Cheese Blues

Posted Feb 18, 2007

In life, sometimes the things you love you cannot have. For me that is cheese. I have an allergy to milk based products. Now this is not a lactose problem; that I could take a pill for. No, it's more like someone who is allergic to cats, if only the cat got inside you and wouldn't leave for a week. I can give up milk for soy replacements. They are not as good but it works, and first thing in the morning I cannot be expected to put together anything more complicated then cereal. But no matter how much they advance the art of soy based replacements, they cannot get the pure joy of real cheese. And of the many wonderful creations I miss so is mac & cheese. I don't mean the cheap stovetop kind you find a box, but the real kind you make from scratch and cook in the oven. The crispy skin on the top, the hot gooey center, and the firm penne pasta makes the casserole something truly heavenly. But like many things I love I cannot have it.

So my little non-dairy doldrums was momentarily lifted when I found this recipe for a completely non-dairy Mac & Cheese. I say momentarily because it only lasted long enough for me to make this heinous concoction that goes against all things beautiful in life. Soy milk does not taste like milk; at best you find one that has as little taste as possible. I cannot describe what soy cheese taste like because I do not possess the necessary mastery of the English language to truly convey how disturbing foul it tasted. And when you combine these two ingredients you create something that should never have been. It does however create something that resembles the target meal from a distance. If one was to get too close you would quickly realize was amiss for it has the smell of molten Playdough. Then if you were to taste it, you would wonder why you were not tipped off by the smell and regret your foolishness.

Don't get me wrong, I have hope for the future. I am sure that one day some food scientist will come up with someway to make a non-dairy version of these foods that are just a good as the original. I look forward to that glorious future.