Cheese Class

I attended my first cheese-making course. The instructor was a large, earthy, disorganized woman who resembled Golda Mier in stature and appearance. If she had been a couple of feet taller, I’d have guessed she was related to Andre the Giant.

She was born and raised in north Georgia, and I believe she is fully capable of wrestling a cow or delivering a foal. It’s no surprise that she lives on a farm and raises goats and chickens. I can easily picture her as a pioneer woman leading an ox cart across the Cumberland Gap to settle Kentucky and wrest the wilderness from the Indians. In fact, I can see her pulling an ox cart across the Cumberland Gap without the aid of an ox. If I were crossing the continent in a Conestoga wagon in the 1840’s, I would want a woman like that standing behind me. For one thing, if she stood in front of me she would block my view.

There were five of us in the class. All of us were on the retired side of life so it wasn’t exactly a young crowd. In my opinion, I was the only normal person in the class. That probably tells you a lot.

There was a pleasant, well dressed and well spoken woman who struck me as ditzy. I don’t think she was raised in the country. I bet the closest she had ever been to a farm was the Pepperidge Farm section of the supermarket. She reminded me of an earnest Mrs. Thurston Howell on Gilligan’s Island. She was nice but mostly clueless.

There was a man who retired from IBM. He was into healthy foods. He was okay. He even laughed at some of my cynical comments and obscure references. I’m not sure whether it was genuine or he was trying to humor me. I think the ten gallon cowboy hat I was wearing may have made him a little leery of me. Evidently he was concerned over my nutritional well-being because he gave me a handwritten list of books and websites at the end of the class so I could educate myself on how to eat right. Damn, I seem to have lost it when I stopped for a Slim Jim and a high sugar content soda on the way home.

There was a thin woman who was very nice. I think she lives in a trailer; I never did get her story. Her husband delivered her and picked her up in a Prius. I didn’t see whether it had an Obama sticker or a Save the Whales decal on it. If she had told me that she was a retired librarian, had attended Woodstock and lived in a commune in the 60’s, I’d have bought the story no questions asked.

The last woman was the kicker. I bet her car has a sticker that says “I’m a Wingnut.” She went on and on about her holistic lifestyle and the dangers of processed food and GMOs. The first time she used the term GMO I thought she was referring to a Chevy muscle car that I never heard of. I finally had to ask her what the hell GMO meant. She said it stood for genetically modified food. Wouldn’t that be GMF?

According to her, processed foods and GMOs are going to cause the downfall of western civilization. I tried to think of all the places in the world where people do not eat processed or genetically modified food, and all I could think of were places where there is rampant disease, malnutrition, and starvation−you know, the type of places where if you give a dollar a day, you can feed three families for a week (probably with processed or genetically modified food). I bet people in those areas would kill for Cheez Whiz and Ritz Crackers. Try telling them that a genetically modified chicken is no good to eat.

Frankly, she irritated the shit out of me. I know that my reaction to her is a character flaw on my part, but I’m comfortable with the fact that if I didn’t have character flaws, I’d have no character at all.

I don’t know whether there is any truth to what she was saying about the dangers of processed food and GMOs, and to be honest, I don’t care all that much. I’m not giving up pizza, beer, Velveeta, or french fries for a tasty plate of macrobiotic pabulum and bean curd. If that means that I won’t live to 110 and get a chance to drool all over myself and wear adult diapers, that’s fine with me.

It doesn’t bother me that she believes in that stuff. What irritates me is that she wore her holistic lifestyle like a badge. Like many people who think they have discovered the true way, she wanted to proselytize her life style. She was so proud of herself for eating free range chicken eggs, avoiding processed food, and, for all I know, foraging for food on the forest floor. Who cares, lady? If it floats your boat, fine. I just don’t want to hear about it.

Back to the class: We learned to make yogurt, cream cheese, feta cheese, and kefir. It was only recently that I had even heard of kefir. According to Wikipedia, kefir originated in the north Caucasus Mountains around 3,000 B.C. I have no idea me how they figured that out. Maybe it’s based on the fact that Kefir tastes like it’s 3,000 years old.

I don’t know much about that area of the world. After doing some research, I know why. The northern Caucasus region is where countries like Chechnya and Dagestan are located. Until now I didn’t know there was a place called Dagestan. If you had asked me, I’d have guessed that Dagestan was a type of polish sausage or an alien planet on a Star Trek episode.

Chechnya and Dagestan are not places noted for their cuisine or hospitality. You don’t see many travel brochures advertising a pleasant vacation at the Stone Hut Hilton in Dagestan. I bet a book of popular recipes from Chechnya is about as long as a book about Italian war heroes. I think Chechnya’s biggest export product is Islamic terrorists.

Kefir is a fermented milk drink made from kefir grains. Wikipedia described it as a sour, carbonated, slightly alcoholic beverage, with a consistency and taste similar to thin yogurt. I bet that makes your taste buds sit up and palpitate. My ears perked up when I heard that it was slightly alcoholic, but then I found out you have to drink about eight gallons of the stuff to equal a six pack.

Sandor Katz, in his book “The Art of Fermentation”, says that “Kefir is notable among milk cultures in that rather than using a bit of fermented milk to start the next batch, it relies upon a SCOBY, a rubbery mass of bacterial and fungal cells that has evolved into an elaborate symbiotic arrangement, sharing nutrients, coordinating reproduction, and co-creating a shared form…” SCOBY is an acronym for Symbiotic Coordination Of Bactria and Yeast. Hmm, yummy!

The instructor had a kefir SCOBY in a plastic container, and she showed it to us. Looking at it, all I could think of was Dr. Frankenstein shouting, “It’s alive. It’s alive.” I’ve seen more appetizing stuff growing on the bottom of a petri dish in a laboratory. I’ll put it this way: If I saw kefir grains on the floor of my shower, my first thought would be to put on a HAZMAT suit and bomb them with Lysol, Round Up, and penicillin.

Kefir is supposed to be really good for you. Ms. GMO claimed that ten years of drinking three glasses of kefir a day cured her long time digestive ailment. I asked her what exactly her digestive ailment was, and her response was that the doctors never came up with a diagnosis. I could see that coming. Well, I know what the diagnosis is: she’s a fucking hypochondriac. She’s so somatically focused that she’s not happy unless there’s something wrong with her. Every little tweak, gurgle and pain becomes a threat to the lengthy existence she’s trying to achieve. She doesn’t need kefir; she needs Dr. Phil.

So there you have it. I can now make yogurt, cream cheese, feta cheese, and kefir. I don’t think I’ll be making a lot of kefir. I heard it gives you the farts.

I’ve signed up for the intermediate cheese-making course. I can’t wait to see what type of people will attend that class. With my luck, there will be a Dagastani who is into tofu, faith healing, and high colonics. I can’t wait.