Actually an Artist

What snack would you eat right now?

Since this question is posed in the conditional “would” rather than the indicative, “are you” or “will you” [after writing this post], I’m going to assume it’s after more than my gastronomic choices so far today. Because I’m an adult and have no hangups about diet (diets don’t work, BMI is a lie, and fatphobia is far more dangerous than any one body type could ever be), obviously if there was a snack I had and wanted right now, I’d eat it. But I don’t have any unpasteurized cheese in the house because I no longer live in France. And both those things are a real shame these days.

Unpasteurized cheese is no less an art than Jackson Pollock’s movement paintings. Or impressionism’s attempts at capturing the light at a particular moment in time before it changed. Unpasteurized cheese is an invitation into the art of human and microbial cooperation and mutuality; a communing with a world unseen, equal parts necessary and dangerous to larger lifeforms. While eating unpasteurized cheese is arguably safer than stepping into a car, the deliberate skipping of a step-that is, pasteurization, cleaning, or sterilizing, lends it a bit of a bad-boy reputation that only adds to its allure in this household. And that bad-boy reputation is well deserved at times when the gut biomes we cultivate in this country contend with the need influx of residents… Alas we have no one but ourselves to blame.

The irony of pasteurization being named for Louis Pasteur should he lost on no one who’s fully (or even partially) entered into la gastronomie, a cultural institution France is invested in preserving. While French food is not all ‘d’origine protégée’, if you happen upon something labeled AOP, you should indulge. I would eat that, for sure.

We sterilize everything, from our food, to our floors, to our soil. It’s high time to shift to more balanced ways of living in a world of mostly microbes who would help us a great deal more if only we’d let go a little.