Re: Cheese In The Trap Ep 1 Eng Sub
Indira Rossetto
Sorry I was unable to purchase the cheese to try it. I have loved Rat Cheese for 60+ years and have a difficult time finding it in Houston. The younger generation, I have been told, want more exotic named cheeses. I chose not to order it from you, although having been to your store numerous times, due to the cost of postage. It was in excess of $20 for single pound. While I understand that is beyond your control it did not make sense for me. Thanks.
Very disappointed in the rat cheese. Very bland and lacked the sharpness usually associated with real rat cheese. I would call this a very, very mild cheese and not a rat cheese at all. Not what I expected.
For me, the most jaw-dropping fact in The Cheese Trap is that the average American eats over 33 POUNDS of cheese every year. Just 100 years ago this number was under 4 pounds. Holy cow!!
A search for "hoop cheese" or "rat trap cheese" on Google confirms that it probably isn't the same. This place in Vermont sells something labeled "rat trap cheese". If you can trust Wikipedia, this little stub is under the title "hoop cheese".
I'm more Yankee than Yankee -- I'm Canadian, and blessed with a father who supported "artisanal" cheese forty years ago. I remember driving up the Ottawa River to Mr. Gruff Cheesemaker's farm and watch Daddy haul a hundred pound wheel of cheddar into the trunk.
And at any meal---the cheese is still the centerpiece, and whoever has dropped in will just help themselves to a piece. It's like a foreign delicacy, though it's always available within forty miles of them. The cheese slowly dwindles, and is re-wrapped and bagged until it's just a shadow of its former glory.
And we pick up our OWN five pounds for the long drive home. Chris' trusty pocket knife will whittle us off a bit for munching with a Quik-Stop coke, as we talk the miles away, and it's nice to have that big ole hunka cheese in the fridge for days to come.
This is one on-line marketer of "hoop cheese" though all the pre-wrapping, bubble-kept effect is not conducive to the real feel of the cheese as it's opened with that whiff of secret alchemies going on within; nor do you get the generations-old feeling of the timelessness of the motions and scent as it's cut and crinkled toward you in the butcher paper. This one MIGHT do:
She was a careful, fastidiously clean woman, of her person and of her work, and I remember her fondly, as she heaved that huge wheel of golden cheese from its container. She would choose the widest knife, grasp it in her wiry hand, and lean her entire hundred pounds into the effort of the blade. A great wedge would separate, and then the whisk of the paper being unrolled from the big reel, the skritch across the teeth of the cutter, like flipping a sheet off a bed.
Back in the late 1940's my Uncle Bo had a grocery store in Caldwell, Texas. There was always a big wheel of cheddar on a round table in front of the counter. Whenever my parents took me to the store, Uncle Bo would come around the counter and slice off a piece of cheese for me to munch, always including some rind since that was my favorite part. Everyone there referred to that wheel as "rat cheese." Much later I had friends who grew up in Houston who referred to any yellow cheddar as rat cheese. Slightly off topic, but I remember the popularity of American cheese in the 50's and 60's, usually dished out in the individually wrapped slices because it was so sanitary. My father baited a mouse trap with some of that stuff to catch a rodent seen in our garage in Austin, TX, circa 1957. We heard the snap of the trap during supper one evening and my brother and I ran out to find we had caught a roach the size of a mouse. Maybe that yellow substance should be called "roach cheese."
The cheese is made of no natural product known to man---it has the texture of Play-Doh and comes in a box. The box is round and pale, made of thinly-shaved wood, which over the days of its residence atop the butcher case grows greasily stained and takes on the appearance of a harlot's hatbox, roughly handled and none too clean.
You ask about the cheese. Lid is popped loose, laid aside. Rustle of paper, removal of great wheel of cheese, worthy of a comic-book picnic, alongside the winebottle and basket of fruit. BIIIIG knife wielded, slivering off a see-through piece the size of a bank card, which is proffered on a knifetip like a saber. You sample, munching thoughtfully, pondering things, and nod.
Sometimes by lunch, hip-warmth and weather have heated the chunk to an almost-transparent state, with little dews of oily sweat appearing across the surface. And leaving it uncovered altogether will result in a leather you could make shoes out of---chewy and rich with all the goodness distilled into that one mouthful of cheese-jerky.
