Say "Cheese."

Once per week, Dana and I buy a couple of blocks of Australian cheddar cheese produced - of course - by a local dairy firm here in Egypt. The quarter-pound blocks that we purchase are about the length, width and breadth of your outstretched hand, that is if your hand was square and vacuum sealed. When unwrapped, the tawny, blond cheese has a fresh, rich aroma and a creamy, buttery taste. A versatile cheese, the cheddar works well in cooked dishes and in salads, or is perfectly fine as a stand-alone snack. We love it.

Although I do not know this, I assume that this particular variety of "white" cheddar is synonymous with the cheese making industry in Australia. I know it is not of Egyptian origin. Cheese making in Egypt goes back thousands of years, but the local cheeses are either the soft white mounds that we often associate with Greece, or a hard, smelly Parmesan-like thing called, "Roumy." My sole experience with Roumy happened in late 2013 and lasted for approximately five very unpleasant minutes. That's how long the aftertaste loitered on my tongue. Dana and I were walking through the dairy aisle at a local supermarket and happened upon a booth where a sampling of all kinds of local cheeses was arrayed. I thought that the local Parmesan might be worth a try. Innocently poised at the end of the toothpick, the nugget I selected looked just like Parmesan. It wasn't. It wasn't Parmesan and it wasn't innocent. Far from it. It was mummy's ass. That's what I remember thinking at the time. That was right about the time when the lady behind the booth pronounced this stale, dusty bit of putrefaction as being "Roumy."

I know I made a face. I couldn't help it. I couldn't dial in my disgust quickly enough, having just ingested the dusty, moldy, assy insides of some series of faraway sarcophagi. I swallowed the nasty little blob without further chewing. It slimed down down my throat like a boogery hawker. Through gritted teeth, I forced a wincing smile, thanking the woman at the booth. I wheeled around, Dana trailing after me. She was giggling.

"That bad?"

"Unbelievably. Terrible. Mummy ass," my voice was weak.

"You're being overly dramatic."

"We can go back. I think there might be another sliver of butt left."

"I think I'll pass. You gonna be alright?" Still giggling. Not helpful, especially given the strong aftertaste of mummy tuchas still shaking its can in my mouth.

But I digress ... We love the local "Australian" cheddar. It's lovely and creamy and whitish-yellow, just like cheddar should be. If this opinion about the color of cheddar is true - and I now wholeheartedly believe that it is - then what in hell kind of orange-tainted shittiness have I been eating all of these years? American singles? Waxy and orange. Velveeta? Gooey and orange. Okay, maybe American singles and Velveeta don't qualify as being cheeses, but even a decent Winconsin cheddar is orange. And the hats that the Packers fans in Green Bay wear? They're orange, too. What gives? I was raised in a universe where cheddar is orange. Why the change?

I have been troubled by this issue enough recently to bother to try to find an answer. According to Cecil Adams of the The Straight Dope, we have the English to blame. Cecil claims that years and years ago, cheese lovers in England began to equate orangish-yellow cheddar as being of a higher quality than the tawny-colored cheddar. Back before the days of industrialized farming and cattle being cannibalized with human-produced feed made from grains and offal, dairy cows were always fed a diet of grass in the summer months and hay in the winter months. The cow milk in the summer was rich in beta-carotene, the vitamin that helps to give carrots their lovely orange hue. Not to say that summer cow milk was orange, but it was apparently a different color that the cow milk in the winter. Customers began to demand the "more wholesome" cheese made from summer milk and so farmers obliged by adding a little annatto seed coloring (a natural orange colorant) to all of their cheese-making endeavors. The dye gave the cheddars a consistent color throughout the year and the specific orangish shade that early English consumers believed to be synonymous with cheese greatness.

So much for the history lesson. Thanks, Cecil.

Now that I have a little intellectual capital at my disposal, I know enough to say that I don't like my cheddar being orange. Here's why.

I looked up some information on the annatto seed, the stuff used to make the dye that cheese makers put into cheddar. The seed is naturally occurring and innocuous enough. Annatto is apparently flavorful and may even have some health benefits. But the tree that produces the seeds is a tropical tree, and so those little seeds, the ones that are eventually crushed into the dye that turns my cheddar into something resembling the color of a carrot, have quite a carbon footprint. These days I prefer to dine locally when I can. I would like to believe that my preference for local foods may actually help local people. If I were in the tropics, I would be okay with eating orange cheddar. In Egypt or in Tennessee, I would prefer a less well-traveled, less global cheese.

I am also thinking that annatto oil is probably a little pricey, pricey enough to tempt a few wily cheese makers into using using chemical equivalents - like perhaps F, D & C powdered dyes - as substitutes for a natural oil. I'm old, and that means I have eaten enough crummy things to clog up my arteries and constrict the blood vessels in my brain. I don't need any more gunk. So I will pass on the powdered dyes and food coloring agents.

I also like the idea of eating foods that are coming to me in a more-or-less natural state in terms of color and taste. Some barmy English hill-jack a couple of hundred years ago decided that orange cheese was better. That does not mean that I have to blindly follow this decision. Indeed, now that I have a choice, I would like to make a different decision altogether. I would like to have my cheddar look a little more cheddar-like and a little less carrot-like.

So despite the ridiculousness of the idea of purchasing Australian cheddar in Egypt, I will stick with the local variety of dun-colored cheese produced here in Cairo and not dyed with a seed transported from far away, or worse, colored with some chemical agent. I will not however, go completely local to switch to the local "Parmesan." Nope, I will enjoy my expensive imported Italian Parmesan along with its massive carbon footprint. My liberalism does, after all, have its limits.