Oh God don't get me started.
Trick question, I've already started and I'm writing so you can't exactly do anything about it.
The Netherlands' cheese game is weak. At least when it comes to those everyday cheeses available in the shops, absolutely nothing makes the grade for my, clearly, sophisticated English palette.
Now, one thing must be made clear, to avoid a total injustice to the Dutch cheese game - the stuff does melt well. Consistently, and it's nice paired in a toastie with your lunch meat of choice (let's not get into the sandwich meat game - I have notes aplenty for that too).
However, these Dutch cheeses lack the essential qualities I need from my daily yellowbeef. The texture is, more often than that, that of a sun-dried plimsole. A sort of cardboardy resistance reminiscent of heavily condensed pastry.
The flavour, what little hint of it there is, is a sort of vague, flat carpety notion across the tongue. It is less a flavour and more of a simple, unadorned notation to the brain that food has passed through the mouth area.
Desperate, I called mother, who contacted Her Majesty's Emergency Cheese Service and sent me two packets of supermarket cheddar of the as-mature-as-possible variety. Such was my joy on gazing down upon that sweaty, crystally cheese, that I had dispatched of both packets within a couple of days.
I allowed my Dutch housemates to sample this God-given patriotic parcel, and they were amazed at the quality, comparing it to what they would buy at a nice market. I then informed them that this was supermarket cheese and cost £2.49. They were gobsmacked.
And that highlights the most critical weakness of the Dutch cheese game. Price. The price of cheese is INSANELY high here. For around the same money I paid for that modest block of cheddar, I can afford 6 individual slices of a cheese whose only mission in life is to turn into a crusty yellow slipper.
Cheddar, Lancashire Bomb, Brie, Camembert and Roquefort await on the Christmas table for when I fly home. Up your game, Netherlands.
/Harshtruth
