Oolite Bulletins

maik wrote:

Very true. But doesn't that mostly apply to spoken language?

Also true.

Ffoeg wrote:

Don't forget the cheese before the first sip of wine!

As for the cheese... manchego goes well with good red wine.

El Viejo wrote:

As for the cheese... manchego goes well with good red wine.

The manchegos that I've tried so far were all a bit on the light side... How about something with a little bit more oomph

maik wrote:

How about something with a little bit more oomph

It depends what you mean by oomph... habanero jack has a nice 'bite'.

Interesting cheese, just googled it. Makes me wonder, are you from Wisconsin since most hits mention it in conjunction with habanero jack? But no, I was thinking strong flavour, not hot. If you keep with the hard cheeses like Manchego then something like Appenzeller would rather float my boat. Especially with a full bodied vintage red

Curious thread… it started out as a call for more fiction, developed a rogue character assassinating fictioneers, moved into linguistics and grammar, then on to modern teaching methods… and then on to cheese and wine. Where next?

<opens a bottle of californian zinfandel… and unwraps some royal canadian vintage cheddar>

El Viejo wrote:

Reading the above comments about the state of education is saddening.
Is this only a british malaise, or is the same sort of thing happening in europe and elsewhere?

Curious thread… it started out as a call for more fiction, developed a rogue character assassinating fictioneers, moved into linguistics and grammar, then on to modern teaching methods… and then on to cheese and wine. Where next?

<opens a bottle of californian zinfandel… and unwraps some royal canadian vintage cheddar>

I was just about to make note of the same observation but you pipped me to the post.

Such wanderings make this the best BB on the Internet (that I have come across).

If anybody would like to know about Sardinian "Special Cheese" - just let me know, it's a story you're not likely to forget...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

If anybody would like to know about Sardinian "Special Cheese" - just let me know, it's a story you're not likely to forget...

Are we talking worms or maggots here?

One of the special cheeses (should have pluralised my original post) did indeed involve maggots - not that I knew that to start with...

The second doesn't involve maggots or worms at all.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

If anybody would like to know about Sardinian "Special Cheese" - just let me know, it's a story you're not likely to forget...

Go ahead, share it. And suggest some wine to go along

OK, let me put these stories into context. I used to work for the UK MOD, Sardinia is where we did a lot of NATO trials when testing our Infrared Countermeasures, it is claimed these cheeses are local delicacies, I personally think they're only brought out for tourists and naive impressionable civilian scientists mixed in with military personal.

Special Cheese number 1:

Cheese is brought out in a big bowl with bread and fruit. Cheese is loose and made up of little pellets. Cheese is sprinkled on to bread and eaten. It is only on 3rd handful of the cheese that you notice it is wriggling...

Cheese is not cheese at all but maggots, who have been fed exclusively on a diet of cheese. once engorged and very cheesy, they are shook free from their meal/home and refrigerated so that they hibernate and "last longer" - of course when they're brought out they're still asleep, but quickly wake in the hot Sardinian sun. The wriggling does not put the locals off at all...

Special Cheese number 2:

Served at the end of a rather pleasant "rustic" meal. Cheese is brought out in a special leather bag tied with cord - the bag is split and the cheese is scooped out on to your plate. It stinks, and when eaten is incredibly strong, fiery almost acidic. Once eaten the explanation is made.

Take one baby goat - and do not feed or water for a day or two. Then give baby goat as much milk as it can drink, the goat is very thirsty and will gorge itself on the milk. Once goat is sated, quickly slit throat of said goat and quickly remove stomach - still full of milk. Tie off both ends of the stomach and put somewhere cool and dark while stomach acid fully ferments the milk into cheese. Serve sometime later to naive foreign scientists...

Oh boy... Now which wine was it that goes along with these cheeses?

Abruptly shifting the discussion from English language and education BBC-documentary-style to cheese, warrants a split, no?

Start drinking what we're all drinking AC... and it all makes perfect sense...


[dreamy]... everything's... like... connected...[/dreamy]

maik wrote:

Now which wine was it that goes along with these cheeses?

It would have to be something 'robust'... a rough hungarian bull's blood, maybe.

El Viejo wrote:

maik wrote:

Now which wine was it that goes along with these cheeses?

It would have to be something 'robust'... a rough hungarian bull's blood, maybe.

Shouldn't that be goat's blood?