BIG CHEESE

We don't know how the cheese got there. The Chinese are largely not a cheese consuming culture, and many of them find the substance baffling, to say the least -- congealed bovine glandular exudate -- if not downright revolting.
And it's often rotten, that being the aging, and a controlled process of fermenting or down-breaking of the casein-containing semi-goo.
A decomposed grease-rich hunk of animal arm pit reek.

The point is, it was significant in her childhood.


I woke up to my Chinese American apartment mate in the television room talking on the phone with her boyfriend (who is lactose intolerant) about the cheese of which her mother had gained possession very many years ago.

An extremely large block.

It was free.



THE "GOVERNMENT" CHEESE

They weren't exactly "poor" poor, but strings were very tight. And her mother had acquired cheese. She doesn't know how the old lady got it, because it was not something to which they were entitled. Government cheese. Some programme of bringing nutrition to the fromage tolerant indigent.
In any case, her children would eat the cheese, because there was a lot of it, and it had been free.
It wasn't their cheese, but they'd make it disappear.
If entirely consumed, no evidence.

I do not know why she brought it up, but she was trying to make a point, and he wanted more details about the acquisition, and kept constantly interrupting with questions about the provenance.

Both of them are Aspy, and obsess over details.

To the point of frustration, and beyond.

Which I can understand.


"I don't know how she got it! Perhaps blackmail? Maybe there's a secret handshake?!? Chinese Masons force it on people they hate?!? There's a cheese mafia operating in Chinatown, or a desperate tenant give it to her? Whatever! I don't know! She had the cheese. We didn't eat cheese! We had to eat it! And Thomasses English Muffins! Somebody died, or there's a thriving black market in strange things you've never seen before. Poor Chinese like to live dangerously, okay? Dammit, the point is, cheese! No, I don't know why! A big lump of government cheese, with white bread, which is another thing!"

"Semi-hard, like a lot of Kraft singles slammed into a lump."

"Stop asking about the damned cheese!"


But she brought up the subject, and I'm surprised he had never heard about it before. The free cheese was a formative influence on her, because she is fond of cheese, and devours dairy like cows are going out of style.
Or sheep and goats.


Christmas morning, 2017. Let it be known that I woke up with my Cantonese American apartment mate hollering about cheese.


We have milk, butter, and three kinds of cheese in the refrigerator.
Plus two tubs of ice cream.





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