And it does make a good rat-lure, if you have the need. A piece of that speared on the little catch-doohickey of a mousetrap has been the downfall of many a small rodent, with the siren-call of the aroma calling them from their little mouse-duties. And the good rich goodness of that heavy, waxy cheese---any mouse would think it worth the price.
The taste is incomparable to anything in any cook's lexicon. It's rich and homey and nutty and of a texture that calls for one-more-bite. Hoop cheese, rat-trap cheese, just cheese---as it's the only game in town in some stores in the South---it's maybe an acquired taste. But it's addictive, and I'm glad there's a bit left in the fridge.
growing up on the east end of long island we had rat cheese or hoop cheese but not rat trap cheese. it was always a good, aged cheddar we would go to Dawson't Market to buy a pound or so to go with the apple pies we made when the northern spies came in the fall.
We just got home from our jaunt to Perry, GA and back, including the stop at Striplings. I have two kinds of hoop/rat cheese to sample and a jar of muscadine jelly. Pictures and taste-test results later. I'm still full from the big sausage-on-a-bun I got at Striplings. Their sausages are SO good! I love how they "snap" when you bite into them.
"Our love-affair with cheese is killing us. Learning the truth about cheese may save your life."
Joel Fuhrman, MD, New York Times bestselling author of The End of Heart Disease and The End of Diabetes, among others "The Cheese Trap busts open the myths of cheese as a health food and provides an eye opening, mouth shutting view of the way cheese is produced and does damage."Joel Kahn MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine, and author of The Whole Heart Solution"Calories, cholesterol, salt and saturated fat-Dr. Barnard analyzes the process and problems of cheese production and consumption in the American population. It's no wonder that coronary artery plaque-the leading cause of death in the United States-resembles cheese in so many ways. "
Kim Allan Williams, Sr., M.D., MACC, FAHA, MASNC, FESC Immediate Past President, American College of Cardiology"This informative and entertaining book clearly and compellingly lays out the reasons why cheese should not be part of our diet. I highly recommend it!"Ted D. Barnett, MD, Medical Director and CEO, Rochester Lifestyle Medicine"Do you love cheese? Think again! Dr. Barnard makes it crystal clear why you'll want to steer clear of cheese as if your life depends on it because, guess what-it does!"Rip Esselstyn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet "Dr. Barnard shares the truth about one of America's greatest addictions. A must read for anyone wanting to be empowered to go fully plant-based."Chad Sarno and Derek Sarno, Chefs, Brothers, and Founders of Wicked Healthy
"If you want to know where medicine will be ten years from now, read Dr. Neal Barnard's writings today."Dean Ornish, MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Spectrum and Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease"Our love-affair with cheese is killing us. Learning the truth about cheese may save your life."
Joel Fuhrman, MD, New York Times bestselling author of The End of Heart Disease and The End of Diabetes, among others "The Cheese Trap busts open the myths of cheese as a health food and provides an eye opening, mouth shutting view of the way cheese is produced and does damage."Joel Kahn MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine, and author of The Whole Heart Solution"Calories, cholesterol, salt and saturated fat-Dr. Barnard analyzes the process and problems of cheese production and consumption in the American population. It's no wonder that coronary artery plaque-the leading cause of death in the United States-resembles cheese in so many ways. "
Kim Allan Williams, Sr., M.D., MACC, FAHA, MASNC, FESC Immediate Past President, American College of Cardiology"This informative and entertaining book clearly and compellingly lays out the reasons why cheese should not be part of our diet. I highly recommend it!"Ted D. Barnett, MD, Medical Director and CEO, Rochester Lifestyle Medicine"Do you love cheese? Think again! Dr. Barnard makes it crystal clear why you'll want to steer clear of cheese as if your life depends on it because, guess what-it does!"Rip Esselstyn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Engine 2 Seven-Day Rescue Diet "Dr. Barnard shares the truth about one of America's greatest addictions. A must read for anyone wanting to be empowered to go fully plant-based."Chad Sarno and Derek Sarno, Chefs, Brothers, and Founders of Wicked Healthy