Say Cheese

I love cheese. Whether it’s farmhouse cheddar or something stinky, runny and French, it finds a welcome chez Gee. From Ilchester to Red Leicester, Saint-Paulin to Danish Blue, Stilton to Double Gloucester, the Fermented Curd sparks much joy round here.

The problem is that the affection is not reciprocated. In fact I’d go as far as saying that the cheesy view of the Gee verges on hostility.

I have found, you see, that I have an intolerance of dairy products. Too much - especially cheese - and my skin falls off in great big scaly lumps. The only milk substitute used to be soya milk, which to me might as well be pus. The choice nowadays is much wider, from lactose-free milk, to substitutes made of such things as bouzouki players oats or almonds, though ersatz milk made from coconut ... er ... milk is rather like drinking suntan lotion.

Although dairy-free milk is tolerable, even rather pleasant, the world has yet to invent a dairy-free cheese that tastes anything like cheese, in my own rather limited experience. Science can now send spacecraft to distant planets and now peer inside subatomic particles, but is yet unable to create dairy-free cheese that tastes anything very much like cheese. There’s no way around it, but vegan cheese, though full of its own environmentally sound self-importance, tastes rather like earwax.

Any suggestions for palatable dairy-free cheese welcome.