She Would Rather Smoke Crack

When Gwyneth Paltrow announced that she would rather smoke crack than eat cheese in a can, I wondered why she thought cheese in a can was so horrid.

I like cheese in a can.  

In 1975 I lived in Sokoto, Nigeria, near the edge of the Sahara Desert.  There was only one kind of cheese produced in Sokoto: camel milk cheese.  There must be something special about camel milk because this cheese was very hard.  It had grooves in it and reminded me of white shingles that Americans use for siding their homes.

In a city where temperatures have been known to hit 117 degrees Fahrenheit, you need a cheese that is going to survive without refrigeration.  Camel milk cheese fit the bill, but it did not fit my idea of dairy sanitation.

If you stopped at a little neighborhood shop in Sokoto, you would find cigarettes, soft drinks, bread, laundry powder, and umbrellas.  You will also find Kraft cheese in a can --- a blue can from Australia.

I bought cans of Kraft cheese.  I made grilled cheese sandwiches.  I found that Kraft cheese pairs nicely with Nigerian beer.  I liked knowing that being geographically remote did not mean being cut off from cheese, even if it did come in a can.

Now I see that Kraft has started a campaign to import its blue cans of cheese into the United States.  The United States has plenty of cheese produced in nice sanitary conditions.  Who would buy these blue cans?

Survivalists.  

Kraft is marketing this “previously unavailable” cheese for disaster preparedness.  Any cheese that could survive sitting on a shelf in a neighborhood shop in Sokoto, Nigeria, can definitely claim to be survival cheese.

Cheese in a can made my life in Nigeria better.  Cheese in a can could save someone's life in post-Apocalyptic America.  So, why does Gwyneth despise it?

Oops, wrong cheese in a can.  

I think Gwyneth was talking about aerosol squirty cheese in cans, not my beloved blue cans of Kraft cheese.  OK…maybe crack is preferable to Easy Cheese squirted on a cracker.

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com