sser Swiss of the United States, the shape, size and
glisten of the eyes indicate the stage of ripeness, skill of making
and quality of flavor. They must be uniform, roundish, about the size
of a big cherry and, most important of all, must glisten like the eye
of a lass in love, dry but with the suggestion of a tear.

Gruyere does not see eye to eye with the big-holed Swiss Saanen
cartwheel or American imitation. It has tiny holes, and many of them;
let us say it is freckled with pinholes, rather than pock-marked. This
variety is technically called a _niszler_, while one without any holes
at all is "blind." Eyes or holes are also called vesicles.

Gruyere Trauben (Grape Gruyere) is aged in Neuchatel wine in
Switzerland, although most Gruyere has been made in France since its
introduction there in 1722. The most famous is made in the Jura, and
another is called Comte from its origin in Franche-Comte.

A blind Emmentaler was made in Switzerland for export to Italy where
it was hardened in caves to become a grating cheese called Raper, and
now it is largely imitated there. Emmentaler, in fact, because of its
piquant pecan-nut flavor and inimitable quality, is simulated
everywhere, even in Switzerland.

Besides phonies from Argentina and countries as far off as Finland, we
get a flood of imported and domestic Swisses of all sad sorts, with
all possible faults--from too many holes, that make a flabby, wobbly
cheese, to too few--cracked, dried-up, collapsed or utterly ruined by
molding inside. So it will pay you to buy only the kind already marked
genuine in Switzerland. For there cheese such as Saanen takes six
years to ripen, improves with age, and keeps forever.

Cartwheels well over a hundred years old are still kept in cheese
cellars (as common in Switzerland as wine cellars are in France), and
it is said that the rank of a family is determined by the age and
quality of the cheese in its larder.

Feta and Casere

The Greeks have a name for it--Feta. Their neighbors call it Greek
cheese. Feta is to cheese what Hymettus is to honey. The two together
make ambrosial manna. Feta is soft and as blinding white as a plate of
fresh Ricotta smothered with sour cream. The whiteness is preserved by
shipping the cheese all the way from Greece in kegs sloshing full of
milk, the milk being renewed from time to time. Having been cured in
brine, this great sheep-milk curd is slightly salty and somewhat
sharp, but superbly spicy