I have a customer who came in with a request to solve an unusual problem.  You see, if you live in Portland, Maine, you probably live in an old house. I do. He does. This time of year, when the cold settles in for good, the mice move in.  For him, it’s an annual event, and he knows it’s time when he opens his bread drawer and there’s holes in the bread bag.  So, mice like cheese, right?  But, he’d bought my 4 year old Canadian Cheddar, some Gruyere, and some Delice de Bourgogne on his own from my shop, and tried them all on his mouse traps.  The mice ate well.  The Delice, a great triple crème soft cheese (triple crème means cream has been added to the curd to make the cheese 70% or higher in butterfat), they just licked off without springing the trap. The Cheddar, that was too crumbly and they carried that off, probably with a good jigger of Scotch, which goes great with the 4 and 8 year old cheddars.  He had high hopes for the Gruyere, the great Swiss cheese, but it also got eaten off the mouse traps. So, the question was, “What cheese should I buy for my mouse trap?” After a lot of back and forth, we decided we’d try something not too hard and not too soft, and kind of inexpensive too, because  the mice really were eating too well.   I sent him home with an Emmental from Switzerland, the classic cheese with big holes in it. It’s the cheese from the old black and white cartoons you used to see on TV that the mice just loved.  The saga continues.  The mice might be saving it all to make a great fondu.

Filed under: Cheese and Meats by kris