My Life of Cheese – An Extract

When I was a little girl I used to play in my garden all the time, and in my garden was a pear tree. I would spend many hours climbing that tree and knew every inch of its gnarled trunk. The nook formed in the place where the trunk split into the 2 main, thick branches was like a second home to me with its familiar smell of old leaves and bits of twigs.

One day, when I was 7 or 8, I was looking for a hiding hole for some small piece of childhood treasure that played a crucial part in my make believe world for that day. I climbed the tree and straddled the nook, my legs swinging either side of the trunk. I pulled at a loose bit of the bark on the widest of the 2 branches that reached skyward, hoping to prise a gap big enough to seclude my treasure. As I pulled, the bark snapped away, revealing the fresh young wood underneath. I was disappointed and as I sat there contemplating where next to try, I noticed a strange smell. As I leant down and smelt the bare wood, I realised that I recognised the smell – it was like the smelly mature cheddar that my mother enjoyed.

I jumped down from the tree and found a sharp stone. Climbing back up, I used the stone to gauge out a piece of the branch’s flesh, and tasted it. I spat it out straight away – I hated that taste – but I instantly recognised it as my mother’s cheese. She had made me try it several times, wanting me to share in her pleasure at the taste.

I ran down the garden path and into the kitchen, waving my piece of pear tree. My mother was taking a pie out of the oven, and she scolded me for getting in her way, so I impatiently hopped from foot to foot, waiting for her to safely put down the pie onto the cooling rack.

“What is it, dear?” she said.

“Eat this!” I said, and shoved the wood towards her face.

“Don’t be ridiculous! What on earth is it?”

“It’s from the pear tree,” I said, excitedly. “It’s from inside the branch, but it smells & tastes exactly like the smelly cheese you like. See?”

I held up to my offering to her once again, grinning. She looked at me quizzically and slowly bent down to smell it. She shook her head.

“It just smells of wood,” she said.

“What? Try it, it really tastes like it.”

“Don’t be silly”

I felt tears well up in my eyes. “But…”

She must have seen my forlorn expression, and tutting she took the piece from me and tentatively nibbled the end.

“It just tastes of wood, dear. Now, go along and play.”

Feeling dejected, I went and played with my dolls.

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A few months later, as the summer months had rolled on, I was playing in the tree again when I noticed a pear at the end of one of the top branches.

Despite having the tree at the bottom of the garden for all these years, I had never tasted one of the pears. My mother would curse the tree about this time every year as it dropped it’s bounty of pears, and invariably they would be over ripe, bruised or full of maggots and totally inedible. This would usually be followed by the annual row with my father, asking him to chop down the ‘ghastly tree’, with my dad making the promise that he never fulfilled to get it removed in the spring.

But now I had spotted a perfect looking pear, blemish free whilst it stayed attached to the lofty branch. I had never climbed that high before, but the juicy fruit was enough of a temptation. I scrambled my way up the more familiar lower branches, before tentatively crawling along the top branch, my eye constantly on the prize, reaching an arm out every few inches to test if I was far enough yet. Finally, whilst avoiding looking down, I managed to grasp the pear firmly and pluck it from its home.

I placed the pear carefully in my cardigan pocket and quickly clambered down until I was in my favoured spot in the nook of the tree. I took out the pear and inspected it all round, wary of finding any little holes which would indicate that a maggot had found the pear before me and made it his home. I couldn’t see anything, but wiped the pear over with my sleeve for good measure.

I bit into the pear excited to taste this rare, sweet treat. However, as I bit it, I was entirely surprised by the taste that greeted me – it tasted exactly like a Dairylea Cheese Triangle! I couldn’t believe it! I took another bite just to be sure, but the taste was unmistakable.

My father was working in the garden at that time, digging up weeds in the border of the lawn. I ran over to him with the pear, and offered him a taste. At first, he was surprised I had managed to climb so high, but he was excited to be able to taste a pear from the tree for the first time in many years.

He bit into the pear, and grinned as he savoured the taste.

“Beautiful! You can’t beat the taste of fruit straight from the tree,” he said, licking his lips and handing the half eaten pear back to me.

“Doesn’t it taste kind of weird to you?” I asked.

“Weird?”

“Like, does it taste of something it shouldn’t?”

He picked up his spade and carried on digging. “No, like what?”

“Like…” I hesitated, suddenly aware of how completely strange the thing I was about to say was, “a Dairylea Triangle?”

My dad laughed and told me to go off and play, he was busy. I took my pear and sulked in the tent I had set up by hanging a sheet over the washing line. I finished the pear, enjoying the smooth, creamy taste. I only wished I had a cracker to make the experience complete.

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It wasn’t until many years later that I first heard of caseusgustoism, the condition I have since been diagnosed with. Caseusgustoism, or C.G., causes a supposedly false taste of cheese from various foods. The foods that cause this reaction in ‘sufferers’ vary from person to person, though there are some common ones such as Marmite, asparagus and strawberries. For me, there are many things including pears, beans, brazil nuts, cod and carrots. There are more people with C.G. than most people realise; it is thought that around 85% of the population have some form of it, though most have either not discovered the particular food that affects them, or have simply not recognised that they are tasting something different from others.

With such a large proportion of the population, it becomes hard to believe that we are the ones suffering a malfunction of some sort. Perhaps it is the CGers that are tasting the true taste?

There are a growing number of people who believe that world is made mostly of cheese. If this is the case, something I believe in very strongly, then CGers could help us to understand the world we live in and should be held in high regard. Instead of fighting this condition, I have embraced it and have found ways to develop my tastes to be able to recognise the cheese taste in more foods. I see it as a skill, rather than an illness.

Back in 1998, other leading CGers and I began to develop our understanding of this exciting new field of study. I have worked hard to campaign for caseusgustology to be recognised as a science, and it does now receive some funding. However, I have faced hardship and discrimination along the way. I have been laughed out of academic conferences and my name has been blackened across the scientific community. I was so sure in my beliefs though, that I have fought on, and it is only now that caseusgustology is beginning to get the recognition it deserves.

This is my story.

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My Life of Cheese, by Susie Fletcher will be available in all good bookshops from 15th December, 2011.

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