Curds of Wisdom

From the foreign hostess’s perspective, I’ve found feeding the Dutch, whose culinary habits rival the Poles for bland, stodgy food, an on-going challenge. That’s because the Dutch will rarely ask if you find their food good—what’s more important is having enough to eat, perhaps a fallback to war rationing or generations of Calvinistic denial. But when it comes to Dutch cheese, I eat my words. It’s a failsafe staple that makes everyone happy, which is why I made a triple-cheese lasagna last night for guests.

But there’s something cheesy about cheese and it makes people who celebrate it a bit batty. Like England’s Cooper's Hill Annual Cheese Rolling contest where participants chase after 7-8 lb. of Double Gloucester. Or there’s Quebec cheese-maker Luc Boivin, who sunk 1,700 lbs of cheddar in a lake last year thinking it would improve the taste.

Back in Britain, scientists from the national Cheese Board discovered that cheese actually gives a good night’s sleep. According to their most recent survey, 65% of people eating Cheddar dreamt about celebrities, over 65% of those who ate Red Leicester revisited their schooldays, and all female participants who ate British Brie had relaxing dreams. While I haven’t found a similar study in Holland just yet, this could point to why the country feels so comfortable resting on its laurels, satisfied with the status quo despite its blandness.