Christopher Hawtree

Ripeness is all

The wonderful new Oxford Companion covers ever aspect of cheese — in sex, war, the Bible, Shakespeare, diplomacy, superstition and magical thinking

issue 03 December 2016

‘Blessed are the cheesemakers.’ The line from Life of Brian is followed by: ‘It’s not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturer of dairy products.’ In fact, cheese animates the Bible and — building on Job’s searing image of the womb — its coagulation became an emblem of the Immaculate Conception, endorsed by no less than Hildegard of Bingen.

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