What Is This Thing Called Cheese?

OK, I know what cheese is. And I also know — because I researched it once — why it exists.

In nomadic societies, back when people had to carry their food on their backs as they moved from place to place, and spoilage was a huge and potentially life-threatening issue, particularly in the heat, tribes discovered they could "preserve" their goat, cow, yak, or sheep’s milk by putting it in a burlap sack, throwing it over their shoulders, and walking briskly. Agitation and warm, re-circulated air caused the milk to separate into curds (cheese) and whey. The latter, they would drink immediately. The former, however, would last them through the winter, providing protein, calcium, and fat. This makes sense to me.

Modern cheese-eating, however, does not. I happen to live with two voracious cheese eaters: men who love triple-cream bries and smoked goudas but will also go through entire blocks of sharp cheddar, Swiss, and monterey jack. Pizzas, enchiladas, quesadillas. Everything the world is hungry for seems to be smothered in cheese.

From a health standpoint, however, cheese has done an about-face. Whereas once it saved lives by providing sustenance during times of snow cover or drought, now it does little by my estimation than add things to our diets that few Americans genuinely need.

I rarely eat cheese. I would never choose it as an appetizer or a dessert. One exception: when it will improve my wine. Then I’m all over it.

I’ve done wine tastings with chocolate, with biscuits, and with fruit. Nothing — and I do mean nothing — brings out the unique flavors of wine better than a perfectly paired cheese. The right blue with a robust Bordeaux. Manchego alternated with a spicy Rioja. Chevre to accompany a dry Sauvignon Blanc.

This is nearly universal among the serious wine drinkers I know. Jack Farrell, owner of Haskell’s and a staunch Catholic, once told me, "If you have a glass of vintage port and a little bit of Stilton cheese, that’s when you know God’s in heaven and all is right with the world.”

He also told me that in 38 years of business, his only regret is that he didn’t grow the cheese shop, a tiny mousehole of a store behind the downtown Minneapolis Haskell’s on 9th Avenue.

Indeed, the cheese business has been very good to other wine sellers, including Surdyk’s and Buon Giorno, as well as grocers that sell wine, beer, and other spirits, such as Byerly’s and Lunds.

Now, France 44 is getting back into the game. They closed their cafe in December, co-owner David Anderson says, because while the lunch business was booming, evenings were dead. "We needed both to survive," he explains. Right now, workers are renovating the south side of the store, removing the deli cases and putting up more shelves so that come March, the liquor and wine business can expand.

But the front third of the space will be devoted to cheese — and only cheese. "It’s the only food we’ll carry from now on," Anderson says. "But we’ll go deeper, carrying a much greater selection than we ever have before."

This is good news for the people of Morningside, that pocket where Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, and Edina meet. It’s a little known fact, but they’re nomads, you know. Occasionally, they’ve been to travel as far as St. Paul or Brooklyn Park. And you need sustenance for something like that: Curds in burlap and maybe a yak to ride, in case you get tired along the way.