Provolone in Paris

The summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years of high school, my cousins Jenna and Wilson from dreamy Santa Fe, New Mexico brought me with them on a European vacation as their babysitter for 15 month old Jack. We flew business class to London, and from there, visited Spain, Paris, and Corsica. It was quite luxurious… our accommodations were splendid, and of course we were well fed. I couldn’t help but feel as though my fifteen-year-old palate was a bit underdeveloped to be launching on such a sophisticated food experience, uncertain of what we might encounter. My cousins are incredibly hospitable. Although I was merely the babysitter, they were wonderfully invested in my experience and making it the best it could be. We ate nearly every meal together, aside from their romantic dinners when I would stay home with Jack, and they paid for my entrance into every museum, and watched Jack while I had a chance to browse the art. It was quite a dream come true.

In the first few days we went to a fresh food market in Paris. There were dozens of carts in close proximity lining a nearby park, all with dried hanging meats, handmade soaps and bits of clothing, and of course, cheese. We approached the cheese cart with the intention of France-ifying our apartment life with gourmet cheese. While Jenna and Wilson thoughtfully contemplated extensively aged and complex tasting cheeses, I was intrigued by a small round cows milk, provolone type cheese, coated in herbs. I asked the person in plastic gloves to shave me a sliver, and felt transformed. The flavor of the cheese was so simple, the consistency so familiar, filling me with the creamy, raw dairy flavor that I crave periodically. The herbs were the perfect amount of garnish, embellishing the sophistication of the cheese in the midst of its stinky, moldy, aged relatives. I don’t remember my exact outward reaction to the cheese, but it must have been passionate, because my cousins fixated on my obsession for the rest of the trip. Not only were they constantly on the lookout for the cheese wherever we went, they bought me a greater supply than I ever could have wanted over the course of our time there.

The cheese always seemed to appear on my breakfast plate in the morning, and on my dessert plate in the evening. The baby, Jack was possibly the cutest of everything cute I have ever witnessed. He could toddle around the parks, pat on window displays at museums, and say a perfect collection of euro trip words: “art, huevos (eggs), agua, horsies, and pretty”. He was at the stage in his sleep schedules where jet lag really messed with him, causing him to get up at 4 am. My dear cousin Jenna would continuously insist that I sleep through these nightly episodes while she dealt with her wide-awake and ready-to-play baby. Each morning of rising at four Jack would toddle around asking for “huevos” for breakfast, and Jenna would scramble them for him. I would awaken to my own plate of scrambled eggs as well, with a wedge of my cheese on the side.

The cheese came to represent their understanding of me, that something small could make me so incredibly elated, and that they could facilitate that by feeding it to me. It was kind of like my “thing” in Paris, the way I came to experience the country. But I also couldn’t help but feel innocent and childish by what I thought they saw as my immature fetish, and comfort food. It was exotic enough that I could seem to enjoy the culture… through the obvious staple of cheese, but at the same time very comforting.

When we found the cheese for the second time, it was only just a few days before we left. Jenna was so enthusiastic about her discovery of it at a market nearby, she insisted on buying a last wheel for the trip. She also insisted that I bring home a second wheel as a souvenir. We left with two large rounds of cheese: one for me to eat over the next three days, and the other vacuum sealed so as to escape the drug dogs at customs. As our remaining time there became less and less, the chunks of cheese with each meal got bigger and bigger in order to finish it. We also decided just before leaving that it was a bad idea to bring the cheese through customs, dividing the entire thing at our last meal. The cheese became a challenge, an obstacle, and I eventually became very reluctant to eat it.

Looking back on this trip, I really do remember the initial magic of the cheese and long for it, I even salivate when thinking about it. But for about one month after the cheese-gorging period when we struggled to finish it all before packing up and leaving, it repulsed me. This summer we visited the Plaza hotel in New York City, browsing the newly constructed food hall. Gazing into the glass casing at the cheese counter, my heart skipped a beat as I saw a similarly sized wheel of herb-covered cheese, and immediately blabbed my association with the cheese to a confused lady behind the glass who gave me a sample. It wasn’t the same. I don’t even know if my memory of this cheese is accurate anymore. Between my whirlwind of emotions about it after we left, my memory of impression and hypothetical taste in my mouth could be completely inaccurate. Though, whenever I see a wheel of herb covered cheese at market, I will always ask for a small shaving off the top, not because I desperately crave the cheese, but just to see if it is the same as the one I know so well.