The Complete Book of Cheese

This is not a cookbook. It is a love letter to cheese, written in 1955 by a man who clearly believed that life without excellent cheese was barely worth living. Bob Brown takes you through the cobblestone markets of Holland and Lucerne, where merchants still judged cheese the old way: a sharp knife, a keen eye, and years of experience. He traces the animal (and sometimes human) milk that becomes everything from aged Cheddar to fresh goat cheese, explaining why a wheel from one valley tastes radically different from its neighbor. But the book's real treasure is its American chapter, where Brown documents how the New World absorbed European traditions and invented its own: pimento loaf, Monterey Jack, the curious story of processed cheese. Written with genuine enthusiasm and the occasional aside about which hotels serve the best breakfast, this is a time capsule with rind. For anyone who has ever stood in a cheese shop, overwhelmed and delighted, wondering about the story behind the smell.