Vermont Sage, the delicious Liederkranz, California Jack, Nuworld, and
dozens of others, not all quite so original.

And, true to the American way, we've organized cheese-eating. There's
an annual cheese week, and a cheese month (October). We even boast a
mail-order Cheese-of-the-Month Club. We haven't yet reached the point
of sophistication, however, attained by a Paris cheese club that meets
regularly. To qualify for membership you have to identify two hundred
basic cheeses, and you have to do it blindfolded.

This is a test I'd prefer not to submit to, but in my amateur way I
have during the past year or two been sharpening my cheese perception
with whatever varieties I could encounter around New York. I've run
into briny Caucasian Cossack, Corsican Gricotta, and exotics like
Rarush Durmar, Travnik, and Karaghi La-la. Cheese-hunting is one of
the greatest--and least competitively crowded--of sports. I hope this
book may lead others to give it a try.




[Illustration]

_Chapter Two_

The Big Cheese


One of the world's first outsize cheeses officially weighed in at four
tons in a fair at Toronto, Canada, seventy years ago. Another