I love all runny, smelly cheeses. The sort you have to beat with a stick to stop them running out the door and joining the circus.

I can't remember what it was called unfortunately, but I once bought a cheese from a shop up the road; the guy said "be careful, it's quite smelly". Good, I thought. After sampling a bit when I got home, I wrapped it up again in its plastic, then in its box, then in a tupperware container (it was quite niffy), then put it in the fridge. Ten minutes later my flatmate, from inside his room upstairs, with door shut, shouted down to complain about the smell.

That was a cheese.

Oh, of course! (The remarkable thing about this instance was that my flatmate was also a fan of unpasteurized dairy products.)

There's a smoked hard cheese around that tastes exactly like bacon. That's a good one too.

It's bacterial contamination, though, is cheese. Joyce called it the 'corpse of milk'. We must embrace this contamination and be glad. Haec bacterium quam fecit Dominus, exultemus et laetemur in eum or something.

But it's not just any old contamination, it's contamination of the substance which quintessentially binds mother and infant, binds the generations, gives nourishment to new life... in consuming really STINKY cheese we are entering into the great mysteries themselves, of birth, death and a kind of really pongy resurrection, we are consuming them whole. We are also embracing in the deepest possible way something which on the surface appears truly repugnant to find the core of goodness within. As the true cheese lover knows, it's in the moments when the whole absurd concoction enters one's body, as the taste which until then has been hidden under the appalling stench at last becomes apparent, that the mysteries of creation make sense for just one fleeting moment.

A moment which can only be recaptured by eating more cheese.

---

BTW have a read of this, those who haven't already:

http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/ulysses/6/

Have you ever tried lutefisk, Ollie?  Another visceral experience

Cheese - stilton, though it is best enjoyed in small amounts. If larger quantities are required, you can't beat a big chunk of emmental or similar holy cheese

As for cheese on toast -- it should be a bun, preferably a sesame seed bun, toasted on one side, with melted Danish Blue on the other side. Yum

And I'm not entirely sure what the definition of light music is (music suitable for the Light Programme?) but I don't think I'm embarrassed by liking any music

I'm here!  And if I've told you once I've told you a thousand times!

"George!  Don't do that...."

 

I don`t think that I have a favourite cheese, perhaps I just haven`t met the `right one` yet , but I certainly tend towards the more robust and, ahem, aromatic variety (avert your eyes Ian).
 A properly mature cheddar that bites back, a Camembert that I have to round up and corral onto the plate, a smelly goat, blue cheeses, yesss! bring them on!  A couple of years ago I bought a wonderfully honking cheese that behaved rather like TimR`s variety. It was smallish, round and sort of orangey yellow. Damned if I can remember the name. `twas a thing of joy and beauty. Sigh.

Oops, nearly forgot about the music. I`m with Tommo and Pink Martini. Great stuff.

Ho! Soundwave of the distinctive headgear.

I take it you still have no place in your cellar for Monterey Jack? and other forms of mislabelled india-rubber?