arly Italian landowners:

_Ai contadini non far sapere
Quanta e buono it cacio con le pere_.
Don't let the peasants know
How good are cheese and pears.

Having found out for ourselves, we suggest a golden slice of Taleggio,
Stracchino, or pale gold Bel Paese to polish off a good dinner, with a
juicy Lombardy pear or its American equivalent, a Bartlett, let us
say.

This celestial association of cheese and pears is further accented by
the French:

_Entre la poire et le fromage_
Between the pear and the cheese.

This places the cheese after the fruit, as the last course, in
accordance with early English usage set down by John Clarke in his
_Paroemiologia_:

After cheese comes nothing.

But in his _Epigrams_ Ben Jonson serves them together.

Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be.

That brings us back to cheese and pippins:

I will make an end of my dinner; there's
pippins and cheese to come.

Shakespeare's _Merry Wives of Windsor_

When should the cheese be served? In England it is served before or
after the fruit, with or without the port.

Following _The Book of Keruynge_ in modern spelling we note when it
was published in 1431 the proper thing "after meat" was "pears, nuts,
strawberries, whortleberries (American huckleberries) and hard
cheese." In modern practice we serve some suitable cheese like
Camembert directly on slices of apple and pears, Gorgonzola on sliced
banana, Hable spread on pineapple and a cheese dessert tray to match
the Lazy Lou, with everything crunchy down to Crackerjacks. Good, too,
are figs, both fresh and preserved, stuffed with cream cheese,
kumquats, avocados, fruity dunking mixtures of Pineapple cheese,
served in the scooped-out casque of the cheese itself, and apple or
pear and Provolone creamed and put back in the rind it came in. Pots
of liquored and wined cheeses, no end, those of your own making being
the best.

Champagned Roquefort or Gorgonzola

1/2 pound mellow Roquefort
1/4 pound sweet butter, softened
A dash cayenne
3/4 cup champagne

With a silver fork mix cheese and butter to a smooth paste,
moistening with champagne as you go along, using a little more or
less champagne according to consistency desired. Serve with the
demitasse and cognac, offering, besides crackers, gilt
gingerbread in the style of Holland Dutch cheese tasters, or just
plain bread.

After dinner chees