My initial interest in artisanal cheese came from flying coach. I always considered first class a waste of resources, if not an outright commitment to surround yourself with bores. A good coach traveler could stash a fine wine, some bread and a good cheese, and have the best meal in the air. A luxury that would be uncomfortable in the hands-on atmosphere of first class. The cost of first class, I always thought, even to a couple who grossed five-hundred thousand US a year, was an inneficient use of resources. I wanted to believe that you could travel in comfort and luxury even on old trains and metro busses or even by living out the back of your car.
As life changed and that meant more travel, I became more and more interested in travel food: how to pack and eat both cost effective and well when good food on the road is scarce or overpriced.
I found there were a number of excellent hard cheeses that stayed well in a backpack for days. A local supplier in Los Angeles offered me an aged gouda, that, at eighteen months of preservation, was impervious to temperature and time. Trying to expand my travel cheese pallette, I learned how the best were always the small batches that were hard to come by, and that there was a whole world of unique farmhouse cheeses.
I had been introduced to small town cheeses first in Aix-les-Bahns, fifteen years ago at the summer home of a family filled with astronomers and architects. Whatever those French cheeses were, I'll never know. I remember only that at the end of a long hike to the top of a mountain peak, a meal of pears, cheese and bread, was one of the best I ever had.
Historical cheese travel writer St. Deuberex Montclair wrote that he believed this sort of peasant food was superior to the big city cuisine fashions of Europe at the turn of the century, because small town peasant families always kept food at the center of their social lives. Were he to be alive today, he would certainly note that the entire world's best cuisines are always steeped in a rich peasant culture. From country Italian to Thai to French, no matter where you are, its always about basic ingredients and slow processes. Evora is significant in the history of cheese because it is part of an ancient network of towns that were taught cheesemaking out of necessity to supply the travelers of the time: the Roman Army.
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