Victoria Brownlee: On the unsexiness of cheese (and how it ended up at the centre of my romance tale)

Cheese isn’t sexy. Nor particularly romantic. It’s not an aphrodisiac and it’s hardly beautiful (at least not conventionally). Eat too much of it and you’re guaranteed to feel pretty average. Feed it to your lover and enjoy that barnyard aroma that lingers on your fingers. See what I’m getting at?

The unsexiness of cheese certainly poses a particular challenge when you’re trying to pit it at the heart of a romance novel, but does it have to be an unsurmountable one? And why persist when there are so many other foods that are intrinsically entwined with romance?

Think, for example, how oysters are just effortlessly romantic. Strawberries too. Even grapes. God, what about Champagne? Couples always drink Champagne before jumping into bed together. And how about cupcakes? At least they’re sweet and pretty. Or pasta, which has that whole Lady and the Tramp thing going for it. Or even chocolate, which is straight out rich and decadent.

To illustrate how easily most foods slip into seduction mode: a couple’s kisses could be sizzling like the fat of a steak once thrown onto hot coals; their foreplay spicy like a Sichuan hotpot brimming with chilli and peppercorns; or maybe his touch is sweet like a burst of cherry hiding in clafoutis.

Sexual tension might be bubbling under the surface like the fizz in a glass of Champagne; or their sex hot like caramel straight off a wooden spoon that’ll inevitably burn both your fingers and then your mouth.

Their flirting could be tangy like biting into a passionfruit pip adorning a Pavlova; or maybe her beauty is almost devourable, like a tray of artfully constructed petits fours delivered to your table with a strong espresso.

But … cheese?

Cheese is milky. It oozes. Cheese wafts. Cheese has a lingering scent of … animal.

Not only is cheese a distinctly unsexy food, it risks leaving any budding romance for dead. So how to avoid killing the mood when a love story is based in a cheese shop? Well, a little creative licence is needed.

For example, his accent could suddenly become as unctuous as triple cream Brie, and his pickup lines as smooth as a slice of Brillat-Savarin. His kisses can make her melt like a Saint-Marcellin on a hot day and her emotions can burst like the salt crystals in a slice of aged Comté. Her feelings might be raw like a gooey unpasteurised Camembert and their relationship could become challenging, like a particularly potent Époisses.

Maybe his forearms could be strong like the mould coursing through a slice of Roquefort and her heart could be aching like her stomach after overindulging in fondue. But his love will be enduring, like the cheese smell lingering outside a fromagerie.

OK, so maybe those last few examples take things a little too far, but they paint a certain romantic picture. Right? Right?

Perhaps we can just agree that cheese can be somewhat sexy. But a whole book based around one moderately-appealing food group? Even I remained unconvinced.

In order to round out the romance, it’s best to add in a little of the ritual that surrounds the buying and the tasting of cheese. The cheese shop, with its plethora of colours and shapes, and the wine that accompanies the cheese eating should feature heavily; the cheesemonger, too, should be all sorts of fun and charming to help pick up the slack.

And just in case that material mass of Comté or Gruyère still doesn’t inspire a world of romance waiting to be uncovered, best to set the story in Paris, because where cheese lacks romance, The City of Lights certainly delivers.

And now for my next trick, I’ll just be here at my computer figuring out how to make Spam the catalyst for a sequel. Or maybe I’ll try my luck with geoducks. Hot dogs? Oh, God help me.

An Autumn Affair at the Paris Cheese Shop is out now for just 99p!

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