Cheese Board

“芝士就是力量”！

I was shocked by different aspects of European culture since I studied abroad, one of which came from the food. There is a huge difference in food culture between the West and East. In the East, there’ve got fried rice, sushi, tom yum and stir-fry everything. In the West, there are more likely to find fish&chips, pasta, steak and roast recipe. Even though there are a lot of ingredients in common between those two culinary families, the food differs greatly in the ways they use flavours; western dishes seek to create a controlled flavour that is very similar from start to finish, close to the original taste of food ingredients; but eastern cuisine seeks to combine as many different flavours as possible, this vibrant mix of flavours sensations that keeps them coming back more.

When I was a kid, there was one thing that I was extremely curious of, I kid you not, cheese. My favourite animated comedy was Tom and Jerry. It was funny and taught me that life is meaningless without sharing fun. In the cartoon, Jerry was always trying to steal cheese to eat from Tom, and then I was thinking about what the cheese tasted like.

I moved to Ireland about one year ago. A few supermarkets are located in the town where I live; every time I go to get some groceries, a massive fridge with a wide range of cheese and dairy products is always at the forefront of supermarkets. Still, I always try to find some ingredients for Asian dishes in the corner. However, I still haven’t tried cheese.

Once, one of my roommates, an Italian guy, shared a piece of Grana Padano cheese with me. Salty and slightly nutty was my first feeling of taste, but not too bad. Since then, I have started my cheese tour. I have tried many kinds of cheese, such as Italian Parmigiano(Parmesan), blue cheeses, and a variety of cheeses from the Netherlands; most of them tasted sweet, milky, or salty, which is very friendly for people who have first-time taste cheese, but some are not, blue cheese was one, it was tangy, sharp, and the taste of the edible blue mould Penicillium can be overwhelming, I took that as a challenge. My favourite part of the cheese was Brie cheese, smooth textured, buttery and slightly sweet flavour; cover it on a jam-smeared cracker, yummy. Now, I understand why Jerry steal the cheese.

Taste buds can be trained, don’t feel reluctant to try food from any other culture. When the essence of the food is experienced, a different discovery will be made, and the true joy of food will be explored. Having cheese makes you happy.