introduction there in 1722. The most famous is made in the Jura, and
another is called Comté from its origin in Franche-Comté.

A blind Emmentaler was made in Switzerland for export to Italy where
it was hardened in caves to become a grating cheese called Raper, and
now it is largely imitated there. Emmentaler, in fact, because of its
piquant pecan-nut flavor and inimitable quality, is simulated
everywhere, even in Switzerland.

Besides phonies from Argentina and countries as far off as Finland, we
get a flood of imported and domestic Swisses of all sad sorts, with
all possible faults--from too many holes, that make a flabby, wobbly
cheese, to too few--cracked, dried-up, collapsed or utterly ruined by
molding inside. So it will pay you to buy only the kind already marked
genuine in Switzerland. For there cheese such as Saanen takes six
years to ripen, improves with age, and keeps forever.

Cartwheels well over a hundred years old are still kept in cheese
cellars (as common in Switzerland as wine cellars are in France), and
it is said that the rank of a family is determined by the age and
quality of the cheese in its larder.


Feta and Casere

The Greeks have a name for it--Feta. Their neighbors call it Greek
cheese. Feta is to cheese what Hymettus is to honey. The two together
make ambrosial manna. Feta is soft and as blinding white as a plate of
fresh Ricotta smothered with sour cream. The whiteness is preserved by
shipping the cheese all the way from Greece in kegs sloshing full of