Drew D’onofrio

Editor-in-Cheese

dcd5412@psu.edu

Good day, cheezits and cheesettes, and welcome back to Drew Dishes. Due to being severely snowed in and a heavy workload, I unfortunately could not get a hold of a cheese of the week for the past few newspapers. I am truly sorry. However! Over the course of the rest of this semester, every two weeks I will be doing the critically acclaimed cheese review every other week. Starting off two weeks from now, I will be reviewing one of, if not the best, cheeses out there. Mozzarella. This is perhaps one of the most popular options to answer the questioning of “what is the perfect cheese?” Again, to reiterate, I personally do not believe in such rhetoric, but nothing is impossible in the realm of cheese. All of our current competitors have been great, but none of which have been perfect. But how do I rate these cheeses? Well, it comes down to three categories, all rated on a scale of one to ten. First off is general popularity and accessibility to the average person. This category is fairly self explanatory – if I can go to my local Tops and find four different varieties, I would consider it quite accessible and rate it highly. If I have to import it across the world at a ridiculously high price, I would have to rate it quite low, even if it tastes great. The next category is flavor, texture, and overall consumption experience. This category, unfortunately, is very subjective. I, for example, quite enjoy the flavor of blue cheese. Most people I know find it absolutely abhorrent. Truly, it is down to personal taste. Finally, the last category is diversity and usage. This category pertains to how many culinary uses the cheese has. If a cheese is delicious, but is only eaten in its base form, I would have to rate it lower in this category. After rating, I get all three of the categories scores and get an average. This is how I personally rate the cheeses that I try. The Secret Cheese Council, however, is true and utter chaotic gut feelings. Coming up next week, one of the strongest competitors in all three categories… mozzarella.