This was supposed to be a different blog, one that dipped its toes into America’s never-ending political clusterf**k, led by a senile old grifter president and his band of spineless sycophants. I’ve blogged about this topic regularly over the past year or so, starting with this one and extending through this one, with 19 in between.
Today I was going to write about how the U.S. Supreme Court and various lower courts have jammed through a racist agenda intended to disenfranchise millions of black and brown voters across the South, thus sending the region back to the Jim Crow days, all in service to a president who desperately wants to rig the 2026 midterm elections in his favor, because his party stands to lose big, which means he might finally face accountability for his many misdeeds. He rigged the courts just enough to give his party a few more Congressional seats, which you can read about here and here. Whether that’s enough to save his fat, corrupt ass from the mighty wheels of justice remains in doubt. Adults with functioning brains hope not. Anyway,,,,
I had planned to blog about that. But then cheese got in the way.
Rather, a media article featuring cheese got in the way.
Rather, an article about a brewpub got in the way, and that article featured cheese — just enough cheese mentions to tick my blood pressure a little higher.
Let me explain.
The article was included in a newsletter I subscribe to. It hits my inbox every day, telling me what’s happening down in my hometown of Charlotte, N.C.
This article focused on a brewpub/taproom that recently re-opened after a fire forced it to close for a couple of years. I won’t mention the name of the place. It’s a good place. I’ve been there, and we’re all happy it’s re-opening.
In the article, it was revealed that the re-opened brewpub will feature a new menu. I scanned the new menu items, because that’s what I do – I scan menu items.
My eyes landed on a burger that might have looked delicious if not for the mountain of pimento cheese dripping over the sides. Now, I love pimento cheese, being a Southern boy — or at least used to, before it started playing havoc on my stomach. But I don’t want it slathered all over a burger.
Then my eyes wandered to the brewpub’s brand-new steak frites, which is one of my favorite French bistro dishes (I consider French cuisine a little overrated, but never mind…).
Steak frites basically consists of a thin flank steak with fries. What caught my eye in this particular menu item is that the frites come in the form of parmesan truffle fries.
Parmesan truffle fries. Cheesey-ish fries, in other words.
That’s when I decided to write a different blog…..
*****
I am at war with cheese. It has become an enemy. When I see it on a menu where it doesn’t belong, I want to whip out the heavy artillery and send it cowering into a corner. If I had my way, its presence in our lives would be reduced by a factor of 5,000 or so.
Cheese, man. It’s everywhere. Ev-er-y-where. It’s like kudzu, spreading ever farther and wider, decimating everything in its path, an irresistible force and immovable object all in one orangy/yellowy/melty/gloppy package.
Cheese has invaded every nook and cranny of the modern gastronomic world. They put it on everything nowadays. Ev-er-y-thing. If an item is edible, they’ll toss cheese on it.
Here’s an example:
I have gotten into the habit, when visiting restaurants, of requesting that no cheese be put on my salad. Seriously. My salad!
I eat a lot of salads. I eat a green salad every day of my life. Every day. I like the crunch, the vitamins, the taste (yes), and the roughage.
A classic green salad should have lettuce and/or another type of leafy green, along with whatever veggies strike your fancy (I’m partial to carrots, celery, cucumbers and tomatoes). It should have some kind of dressing. Maybe croutons, if you’re feeling frisky.
Do you know what it should not have, unless you request it? Cheese. That’s what.
And yet, and yet.
I cannot tell you how many times I have ordered a salad over the past few years, only to find out that cheese has been sprinkled every which way, like an occupying army. Not because I asked for it, mind you. It just arrives that way.
Often it’s feta cheese, which I detest with a passion I cannot adequately describe. Sometimes it’s crumbled blue cheese (oof). Sometimes it’s another, similarly demonic thing.
It didn’t used to be this way. Not even that long ago, it wasn’t this way. This seems like a fairly recent development that started trending 15 years ago or so. Cheese invading salads. Cheese ruining salads.
It’s not just salads, either. Now they’re tossing cheese into all kinds of dishes – fries, soups, meat entrees, vegetables, rice, appetizers that never had cheese before.
Bread.
Dips.
Grits.
Grits!
I grew up down South. I was raised on grits. We ate grits a lot in our household (if you don’t know grits, they’re like polenta, or cream of wheat, only better). My mother never, ever put cheese in grits. Restaurants never put cheese in grits. Butter, salt and pepper — that was the standard grits lineup. And redeye gravy, for the enlightened ones (google it).
But now? But now?
They put cheese in grits so much these days that you actually have to request grits without cheese in many establishments – and sometimes that’s not even possible, because the grits they make in their massive pots all have cheese in them. And once it’s in there, it ain’t coming out.
*****
Here’s the thing about cheese: Not everyone loves it, or even likes it. Some people don’t like it. Some people hate it. Some people have a hard time digesting it. Some people are vegans, and don’t eat it.
Here’s the other thing about cheese: It dominates just about every dish you put it in. It’s that pushy, that intrusive, that self-centered. If you put cheese in a salad, you’re damn sure going to taste the cheese above all else. Same with soups. Same with veggies. Same with grits.
Same with grits!
How did this happen?
And when will it stop?
*****
Maybe I shouldn’t blame cheese. It’s not cheese’s fault that chefs want to dump it into every damn thing. Cheese is just sitting there, minding its own business. Maybe stinking up the immediate area, if your name is Gruyere, Camembert, Limburger or one of their pungent cousins. But otherwise, minding their own business.
(Brief interlude: On a long flight from the east coast to the west coast many years ago, one clueless passenger decided to open up a package of fresh mozzarella less than halfway to our destination. The strong and not-at-all-pleasant aroma immediately burst in every direction, filling the cabin. A flight attendant kindly asked her to put it back where it came from, and the cabin cheered).
Understand: I don’t hate cheese. I am not anti-cheese. I’m not an anti-Cheesite. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it, either. I’m fine with the kind of boring, bland cheddar and American versions they serve over here in the States. These cheeses are humble. Unobtrusive. They just want to get along.
I eat Swiss or provolone on sandwiches. I like the mild Mexican cheeses that go on delicious Mexican dishes. I’ll take some Parmesan sprinkled lightly over Italian pasta. I like cheese on pizza (of course) – as long as they don’t glop it on there in a way that turns the sauce, toppings and crust into bit players.
Those are examples of cheeses knowing their place, staying in their lane.
But please – enough with the cheese in salads. And fries. And side dishes, entrees, and other dishes that never, ever needed cheese before, and don’t need it now.
Take a hint from those delicious Asian cuisines that can live without cheese just fine, thank you very much (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese).
Or, just take a hint from history, when cheese knew its place, and chefs knew that place was back in the corner, with the rest of the condiments. Ready to serve. But perfectly goddamn happy not to.
Image: An actual photo from an actual restaurant I recently visited, a thousand times over. Or not.
Vance Cariaga 