Blue Murder

I've scrapped my last attempt at a short story (which has been a feature of my writing for the past decade or so) and have started a new one. It's either to be titled as above or as Blue Blood for reasons which will become apparent (but not in the bit below).

I find it's far more useful to labour over a title rather than to actually write, which can be a terribly tiresome experience and demands sitting down wheras title-thinking can be done in front of the TV, in bed asleep or even down the pub (if there was a pub I wanted to spend time in within 250 miles of my house).

So anyway...

It is a widely known, though scandalously under-reported fact that cheese is without question, the most amusing food.

As with all widely known facts there are dissenters, those who would drag the king of comedy food from his cheesy throne and foist a pretender upon us. They shall not prosper.

The more moderate agitator for less amusing edibles can be found advocating their merits on practically every bar stool in the free world. (While certain totalitarian or fundamentalist regimes may be a little less accommodating on such matters as human rights and free speech they invariably brook no argument when it comes to asserting which dairy product sits atop the laughter ladder which can be considered something of a saving grace).

The French for example, despite their close bond with cheese, are forever to be found singing the praises of fish on the aforementioned bar stools. While any fool can see the comic potential of a fish only one point need be made to stem the singing and return the bar to a more convivial atmosphere. Surrealism is comic but it does not follow that comedy is necessarily surreal. Fish may lead the way in way in surrealist comedy for reasons too complex to detail here but cheese has it surreal merits and does not confine itself to such restrictive limitations. Who among us has not chortled at a cheesy double entendre, knob cheese for example?

Let us not dwell on such mighty squabbles, they must be left to a higher power to be dealt with in the fullness of time. Suffice it to say, reasonable readers will need no convincing and the other lot have probably spat upon these pages and left us somewhere around the third paragraph. Good riddance for this story is not for the likes of them.

Having established the mirthful merits of cheese it is now time to detail the darker side of the same coin. What is lesser known but which should perhaps be expected is the deadly toll taken by our seemingly benign bries and blues.

There are without doubt greater dangers than nibbling a wedge of ones favourite fat filled fromage, smoking and drinking spring to mind but there are few allegedly harmless foods which are eaten at such great cost to human life.

The Japanese at this point will politely interject and offer the blow fish for comparison. Those of you unfamiliar with the strange eating habits of our Oriental cousins may not be cognisant of this alleged delicacy. An expert chef is required to prepare the fish, elements of which are among the most poisonous substances known to man. Quite why anyone would take such risks in order to eat a piece of cold, raw fish may be anathema to some but rest assured they do. Something in the region of 270 people die every year in pursuit of this delicacy, a figure our less cold blooded camembert would never dream of achieveing.

However, let’s compare apples with apples. The Blow fish is poisonous, one can only assume that some of the pleasure derived from its eating is to be found in cocking a snook at the fates, chewing in the face of danger and trusting a great chef with your life.

Cheese however is eaten for more humble reasons, to part and moisten two slices of bread in the common sandwich, to be insouciantly sprinkled atop an otherwise bland dish

in order to add a stringy tang of flavour. The reasons are manifold but among them is not a desire to teeter on the edge of life, dabbling ones toes in the sea of reason, this is not the behaviour of your average cheese eater.

Cheese may be eaten as a more soothing pursuit but it still remains a deadly foe to those who scorn its strength. In 1987 alone, 343 people in France lost their lives in the name of cheese. This is by no means uncommon, many thousands have perished through the ages, we shall not forget them.

So we can say without fear of reasoned contradiction that cheese is both funny and deadly. The story which I am attempting to impart (before being unnecessarily sidetracked with needless corroboration of hitherto well known facts) concerns a cheese factory and I don’t think I’ll be giving too much away by letting you know that the comedic qualities of cheese feature rather less than the deadly nature of our milky friend.

___________

I imagine there are youngsters who dream of working in the cheese production industry, who long for the first opportunity to don a hairnet and sink their arms into a vat of warm curd. I, regrettably, do not count myself among their number which would go some way to explaining my rather disconsolate manner on reporting for work at the world renowned and highly esteemed King Island Cheese Factory.

To begin with, the hour was unsociable. 6.00am is a time for sleeping rather than a time for donning white cotton clothes, the aforementioned hairnet, a pair of rubber gloves and steel toe-capped white Wellingtons (referred to by the locals with an unusual and surprising logic as gumboots).

Not only that but one is also expected to perform manual labour at this hour of the morning. It’s still dark for goodness sake! I am a man of the world, I’m nearing the end of my fourth decade and have been compelled to work for most of the previous two so am not entirely unaccustomed to rising at such an hour. We’re one required at the office or on the building site at such an hour one would expect to spend some considerable time both preparing and imbibing a refreshing and enlivening hot beverage, tea or coffee spring to mind as tow obvious choices. In days of yore one may even take the opportunity of enjoying a fraternal cigarette with ones colleagues but no such civilities are on offer when cheese needs de-hooping.

At this juncture I must pause and explain that the limits of this story prevent me from imparting all the specialist knowledge required by a process worker in a cheese factory. I will do my best to explain what one may refer to as jargon but the uninitiated reader may feel somewhat bemused and a trifle alienated, fear not friend, no one is born with the gift of cheesemaking, it is learnt and one must begin this quest somewhere. Plough on, for you will be rewarded in cheese heaven, sat beside your cheesy god.

I will, if time allows, endeavour to share a little of the wisdom I have acquired during my relatively brief but none the less spectacular cheese career.

As I was saying de-hooping, the first task of the day refers to the process of removing the previous days cheese from the hoops or moulds in which they have spent the previous night, largely at rest save for a periodic turn but that’s another story. For the sake of brevity I would like you to imagine the cheese in question to be the type one finds in the better supermarkets, circular, wrapped in foil, round and weighing somewhere in the region of 200 grammes, commonly named brie or even camembert. Cheese of other weights, shapes and flavours are made within these sacred walls but were I to reveal the mysteries of all of them I would get nowhere with the telling of my story which, if you recall, concerns the darker side of our milky friend.

So yes, this brie or possibly camembert is housed in a large plastic tray into which it flowed some 18 hours previously. These trays or hoops, would conventionally be referred to as moulds in any other industry but the term is already somewhat over used in this particular industry so to avoid confusion we professionals steer well clear of it. Each tray holds 20 cheeses and is stacked to form a block 17 high which sits atop a set of wheels for ease of transportation.

Goodness, that’s over 1000 words already, I appear to be getting nowhere, the cheese is not yet de-hooped and not a whiff of evil doing.

These trays are individually removed from the stack before being artfully turned and slammed onto a wire rack, akin to a large cake rack. This dear reader is the manual labour of which I spoke some time ago, this procedure is repeated until some two hours have passed at which time one is invited to join ones colleagues for fiveteen minutes of rest and relaxation in what the locals rather misleadingly refer to as a crib room. I feel it would be churlish of me to point out that at no juncture was there any sign of cribbage, bridge or even rummy being played in these rather cramped quarters, the Herald Sun quiz provided the only cut and thrust of competitive gamesmanship on offer and that was a rare joy.