! Harder is better!

Cheese does not go bad!

Melty/Oily? Recombines at night!

Moldy oldy? Cut that part off and keep chomping!

One Pound blocks! Eaten like candy bars!

Bonus feature: no poopin' 'til the next time you hit town. . .

Cheese, baby! Sounds gouda to me! 

I have yet to meet a cheese I haven't liked immediately; with which I haven’t struck up a long, meaningful conversation and developed a deep, abiding relationship.

Cow, goat, sheep, cat, out of a can, on a nacho, with my breakfast, between my toes, on pasta, on stuffing, on Donner, on Blitzen!

With cheese!

Con queso!

Avec frommage!

Ag tigh cais! 

The only reason to cut cheese with a knife is if you're sharing it with someone, which is what I was thinking of in my post regarding what one needs a knife for. Unless you want to do a whole Lady and the Tramp thing, but with a big block of Sharp Vermont Cheddar. My god that's romantic. 

Combine cheese with everything. Anything. I can't stress it enough. CHEESE.

And don't just limit yourself to "flavoring food" with it. Flavor everything with it. Flavor your joys and sorrows with it. Flavor your Flav with it. Flavor your life with it! 

The author at the Cheese Monument.

I live in a world of cheese, all of it there for the taking. Cheese hanging from the trees, cheese raining from the sky. A world where cheese is an accepted form of currency, an appetizer, a meal, a way of life, an acceptable thing to wear to a formal occasion. Where you can love cheese as you wish, and it doesn't accuse you of being codependent.

A world of possibilities, all of them shot through with cheese. 

I have done my hajj to Vermont. I have bowed before an alter of delicious sharp cheddar, and then eaten it. I didn't have to go to the bathroom for four days.

Award winning?

Soul winning! 

I have been to the monument to cheese along the AT in Cheshire! I have leaned against it, filled with thoughts of cheese! I have gone to the post office across the street, taken a picture, and been drawn magnetically back to "the Big Cheese Monument." Intending to stay in town for a moment, I stayed for what felt a lifetime.

Then I went to the convenience store on the way out of town, and bought some cheese. 

                                                                                                                                                 

Okay.  We’ve set the mood.  Now on to the actual article!  But first, some historical facts about cheese that I will make up off the top of my head.  Did you know that:

The word “grieve” comes from Greve, a Swedish cheese made from cow’s milk? (it’s current meaning obviously referring to the sadness of not having any)

John Lennon originally wrote a song called “Happiness Is A Warm Gruyere” about Fondue, but changed it due to rhythmic and meter issues?  And the fact that Gruyere is a terrible cheese to use for fondue?

The seemingly endless wars between Britain and France in the 18th and 19th centuries were motivated primarily by the English desire for French cheeses?  And that the blue of the Napoleonic Army uniforms was meant to mock the quality of English cheeses such as Cheshire Blue, Devon Blue, and Yorkshire Blue?

I have to say that at this point I feel like I’m never going to get to the actual article.  I mean, this thing is already getting long, isn’t it?  And looking at what's been written so far it isn't readily apparent that this is supposed to be a backpacking blog.  So I think that before getting to the actual article I’d like to write for a bit about the history of cheeses along the Appalachian Trail, and in particular the 90s -- arguably the high point of backpacking with cheese.

A hiker resupplying at "Cheese Row" in Dalton, Mass.

Believe it or not, there are people today who don’t carry cheese while hiking (I know, I know -- It makes no sense whatsoever).

Not so the 90s!  

The average hiker of the time carried between four to five pounds of cheese when leaving town -- a weight that today is equal to many people’s big three.  And this love of cheese was fueled by the high quality fromageries of the trail towns.  Who can forget “Edam And Weep” in Duncannon?  “Limburger King” in Damascus?  Or possible the greatest cheese shop of the era -- “Live Brie Or Die” in Hanover?  This was a time of cheese-fueled hiking, a time before Baltimore Colby Jack shortened his trail name.  Sadly, this high-flying cheesy, lactose care-freesy era came to a close, with only the blue blaze trail to the Cheese Factory (between Tray Mt. & Indian Grave Gap in Georgia) and the walk past the Cheshire Mammoth Cheese monument in Massachusetts to remind us all of a better, cheese-filled time.

But an interest in cheese persists -- as you can imagine it would pretty much have to.  Because cheese will not be denied, and cheese will never surrender.  Even now, hiking forums are filled with questions about the longevity of cheese on the trail, and I think that this must at long last be the focus of this blog article, an article that I think we all have to admit is all over the place and not my best effort.

I feel like I am failing cheese.  But I must cheese press on.  Cheese would want me to.

The Longevity Of Cheese On The Trail

Always the question at the forefront of any prospective thru-hiker’s mind. Yes, also: what tent, where maildrops, which shoes, why hiking poles -- but always, always, HOW LONG CHEESE? And the answer, to be honest, is: not long. And not because of spoilage (after all, cheese extends the life of milk). But rather because while you may have the willpower to hike a long trail, you honestly don’t have the willpower to not eat the cheese you’re carrying. It will be gone all too soon, like the light dew of the morning, the crisp days of a New England Fall, indeed like the hike itself. Only more delicious. And with more fat.

Lactose-tolerant hikers enjoying a breakfast of
ice cream with cheese.

So once we accept the fact that the cheese will not last longer than its trail life, the questions you really want to ask become, “how much, which cheeses, and in what order?”

 I see where you’re going with those questions, so I'll continue the thought. You're going to want to bring a lot of cheese with you. I mean A LOT. Studies have shown that while lack of sunlight will eventually drive you insane, lack of cheese will make you incredibly unhappy, to the point that you will drive everyone else insane.

The two essentials for a successful thru-hike.

But you've got to get on a schedule. Say you're going out for a week. You want seven days worth of cheese, but not the SAME cheese. You want at least seven different kinds of cheese, and you want to eat them in ascending order of hardness.

So maybe you bring a huge thing of crumbly feta with you for a salad topping on day one, with maybe some goat cheese for lunch. Then you move on to your mozzarella ball on day two. A really big mozzarella ball, and you eat the whole thing by itself, like you're eating a snowball.

You get the point, so I won't belabor it. You end up on the last couple of days with some extra sharp Vermont cheddar and then a block of parm. I do recommend also carrying a can of grated parm to put on top of every other meal you eat, as well as to add to coffee and tea.

The cheese will last, as long as you eat it in the right order! You'll hike like you have wings! You'll stay toasty warm at night! You won't poop the whole time you're out there!

Good luck, and enjoy the cheese!

My god, I got a little amped up there at the end, didn’t I?  Hard not to do when writing about cheese, though.  I’m going to go lie down for a moment.

I’m back.  Now that I’ve calmed down a bit I’m looking back through this article and I realize that the whole thing is a mess.  All sorts of tenses, multiple perspectives, no coherent arc or pattern.  I mean, how did John Lennon get in there?

Have I failed cheese?  I think perhaps I have.  But the brilliant thing about cheese is that it loves us all unconditionally, with the exception of the lactose-intolerant.  Cheese forgives me and I know that cheese will give me a second and even third chance, which is more than I can say for hypothermia or my ex-girlfriend.

So I retire now from this piece, knowing that although it is awful, I will try again.  And write the greatest trail-related cheese article ever written by man.  Or cheese.

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