Toasted Cheese Sandwich

Butter both sides of 2 thick slices of white bread and sandwich between them a seasoned mixture of shredded sharp cheese, egg yolk, mustard and chopped chives, together with stiffly beaten egg white folded in last to make a light filling.  Fry the buttered sandwich in more butter until well melted and nicely gilded.

This toasted cheeser is so good it’s positively sinful.  The French, who outdo us in both cooking and sin, make one of their own in the form of fried fingers of stale bread doused in an ’arf and ’arf Welsh Rabbit and Fondue melting of Gruyere, that serves as a liaison to further sandwich the two.

Garlic is often used in place of chopped chives, and in contrast to this wild one there’s a mild one made of Dutch cream cheese by the equally Dutch Pennsylvanians.

England, of course, together with Wales, holds all-time honors with such celebrated regional “toasting cheeses” as Devonshire and Dunlop.  Even British Newfoundland is known for its simple version, that’s quite as pleasing as its rich Prince Edward Island Oyster Stew.

 Newfoundland Toasted Cheese Sandwich

1 pound grated Cheddar 1 egg, well beaten 1/2 cup milk 1 tablespoon butter

     Heat together and pour over well-buttered toast.

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Chapter Eleven

“Fit for Drink”

    A country without a fit drink for cheese has no cheese fit for
    drink.

Greece was the first country to prove its epicurean fitness, according to the old saying above, for it had wine to tipple and sheep’s milk cheese to nibble.  The classical Greek cheese has always been Feta, and no doubt this was the kind that Circe combined most suitably with wine to make a farewell drink for her lovers.  She put further sweetness and body into the stirrup cup by stirring honey and barley meal into it.  Today we might whip this up in an electric mixer to toast her memory.

While a land flowing with milk and honey is the ideal of many, France, Italy, Spain or Portugal, flowing with wine and honey, suit a lot of gourmets better.  Indeed, in such vinous-caseous places cheese is on the house at all wine sales for prospective customers to snack upon and thus bring out the full flavor of the cellared vintages.  But professional wine tasters are forbidden any cheese between sips.  They may clear their palates with plain bread, but nary a crumb of Roquefort or cube of Gruyere in working hours, lest it give the wine a spurious nobility.

And, speaking of Roquefort, Romanee has the closest affinity for it.  Such affinities are also found in Pont l’Eveque and Beaujolais, Brie and red champagne, Coulommiers and any good vin rose.  Heavenly marriages are made in Burgundy between red and white wines of both Cotes, de Nuits and de Baune, and Burgundian cheeses such as Epoisses, Soumaintarin and Saint-Florentin.  Pommard and Port-Salut seem to be made for each other, as do Chateau Margaux and Camembert.