Cheesed Off

There was a 6.0-magnitude earthquake in Italy this past Sunday. It occurred in the parmesan cheese-making area of Italy. I didn’t know cheese came from specific reqions across the globe. Like most everyday things in my life, I never gave the cheese-making process a second thought. I know it isn’t grown on trees, or dug out of the ground like a potato. I always thought cheese was an accidental product of milk-gone-bad. Isn’t a butter churn involved? So now I find out that parmesan cheese comes from Northern Italy. Wheels of cheese, not that weird powdery stuff in the can. I had a bad experience with the fake stuff 30 years ago. My husband and I were dining at an Italian restaurant in San Francisco with another couple. I spooned what I thought was powdered creamer into my coffee. As my coffee wasn’t getting any lighter, I kept spooning. My three companions just watched, never saying “Hey, how come you’re shoveling parmesan cheese into your coffee???”. I felt like a big idiot, and am still kind of mad at that nasty, fake parmesan. The real stuff, though, is awesome. I wonder if all cheese is regional. Can cheeseheads in Wisconsin make parmesan, or are they restricted to just American cheese? Does Swiss cheese really come from Switzerland? And what about Gouda? Rhymes with Buddha. So, this earthquake occurred north of Bologna. Hmmm... bologna and cheese. Too bad the Sandwich Islands are in the Pacific Ocean. How awesome would it be if they were off the eastern coast of Italy? You’d have a geographical cheese and Bologna sandwich.