Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Whey To Go

A struggle has been brewing between two warring factions of the Department of Agriculture, and no clear winner has emerged, except for the American consumer, who now averages one-quarter cheese by volume, and boy, is he happy.

The Department of Agriculture is interested in promoting good health, and its subsidiary, Dairy Management, is interested in promoting cheese. The dilemma arose when the agency promoting health stripped the fat out of the milk. Something needed to be done with the excess fat, and cheese ensued. The government bought it up and stockpiled it in cool caves in Missouri, to the tune of over four billion dollars' worth. Additional semi-liquid Brie deposits are thought to exist in the shale layers.

The problem was exacerbated by cow enhancement. Early cows were very different from the ones we have today, which have been engineered to be giant udders stabilized with hooves on each corner. These new bovoids are further stimulated by special lighting, in the same manner already proven effective in Las Vegas. They bounce into the barns and hit the slots, ultimately resulting in yet more cheese.

I thought I knew where milk came from when I was a child. God dropped it off cold in a bottle with a cardboard tab and left it on the back porch. Later in the fifties I made acquaintance with some of the early evolutionary forms of cow at my Uncle Cliff's farm in North Dakota. Uncle Cliff maintained a small herd of terrifying black and white cows. I was small and easily stepped on, and I regarded my Uncle Cliff as a giant among men, based on his willingness to wade into the herd and slap rumps to motivate them towards the barn, and also because he was taller than my dad, which, in retrospect, was no big feat. I was able to observe milk being extracted, before it was brought to the kitchen in a bucket for the grownups visiting from the city to ooh and aah over. It was revolting. It was warm and creamy and had little flecks of grass floating in it, instead of cold in a bottle on the back porch, per God's previous arrangements.

Anyway, to recap, the Department of Agriculture has now been forced to contend with the excess of fat brought on by the skimming of milk as recommended by the Department of Agriculture.

Domino's Pizza was one of the first to benefit, when Dairy Management made the recommendation to discard the old recipe, in which tomato sauce product was veneered directly on the cardboard container and dotted with cheese-like nurdles, and introduce the new, in which cheese replaces the bread/cardboard layer, the tomato layer, and the layer on top primarily responsible for strip-mining the roof of your mouth. It was a hit. As the Department maintains,  "cheese can fit into a low-fat, healthy diet," as long as it's wearing its fat pants.

Then a scientist who stockpiled pay from Dairy Management discovered that cheese could help you lose weight, and if a little cheese could do that, just think of what a lot of cheese could do. Advertising was rendered out, cheese sales soared, and when all subsequent efforts to replicate the original scientist's results failed, Dairy Management immediately withdrew its claims, after a few years and a bomb threat from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Current research is focusing on the ability of cheese to foster hair growth and erections.

Meanwhile, cheese consumption continues to expand. We must move to protect this vital national resource before the big corporations buy up Missouri and drill down our cheddar reserves.

16 comments:

  1. You will perhaps appreciate the fact that I read this while washing down a whole wheat bagel with a schmear, with a mug of 1%. Thank you for my first chortle of the day!

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  2. Was tickled all along but lost it at "Current research is focusing on the ability of cheese to foster hair growth and erections."
    Great pictures by the way.

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  3. Your description of Domino's pizza explains a lot. I always thought it tasted a lot like cardboard. I guess I should try to new version. Maybe, someday. Your wicked smart mental processes are in full rant, and I love it! :-)

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  4. Oh yeah, baby. I'm drilling for the semi-liquid brie...the shale shards aren't a detriment; they'll just stand in for the water crackers, right?

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  5. Robert-the-Skeptic sent me over to your blog. I can see why. You do take a fun, detailed look at subject matters like non-fat milk and cheese on top of cheese dumped into pizza.

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  6. Whenever I tried to reheat a Domino's Pizza at 350* it burst into flames. Now I know why. Thanks.

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  7. Ah, this explains the astonishing proliferation of fromages in my fridge!
    Little did I know how simple the answer is to such a perplexing problem!
    The Missouri Fat Stockpile. Ahhhhhhhh.
    My cheeses started from one carefully hoarded Parmigiano/Reggiano, expanded rather suddenly to about five carefully chosen delectable items for my recent get-together. The party was lots of fun, but left me with a fair amount of lovely fromages in the fridge. A couple days later, I attended my family's first-ever baby shower potluck and as I was leaving, my dear ones foist upon me a large and wobbly pair of cardboard plates holding several more fromages to serve suitably spiffed up for my next event here in a few days! Eeeeeeek! I now realize that the Missouri dairy caves probably have some sort of return bin for items such as these for which the holders absolutely must not take further responsibility. This holder is already wearing her fat pants!

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  8. Cheese can help you lose weight? Oh, if ONLY!

    That reminds me a lot of those great advertisements they had back in the fifties about more doctors smoking Camels. They made you think that smoking was a wonderful, healthy, stimulating activity that could practically turn you into a doctor.

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  9. Ah. Smoked cheese is probably the key to eternal life.

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  10. This is America and there ARE alternatives. "Velveeta" is US-made from the finest of our industrial byproducts and contains none of the nasty organic little nasties found in the fluids which go into, or out of, those filthy cows... And it can easily be sliced with an electric knife!!

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  11. Early cows were very different from the ones we have today, which have been engineered to be giant udders stabilized with hooves on each corner." Made me laugh sadly.

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  12. Correction. Smoked salmon on CREAM CHEESE, spread lavishly on a warm Montreal bagel, and adorned with capers, a thin slice of red onion, a sprig of dill and a splash of lemon is the key to eternal life!

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  13. You Americans don't know how good you've got it with your subsidized cheese! Up here in Canadaland we have to pay through the teeth for our cheese. I think we need a benefit concert or something.

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  14. Correction. Smoked salmon on CREAM CHEESE, spread lavishly on a warm Montreal bagel, and adorned with capers, a thin slice of red onion, a sprig of dill and a splash of lemon is the key to eternal life!

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  15. Early cows were very different from the ones we have today, which have been engineered to be giant udders stabilized with hooves on each corner." Made me laugh sadly.

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