The Cheese Was Free
I am only a couple of chapters into James McBride’s Deacon King Kong (loving it!) and in the first chapter, there’s a relatively short passage about some cheese, Jesus’s Cheese, that comes into the lives of the members of the book’s community that is a first ballot Hall of Famer for the best depiction or description of a foodstuff in literature. Here it is:
The cheese was free. It came like clockwork for years, every first Saturday of the month, arriving like magic in the wee hours in Hot Sausage’s boiler room in the basement of Building 17. Ten crates of it, freshly chilled in five-pound hunks.
This wasn’t plain old housing projects “cheese food,” nor was it some smelly, curdled, reluctant Swiss cheese material snatched from a godforsaken bodega someplace, gathering mold in some dirty display case while mice gnawed at it nightly, to be sold to some sucker fresh from Santo Domingo.
This was fresh, rich, heavenly, succulent, soft, creamy, kiss-my-ass, cows-gotta-die-for-this, delightfully salty, moo-ass, good old white folks cheese.
It’s even better when narrated by Dominic Hoffman. “Moo-ass cheese” is going right into the regular rotation.
If you somehow missed Deacon King Kong — it was on every 2020 best of list — you can get it at Bookshop (paperback & ebook), Amazon (paperback & ebook), and Libro (audiobook, read by the aforementioned Dominic Hoffman, who is amazing and also narrated James).
Comments 4
Definitely the most vivid description of cheese I've read in a long while. Adding to my Reading List.
I’d forgotten about that passage - thank you for sharing!
Can I put in a (gentle, non-urgent) request for a media diet? I’d love to know what else you’ve been reading / watching lately!
Ugh, I know...it's been too long again. Quickly and without explanation, here's the best stuff I've, uh, consumed since I last did one:
Severance season 2
A Complete Unknown
Andor (season 1 rewatch, season 2)
Black Bag
Sinners
Rogue One Andorized
There There
Martyr!
Paris Is Burning
99% Invisible Power Broker podcast series
Devil in the White City audiobook
My Brilliant Friend season 4
Thank you thank you!!
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