The Inspector-General of Misconception Read Free Page B

seagulls who nested in the rafters above the vats. If there are any seagulls reading this column we wish to say that no offence is intended.
    In the eighties, Chef Bilson made goats’ cheese in the cellar of the nightclub/restaurant in Sydney called Kinsellas, and again, similar environmental factors enhancedhis cheese; although the ambient flavours were more human than avian.
    Certainly the goats which were kept in the cellar were often a source of much amusement late after the show had finished. But there is no need to go into that and, anyhow, we cannot use the names of the goats because it is prohibited under the Family Law Goat Act.
    First Indictment: The ghastly misconception about cheese which this Inquiry is addressing is this: cheeses, as with oysters (groan), are a living thing and should not be refrigerated although Bilson suggests using refrigeration to slow down the development of a too-quickly-ripening-cheese.
    Real cheese is alive with micro-flora and should remain so during the eating.
    Although cheese in Australia is made, regrettably, with pasteurised milk (that is, dead milk) bacteria is introduced into the cheese-making processes to bring it back to life.
    Ideally, you buy the fresh, living cheese and eat it that day or the next and do not need to store it. The cheese shop from which you buy the cheese will, of course, keep the cheese in its cool, dark, earthy, cellars beneath the shop.
    And if you have cheese left over you too will put it down in a covered cheese holder among your wines in the cellar, won’t you?
    Now that the Cold War is over, you could convert your nuclear fall-out shelter to this use.
    Second Indictment: As all customers know, but veryfew restaurants do, cheese should never be served chilled .
    The late Joss Davies, a Welsh bon vivant , and a well-known lone diner once in a restaurant took a frigid, solid Camembert cheese which had been served to him and pressed it against the cheek of a waiter. To make, presumably, a point.
    And it must soon occur to restaurants that individual servings of mixed cheeses (and the serving of single-serve desserts) are running against the dining practice of Australians.
    In Paris, that remarkable salon host Monique Delamotte, pointed out to us that visiting Australians take more cheese from the cheese plate than they can eat, leaving the excess on their plate uneaten.
    Not only is this wasteful but cheese is seen as a crafted product in a French household and is used appreciatively, not off-handedly.
    Where does cheese fit into the configuration of our meal?
    The French meal pattern goes appetiser/entrée/main course/CHEESE/dessert/coffee.
    The English tend to have dessert and then cheese which we believe has something going for it in that the conclusion of the meal with a savoury dish such as cheese leads to after-dinner drinks and jollities.
    The Americans eat cheese before the meal as an aperitif. Now look, this Office is not ‘anti-American’ but, unless the meal which follows is clearly to be without cheese, it is untimely and something of a misuse of the beauty of cheese.
    A tasty cheddar with pre-dinner drinks could perhaps be defended.
    Frustratingly, a whole cheese-eating culture has to exist before cheese can become a happy, easy part of our gastronomy.
    That is, there has to be a high consumer demand. Cheese has to be a customary part of the domestic, as well as the restaurant, meal.
    Cheese could then be bought in small quantities at any number of places for the immediate meal.
    It would mean too, that the turnover of the stores would then be high and the condition of cheese in the store would be sound.
    Why should we eat cheese? The introduction of varied small courses into a meal, domestic or restaurant, makes the meal itself more stimulating and, at the same time, prolongs the meal, allowing the face-to-face conversational situation of a good table, and the delight in the bountifulness of the planet, to be extended in an