Joe Berkowitz - American Cheese: An Indulgent Odyssey Through the Artisan Cheese World

I USED TO BE A NORMAL PERSON. RELATIVELY SO, ANYWAY.

Whenever someone wearing an apron would ask, Do you want cheese with that? Id say things like, Sure and Obviously. You knownormal stuff.

When that question comes up now, though, well, I mostly still say those things, but only after performing some milky calculus.

Back when I was a civilian, Id walk into a corner deli for a breakfast sandwich and slobber over sweaty slabs of Velveeta stacked into lactic ziggurats. My fridge was never without pepper jack, the most exotic cheese in my repertoire at the time, along with Trader Joes burrata, its squishy center erupting in a sluicing gush like a McGriddles.

Cheese was my all-hours food, a welcome guest in any meal and something to mindlessly gnaw on during Fleabag. Whenever I saw a pristine party tray packed with toothpick-lanced Colby cubes, I greeted it as warmly as a friend. Possibly warmer.

Cheese was the deal breaker that made veganism a fridge too far. Eggs, I could do without if need be; cheese, absolutely not. It could only be stripped from my life, much like the internet, in the event of some unspeakable global tragedy, possibly one involving zombies.

And somehow it never occurred to me back then that I had only glimpsed a tiny wedge of the greater sprawling cheesescape through a keyhole, possibly while squinting.

There were hints. Clues. Hansel and Gretelesque blue cheese crumbles marking a path not yet taken. One night, I invited a few friends over for a wine and cheese party like grown adults. I went to the nearest overpriced gentrification hut in Crown Heights and picked up five vacuum-sealed wedgesGouda, Brie, Jarlsberg, and both extra sharp and garlic cheddarpairing them with Rosemary and Olive Oil Triscuits. (At that point, I was miles away from knowing that cheese people consider flavored crackers a class A food felony.) After Id proudly enshrined this murderers row of curds on Instagram, we began to devour it. Five minutes later, I noticed a withering comment a bartender friend had left beneath the photo: Basic-ass cheese plate.

Basic? Did he not see there were five cheeses?

The heckle stung. Who was this guy to tell mean enthusiastic and inexhaustible cheese loverthat I was doing something wrong? And which missing cheese did he think would elevate my board to the level of respectability? Was it Manchego? Rather than mull it over any further, I let the offending comment slip my mind and went back to living my basic-ass cheese life.

For a while, anyway.

The version of me who was enchanted by pepper jack is now dead. Its not that I no longer eat anything less than the worlds finest cheese at all times; its that I cant pretend not to be aware of it. Thats the thing about cheese snobbery: Once youve opened Pandoras pantry, it remains open. You might as well try putting Cheez Whiz back in the can.

I will never again eat an omelet without knowing how amazing Gruyre dAlpage would taste slowly sinking into it, like a fluffed bedsheet collapsing onto a pillowy pile of eggs. I have a hard time looking at green cylinder Parmesan, the scentless sawdust inside practically mocking Giorgio Craveros Parmigiano-Reggianoa cheese comprised entirely of guitar solos. I cant eat a grilled cheese sandwich without wishing molten Clothbound cheddar were in the middle, maybe with some Roquefort mixed in, too, for contrast and spice.

Once you know about knee-buckling cheese, you cant unknow it. You can try to ignore its salty siren song, but your taste buds wont let you forget it.

Why would anyone ever want to forget cheese, though?

HERES HOW I ceased to be a normal person.

It all started when I wanted to surprise my wife for Valentines Day. Being a continuously surprising partner is hard work. If two people stick together for a certain number of yearslets call it fivethey start telegraphing their every move like weary prizefighters. Each knows what to expect from the other, and comes to rely on it in a way, but theyre always grateful for upended expectations. Otherwise it all starts to feel like choreography. By early 2018, Id already surprised my wife, Gabi, with just about every blow-you-away vegetarian restaurant in New York, over various Valentines Days and the mere virtue of living in one of the worlds greatest food cities. Non-edible romantic gestures were part of the drill, tooa mechanical bull ride, maybe, or a haunted house that was open in February for some reasonbut an event meal was central to the experience. And it was getting harder to find an herbivore-friendly one in uncharted territory.

Before I started strategizing that years Hallmark holiday, Id never heard of Murrays, the Bleecker Street bulwark of New Yorks indigenous cheese scene. Murrays is about as famous as a cheese shop can get. It began life as an egg and dairy wholesaler in 1940 and evolved into one of Americas most prominent cheese brands, with kiosks in four hundredplus Kroger supermarkets nationwide. But to whom exactly is a famous cheese shop famous? Certainly not me at the time.

I first heard of Murrays in an online ad touting the Most Decadent Valentines Day Ever.

Were pulling out all the stops for this one-of-a-kind, first-in-class, top-of-the-line tasting event, the ad promised. Nothingand we mean nothingis too good for our guests.

The assurance of food that verged on being too good for my wife was quite a hook. It would be a guided tasting through the shops top-shelf inventory, paired with equally impressive wine and a smattering of luxury goodies. The romantic gesture and the food itself were baked into one cheesy package. It was just what I was looking fora bougie jackpot.

Perhaps Id been in other cheese shops beforeI must have beenbut walking into Murrays for the first time felt like the first time ever. The center aisle was flanked by wicker baskets packed with stegosaurus backs of wedges. Enormous wheels of Grana Padano the size of kick drums stood on shelves behind the counter, beneath which lay a marathon glass case packed with rough-hewn hunks of edible gold. Each cheese inside the display case looked like a gallery piece, complete with a little placard noting title and artist. The air was thick with a robust, meaty aroma, one with depth to itthe kind of smell youd imagine making a hungry dog levitate in a cartoon. It was coming from the sandwich press, but it interlocked with the almost oppressive amount of cheese in the glass case, the staff unwrapping and wrapping them up again like a never-ending wardrobe adjustment. Id been vaguely aware of just how many different kinds of cheeses must exist, but Id never given it much thought. How many cheeses could there possibly be? Like, a hundred? (There are thousands.)

In the back of the shop, a velvet rope blocked off a narrow staircase only for those attending tonights special tasting. At the top of the steps stood a group of people who had clearly put Valentines Day strength into their hair and clothes, everything spectacularly un-mussed, while Gabi and I had more of a relaxed, sixth Valentines Day vibe, both of our outfits lightly basted in cat hair. As soon as we joined the queue, an instructor swept us into a room and sat us at a glossy wood-top table. A widescreen on the front wall flashed glamour shots of various cheeses, a televisual brochure for the inventory downstairs.

The cheeses in front of us were decidedly not basic. Sitting on charcoal slates the Flintstones might have used as dishes, the six pieces barely resembled one another in the slightest, each a luscious mystery. They were all punctuated with driblets of cherry confit and black truffle, a gleaming pool of caramel, and other accoutrements, all neatly arranged like a painters palette.