The other day, as I was sitting at the breakfast table with the Usual Gang, one of my dining companions took out a small container of cottage cheese - one of those individual servings that comes packaged in groups of four or six. He peeled off the lid. Then, as I watched in slack-jawed astonishment, he unscrewed the top of a pepper shaker and proceeded to dump about two teaspoons of black pepper into his tiny-ass cup of cottage cheese... about a third of the contents of the shaker. Holy crap!
Barry likes pepper with his cottage cheese, but Good Gawd Awmighty, this was an awful lot of pepper! I looked at him as though he had grown a second head. “Ya like a little cottage cheese with your pepper?” I cracked.
Of course, as soon as I got home, I had to try it for myself. After all, nothing exceeds like excess.
I took a normal half-cup serving of cottage cheese and jacked it up with about half a tablespoon of Penzey’s coarse-ground Tellicherry pepper... a quantity that, taken by itself, could set your innards on fire.
Surprise! It wasn’t overly peppery at all. The dairy tamps down the fire, muting it to the level of a pleasant afterburn. In fact, I suspect that you would barely even notice the presence of a few mere shakes.
I almost hesitate to write about this. The Missus is convinced that I have burned out my sense receptors for spiciness owing to chronic overuse, and this will not help convince her otherwise. But it’s true, I tells ya!
Try it! You - and your taste buds - will thank me.
yes, in 1964. Also interesting in large quantities with cottage cheese is celery seed, chili powder or (and yes, it's an acquired taste) marmite.
ReplyDeleteI grew up pounding pepper into cottage cheese. Who doesn't?
Thus has it ever been. Mom taught me that this was the way to eat cottage cheese when I was but a lad.
ReplyDeleteRooted thusly, I forever consider the idea of cottage cheese with fruit to be incorrect and strange-tasting.
MC