the orchard, my companion, I don't remember how, had
provided the miracle: a flask of wine, a loaf of bread and a slab
of fresh Pecorino cheese (there wasn't any "thou" for either) ...
But that cheese was Paradise; and the flask was emptied, and a
wood dove cooing made you think that the flask's contents were in
a crystal goblet instead of an enamel cup ... one only ... and
the cheese broken with the fingers ... a cheese of cheeses.

Pont L'Eveque

This semisoft, medium-strong, golden-tinted French classic made since
the thirteenth century, is definitely a dessert cheese whose
excellence is brought out best by a sound claret or tawny port.

Port-Salut (_See_ Trappist)

Provolone

Within recent years Provolone has taken America by storm, as
Camembert, Roquefort, Swiss, Limburger, Neufchatel and such great
ones did long before. But it has not been successfully imitated here
because the original is made of rich water-buffalo milk unattainable
in the Americas.

With Caciocavallo, this mellow, smoky flavorsome delight is put up in
all sorts of artistic forms, red-cellophaned apples, pears, bells, a
regular zoo of animals, and in all sorts of sizes, up to a monumental
hundred-pound bas-relief imported for exhibition purposes by Phil
Alpert.

Roquefort

Homage to this _fromage!_ Long hailed as _le roi_ Roquefort, it has
filled books and booklets beyond count. By the miracle of _Penicillium
Roqueforti_ a new cheese was made. It is placed historically back
around the eighth century when Charlemagne was found picking out the
green spots of Persille with the point of his knife, thinking them
decay. But the monks of Saint-Gall, who were his hosts, recorded in
their annals that when they regaled him with Roquefort (because it was
Friday and they had no fish) they also made bold to tell him he was
wasting the best part of the cheese. So he tasted again, found the
advice excellent and liked it so well he ordered two _caisses_ of it
sent every year to his palace at Aix-la-Chapelle. He also suggested
that it be cut in half first, to make sure it was well veined with
blue, and then bound up with a wooden fastening.

Perhaps he hoped the wood would protect the cheeses from mice and
rats, for the good monks of Saint-Gall couldn't be expected to send an
escort of cats from their chalky caves to guard them--even for
Charlemagne. There is no telling how many cats were mustered out in
the cav