Remember the novel James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl? Magical green crocodile tongues spill on a peach tree causing a giant peach to grow. This peach is home to Centipede, Earthworm, Grasshopper, Ladybug, Miss Spider, Glowworm and Silkworm. The giant insects befriend a boy named James who lost his parents. The motley crew has great adventures traveling the world in the peach. At the end of the story, the peach gets impaled on the Empire State Building. Although first viewed as monsters, the insects win the love of New Yorkers, who view them as heroes. The flesh of the peach is brought down to the streets and fed to thousands of children who enjoy all the juicy deliciousness the peach has developed through its travels with James and his insect friends (who occasionally munched on the peach themselves during their journey).
This is how I like to imagine the inside of a wheel of cheese. Several cheeses share a symbiotic history with insects, although less glamorous than the story of James and his peach.
In the early 18th century, the spicy, buttery English blue cheese known as Stilton was born. The Bell Inn in the town of Stilton served the cheese to travelers who carried it on to London, the mecca of travel and trade. Due to poor refrigeration and their pungent aroma, Stilton and other blues often became home to little creatures. Flies would land on a roaming wheel and work into a crack, leaving behind eggs to grow inside the cheese. According to The World Cheese Book, edited by Juliet Harbutt, "The tradition of pouring Port into Stilton came about to kill the creatures that gathered at the bottom of Stilton bells." Thanks to modern technology, we can enjoy the beautiful pairing of Stilton with tawny Port without having to worry about uninvited guests at the table.
Mimolette from France is a very different style of cheese with its own microscopic secret. Annatto (a tasteless dye from a plant seed) gets added to the paste to give it a bright orange hue. Mimolette's shape resembles a cannonball and according to the Mythbusters show on the Discovery Channel, was possibly used as such during battle. Entire cities of cheese mites live on the planet of Mimolette, burrowing through its hard rind crust in search of deep dark crevices and gorging as they dig. These thriving little nibblers prove useful to the flavor of Mimolette's paste. Their insatiable appetites promote airflow, which in turn enhances flavor. You don't have to worry about crushing a mite family when you enjoy a chunk of Mimolette. The inedible rind layer of this cheese is the only place the mites exist and its inhabitants have long departed before you bite into it.
Prized for its maggot infestation, Casu Marzu cheese, an ancient Sardinian treat, gets consumed while the larvae wiggle inside. You will not find this delicacy in the United States and it is not easy to find in Italy anymore. Once outlawed, Casu Marzu sold on the black market for a time. After recently being deemed a "traditional" food it became exempt from the food hygiene regulations that originally banned the recipe and can now be found at the dinner table without the threat of fines. This might be the one cheese I would pass on trying, even though Casu Marzu is said to be an aphrodisiac and hallucinogenic.
Although not glamorous, it's a giant peach of a story entwined with history, chance and decomposition. Thank you to the relatives of Centipede, Earthworm, Grasshopper, Ladybug, Miss Spider, Glowworm and Silkworm for making our world of cheese an interesting place.
Kira Jefferson is the resident "cheese guru" at SideBern's in South Tampa.
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2011.