I once ran a cheese club with a friend. We’d buy an absurd number of fancy cheeses, get them delivered to my house, I’d divide them into portions and the club members would collect their cheeses from my house. As almost everyone missed the communal pickup date, there would be a week and a half where my fridge was 90% cheese. Every time I opened it, it would leak an aroma so robust, my house would smell for hours afterwards.
Last week my fridge was full of supermarket sliced cheese, 4kg in all – enough to fill an entire shelf and more. When I opened my fridge I smelled nothing but the staleness of the air inside. Sliced cheese shouldn’t be smelly. Its mission in life isn’t to impress, it’s to fit in – into a sandwich, a busy work schedule or a child’s picky diet. If I’m buying sliced cheese, I’m looking for the most convenient and reliable form: tasty, inoffensive and easy to use. That was my mindset when I sourced and taste-tested 15 brands of tasty, cheddar and processed cheese slices.
