Amayzine

Were you also born with a cheese addiction?

Cheese board with all kinds of cheeses, grapes, figs

If you make me extremely happy anywhere, it's with a humongous wooden board filled with as much cheese as possible cheeses. From soft creamy goat cheese to fragrant red mold and spicy gorgonzola; you name it, I love it. All of it. So much that I can't even control myself when that board is in front of me. The effect on someone else with a bag of chips or a roll of Oreos, you could say. It's not surprising that my relationship ended because the guy didn't like cheese. Just kidding, but it was a thing. A delicious tomato salad with velvety burrata or a huge dish of lasagna with a crispy parmesan crust was never on our table. Let alone that fragrant Mont d'Or in winter, with a bottle of red by the fireplace.

But I am certainly not the only one who is so intensely addicted to the yellow gold. Our little country produces over 650 million kilos of cheese annually. Six hundred fifty million kilos, girlfriend, that's 100,000 million elephants. But that certainly doesn't mean we are all cheese heads. Research has shown that it can be genetically determined whether you like cheese or not. So it doesn't always have to do with personal taste.

An important reason why people hate cheese is due to the penetrating smell. Especially the rotten smell that arises from fermentation during the production process is what puts many people off. In this phase, lactic acid bacteria are added to the cheese that cause the cheese to smell. And that's not all. That delicious piece of gorgonzola on your cheese board also has some mold additions.

Scientists from 23andMe have discovered that the intense reaction some people have to cheese can be compared to coriander. I love it, but I also know a lot of haters who think it tastes like soap. Not surprising, because what turns out? The same chemical compound found in cheese is also the cause of the taste of coriander. We may live in a cheese country, but we certainly haven't all had cheese.

One thing is for sure: the next eater is just scraping from that cheese fondue pot...