Every Democracy Needs Some Subtle Class Distinction Markers
Let’s make Brie the national cheese.
For one thing, Brie was invented in a province of France with the same name. Anyone with even a smidgen of education will know immediately that the letter “b” in Brie must always be capitalized. That capital “B” is hugely, immensely important in today”s media-saturated world, what with search engines, C-Span and Fox News.
Just imagine the contortions that philologists, eighth grade English teachers and advertising agencies would have to go through to justify capitalizing the letter “c” in cheddar.
For another thing, Brie is absolutely in the first rank whenever anyone inside the Washington Beltway, regardless of their stature in the pecking order, has a party of any significance. Just last Friday, one of Porter Goss’ secretaries had a tearful farewell party in her tiny Arlington condo for the ousted CIA director. What did she serve the dozen guests who crowded into the living room to wish their beloved boss goodbye? It wasn’t cheddar, y’all.
Moreover, it’s time we put the freedom fries thing behind us. Calling French fries “freedom” fries to smite the French because they didn’t participate in the Iraq war fell flat on its face. (We’ll not discuss how smart those Froggies now look to have sat out our little adventure in Mesopotamia.) Want to really irritate the French for centuries to come? Just make Brie the national cheese.
Another distinct advantage of Brie as the national cheese is that its correct pronunciation is not immediately evident from the spelling. Is it pronounced “bree”? Or is it “bry”?
As the world’s most significant democracy, we always need cultural subtleties like the pronunciation of Brie to help make class distinctions. When the new neighbors have an open house and the hostess greets you with: “Dahling, have some of the bry,” that puts you leagues ahead socially. It might also help assuage your jealousy over their new swimming pool.
Serving Brie straight out of the refrigerator is another social litmus test. Every bon vivant knows that Brie is served at room temperature and that you eat the rind. So when your hottie of a daughter brings home yet another tattooed lacrosse player, set out cold Brie, engage in casual conservation to see how he pronounces the cheese’s name, get him to write the name down to check capitalization and then watch to see whether he cuts off the rind and eats it cold.
In the end, your daughter will thank you for such careful screening of prospective son-in-laws.