Holy cow, stinky cheese

If there's some stinky cheese in a forest and no one around to smell it, does it have a stinky smell?

I pose this question a week before my departure because dairy philosophy is more fun than saying goodbye.

This evening I said au revoir to the folks in my running club. Being a) French and b) runners with enormous appetites, they're a lively bunch of gourmandes. They asked what food I'll bring home and what food I'll miss most. I said I'm bringing back various chocolates and Dijon mustard and other nice things, but what I'll miss most is the one thing I can't bring along, for fear of melting, smashing, and, er, smelling: cheese.

Cheese...oh, cheese. Le fromage. Not to toot their horn - since they do it fine themselves - but the French have mastered l'art du fromage and left the rest of us with milk pails in hand, wondering what is that tangy, intoxicating odor?

Describing cheese feels cheesy. But when in France... bah, talk about cheese. It's a national past time, like striking and vacation.

Some fromage is sweet and unctuous, some sharp and firm. Some comes in rounds, some in blocks. Some has blue streaks, some has green spots. Americans have our notions about stinky French cheese, but most doesn't smell bad at all. But some does. And oh la vache - oh the cow (holy cow) - even mild French cheeses make the fridge stinky. And I mean plug-your-nose-and-scrunch-up-your-face stinky.

My favorites are ewe's milk cheese, followed by fresh goat cheese (the consistency of fresh mozzarella with the billy goat's kick!), and finally le Beaufort, a hard, cow's milk cheese nicknamed Prince of the Gruyeres (similar to Americans' Swiss cheese).

But frankly, my dears, the flavor, textural, and visual variety is as resplendent as the myriad spring flowers in bloom around me.

Now for some cheese-y anecdotes.

1. I saw a woman drop eighty euros on cheese like fromage was her middle name. Anais and I were at market in Annecy, in the Savoie region of eastern France. I stood fixated as Cheese Seller and Cheese Consumer interacted with fluid gestures - she pointing, he cutting, she nodding, he wrapping. She asked, he advised, she listened; it was a beautiful exchange. The five euros I handed over in exchange for a Tommette (a little Tomme, or sweet skim-milk cheese) de Savoie felt like child's play. Delicious child's play. 

2. I once (not to be repeated) made the smelly mistake of confusing Munster cheese with Muenster cheese. Muenster is a mild, white American cheese, and Munster is a creamy, strong, stinky French cheese. To my nose, it is King Stinky. The shape should have been a warning, as Muenster comes in blocks or slices and Munster in a round wooden box. But I was oblivious until I sunk my teeth into the stuff. Oh la la! It was not unpleasant, but not what I wanted on my toast. And I made the mistake of touching it. My fingers smelled awful, even after multiple washings. Needless to say, I kept my high-fives to a minimum that day.

3. In French, a pie chart is called un camembert (cow cheese from Normandy). Sure, okay, pie is food, too. But in all objectivity, Camembert is funnier. Imagine receiving these instructions from your math teacher:  Now, students, take your pencils and your cheese blocks and graph the percentage of people who prefer cows, those who prefer goats, and those who prefer sheep. Ha!

Admittedly, this last one is not an anecdote, just something I've been wanting to share.

The million-dollar question is, of course, how do the French each so much cheese without splitting their jeans and popping their shirt buttons? The answer is ... portion size, portion size, and portion size. Frequent consumption in small quantities - I'm talking three or four little slices. And there's never the fear that supplies are low, because the corner store has a cheese aisle the size of the dairy farm where those little blocks were conceived.

I know there's good cheese to be found on the other side, despite the pasteurization regulations (who gave that the OK?). What I'll miss is knowing that the cheese course is coming. I'll miss the excitement of not knowing what new kinds await me, and the fun of knowing and tasting more different kinds than I have fingers and toes. I'll miss maps of France with little drawings of cheese instead of cities. Though it's not my favorite, I'll miss stinky cheese.

And if I smell a little funny when you see me, it's the smell of happiness.

This one's for you, Stinky.