On Food and Cooking

and moist ones like Caerphilly, Colby, and
Jack are preferred for making such melted
preparations as Welsh rarebit, stewed cheese,
and grilled-cheese sandwiches. Similarly,
Emmental’s alpine cousin Gruyère is
preferred in fondues because it’s moister,
fatter, and saltier. And the Italian grating
cheeses — Parmesan, grana Padano, the
pecorinos — have had their protein fabric
sufficiently broken that its pieces readily
disperse in sauces, soups, risottos, polenta,
and pasta dishes.
Cheeses are at their stringiest right around
their melting point — which usually means
right about the point that a piping hot dish
gets cool enough to eat — and get more so the
more they are stirred and stretched. One
French country dish, aligot from the
Auvergne, calls for unripened Cantal cheese
to be sliced, mixed with just-boiled potatoes,
and sweepingly stirred until it forms an elastic
cord that can stretch for 6 to 10 feet/2–3