A strange coincidence

[james_davis_nicoll]

Virtually every chapter of AFTERMATH, INC that was set in Wisconsin turned out to be somewhere near a cheese factory.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i hate to tell you this, but everywhere in wisconsin is somewhere near a cheese factory.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

That was the impression I was getting, yeah.

I guess it's like Tims up here.

[montoya.livejournal.com]

But it's not EVERYWHERE. Sure, if you're in the rural bits, there are piles of cheese factories, but cities are full of regular ol' city stuff. (Although one might contend that Culvers, which makes frozen custard, butterburgers, and cheese curds, could not have originated in any other state...)

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

... okay, while anything set in Wisconsin would be near a cheese factory, this is the post-crime scene clean-up crew book, which makes the correlation a little more ominous.

I can't think of any peculiarly cheese-related atrocities in the motherland lately -- it's been deer and corpses, as per usual -- so I have to guess they're borrowing some protein-lysing enzyme prep or the like.

What would be creepy would be if it were significant every chapter set in Wisconsin was somewhere near a sausage factory. (Which is also likely to be the case.)

Incidentally, there are devices which check for unusual meats these days. Just so you know!

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

The cheese factories are never involved in the death. It's just they seem to be somewhere nearby whenever the cleanup is in Wisconsin.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Sure. It's like barbecue places in the South.

It used to be, a little factory with an outlet store on the highway and a mail-order business; or a larger factory with maybe national or regional distribution, but a lot of local consumption. Cheese curds, cheese spread, farmer's cheese. Nowadays 'artisan' cheeses are becoming more common.

There really is a lot of cheese in Wisconsin. It's not a stereotype.

(Also, beer. The larger breweries went through a slump, and some left the state, but the microbreweries came back with a vengeance.)

(And sausage; there, the plants never left. Oscar Mayer, Usinger's, Johnsonville, Hillshire Farms.)

(Come to think of it, the only major Wisconsin foodway which isn't heavily produced in the state is brandy.)

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

DO they have poutine down there? It seems like a natural food to adopt.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

It does, and all the components are popular there, but not yet. There is a scary version of it in Brooklyn and Jersey, basically cheese-whiz fries with diner gravy, but it might be an independent invention.

I think it's like putting mayonnaise on fries in the US: most people who try it, like it; but in practice it just never happens (outside of Utah, where they are all a bunch of Belgophiles anyway).

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I like tartar sauce on fries.

But they still can't make cheddar!

[bobmage.livejournal.com]

Seriously, An "extra sharp" wisconsin cheddar is _maybe_ equivalent to a medium NY cheddar.

Re: But they still can't make cheddar!

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

Oh man. I love old New York cheddar. Ontario cheddar is good, even the English (who invented cheddar) say so, but it's not sharp enough.

Re: But they still can't make cheddar!

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm afraid that for my taste the English cheddars never rise to first-rate. I prefer the sharp new-world style; New York, Canada (somehow they're never identified by province by the time they get down here), Vermont.

Re: But they still can't make cheddar!

[khavrinen.livejournal.com]

What about Oregon?

Re: But they still can't make cheddar!

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Tillamook is generally okay; but I haven't had anything first-rate from them. Not sure I've had there best products, though.

Re: But they still can't make cheddar!

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Odd. I currently live in New York, and I find the Cheddar here tastes like chalk: bland, ripens poorly at home, and has a strange, watery mouth-feel, while the "sharp" ones have a one-note flavor profile.

My guess is they curd the cheese at a high pH, giving it the odd texture -- to be fair, it's better for melts, the main use for cheese out here -- and then use a fast-acting Lactobacillus strain which produces lactate and other simple acids at the expense of the more subtle flavors caused by amino acid and fat catabolism.

But hey, what do I know about cheese-making.

Sometimes the Vermont stuff gets as good as the stuff back home -- different, but as good -- but the New York? never, and I have looked sympathetically.

(And don't get me started on the Colby here.)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

There really is a lot of cheese in Wisconsin. It's not a stereotype.

True. However, I've only ever had *one* even marginally decent cheddar from there. Mostly they're making bulk mainstream cheeses, and corporate gift-pack "cheese spreads", and gunk like that.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever had a particularly good cheese of *any* kind from Wisconsin.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

And you think Doc Smith is a prose stylist too! QED.

[montoya.livejournal.com]

The cheeses that I most associate with Wisconsin are the ones that don't travel well -- cheese curds, which are at their best squeaky and warm-fresh; string cheese, which is stringy enough to make people raised on store-stuff realize why it's called string cheese; and mild, fresh farmer's cheese.

My sister lives literally across the street from a cheese factory, and brings us (out-of-staters) stuff whenever she visits. She's too snobby to eat it, though; as far as she's concerned, cheese curds are already too old more than two hours after they're made...

[montoya.livejournal.com]

But, I meant to add, she brought us a parmesan last time, and it was... interesting. We're used to parmigiana reggiano, and in comparison the Wisconsin one was soft, mild, and sweet. An interesting and worthy cheese, but I really almost hesitate at calling it parmesan. She preferred it cubed on crackers, and I think that would really work surprisingly well.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Not everything AFTERMATH cleans up is a crime scene. They also handle a lot of cases where people just died, like the interlude where they take on the task of cleaning a jet engine after a human has passed through it.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

It'd be rather shocking if they lived through that.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

My understanding of that chapter is that not only did the unfortunate man die virtually instantly, there were no body parts as such to deal with, just liquid biological debris.

[armb.livejournal.com]

I was a student engineer somewhere with a very large wind tunnel. I was told the story of a brass plate with had come off a fillet used to change the working section and got through the catch net behind the model. They were wondering where the chewed up bits from going through the compressor could have got to when someone noticed the oil on the bottom of the settling chamber, used to catch dust, now had a golden sheen to it....

[tavella.livejournal.com]

There is, however, film of someone being sucked into the intake of a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier deck, and they do survive, and apparently weren't even that seriously injured.

My recollection is that it is taken from a Navy training film of things not to do.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Oh, cheese. I was going through the grocery circular today to make the list for this week and there was this great-sounding parmesan-asiago-romano spreadable cheese and I almost put it on the list and then I remembered that I can't have much protein. Hmph.