The Complete Book of Cheese

Excerpt: ... Sandwich Butter 2 slices of sandwich bread, cover one with a thin slice of imported Emmentaler, dash with cayenne and a drop or two of tabasco. Slap on a sizzling hot slice of grilled ham and press it together with the cheese between the two bread slices, put in a hot oven and serve piping hot with a handful of moonstones-those outsize pearl onions. X Xochomilco Sandwich In spite of the milco in Xochomilco, there isn't a drop to be had that's native to the festive, floating gardens near Mexico City. For there, instead of the cow, a sort of century plant gives milky white pulque, the fermented juice of this cactuslike desert plant. With this goes a vegetable cheese curded by its own vegetable rennet. It's called tuna cheese, made from the milky juice of the prickly pear that grows on yet another cactuslike plant of the dry lands. This tuna cheese sometimes teams up in arid lands with the juicy thick cactus leaf sliced into a tortilla sandwich. The milky pulque of Xochomilco goes as well with it as beer with a Swiss cheese sandwich. Y Yolk Picnic Sandwich Hard-cooked egg yolk worked into a yellow paste with cream cheese, mustard, olive oil, lemon juice, celery salt and a touch of tabasco, spread on thick slices of whole wheat bread. Z Zebra Take a tip from Oskar over in Copenhagen and design your own Zebra sandwich as decoratively as one of those oft-photoed skins in El Morocco. Just alternate stripes of black bread with various white cheeses in between, to follow, the black and white zebra pattern. For good measure we will toss in a couple of toasted cheese sandwiches. Toasted Cheese Sandwich Butter both sides of 2 thick slices of white bread and sandwich between them a seasoned mixture of shredded sharp cheese, egg yolk, mustard and chopped chives, together with stiffly beaten egg white folded in last to make a light filling. Fry the buttered sandwich in more butter until well melted and nicely gilded. This toasted cheeser is so good...