It Was Never Just About The Blue … or The Crappy Fondue by N. C. Taylor

For some, it’s marijuana, heroin, or cocaine.  For me it’s a very mature Gouda, or a strong Parmesan. A Roquefort or Asiago will get my head buzzing, but something more blue-veined like a Gorgonzola or a Stilton will bring on the burning: enough of it will have my head light and my dreams vivid.

If it’s not the Lactose intolerance, then it’s the allergy to Penicillin. If I mix my drug of choice the right way, I can experience different effects simultaneously. The hues of purple and orange, the sensitivity to light, the haze around the edges, and the thumping at the front of my skull all remind me of the power cheese has over my mind.

Up to now, my body has suffered only minor indigestion and a little nausea, but I’ve found with enough consumption, I can induce heartburn and cramping. With the right combination, I can cause rashes and inflammation of the lungs. In one adventurous session with a particularly old, moldy Romano, I managed chest pains, followed by vomiting.

Everything is bland to my palate without cheese to accompany it. Other foods are merely additives to add a little variation, but the cheese is always the predominant ingredient, in the starters, the main courses, and the desserts.

I like the smell on my fingers. If it came as cologne, I’d buy it. If it came as a perfume, I’d be tempted by it. I don’t know why they make bacon smelling candles and soap when there is the far preferable aroma of a good Limburger. Others with less developed olfactory nerves may complain, but it’s their loss.

Some say cheese came about by accident. Whatever the process, I can’t imagine its origins as anything but divine. Heaven handed down cheese in the form of manna to the wandering Israelites, and they survived forty years on it. It is the complete meal.

I am almost to my ultimate goal. I’ve been saving and planning, trying to find some way to bring about my greatest cheese-filled fantasy, and it won’t be long now before it will be fulfilled. Soon my special delivery will arrive.

In Italy, they make a cheese that’s illegal to sell or consume there. It’s called Casu Marzu, and is the envy of us mold lovers worldwide. It is made by drilling holes into lamb’s milk cheese and filling those holes with a special kind of maggot. When the thousands of eggs hatch, an enzyme is produced that creates a dance upon the taste buds beyond compare. It might kill me to eat it, but what other pleasure in life worth indulging could be better than that?

© 2012 N. C. Taylor

When not busy saving computer servers from malevolent programmers hell bent on their destruction, N. C. Taylor likes to imagine even still weirder worlds, and tries to put them into words to share with others. Although a native of the British Isles, he now spends most of his time in the American desert, pining for the green rolling hills of home, but not often missing the rain. This his first published piece of flash fiction.

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