Clifton Fadiman probably has written the ultimate essay on cheese. It appears in his volume Any Number Can Play (World Publishing Company, 1957). He quotes P. Morton Shand, who considered a love of cheese inherent in humanity, and Ben Gunn, who, isolated on Treasure Island, moaned wistfully that "Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese--toasted mostly."

"Provided it be well and truly made there is really... no such thing as a bad cheese, " Mr. Fadiman observed. "It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be oversophisticated. Yet it remains cheese, milk's leap toward immortality."

Mr. Fadiman also coined a word for cheese lovers. He calls them "turophiles," derived from the Greek word turos, meaning cheese.

New Yorkers have an opportunity to sample an extraordinary assortment of cheese from here and abroad. There are mild cheeses, sharp cheeses, eloquent and dull cheeses. There is a cheese for every purse and palate.

In any discussion on cheese there is always a question of personal taste and judgment. Even when professionals break over cheese they are likely to argue over the categories in which cheese should be placed. Is pont l'eveque a soft-ripening or semi-soft? And what of the excellent reblochon? Some say yes and some say no.

It is one man's opinion that crackers or crisp breads of any sort destroy the palatal pleasures of cheese. The bread-and cheese cheeses deserve a crusty loaf and nothing else will do. Buttered toast is pardonable, but the crunchiness even of English water wafers distracts from a cheese's harmony.

... Generally speaking, the most worthy of these cheeses deserve a red wine, either lusty or light, depending on the nature of the cheese. However, slightly chilled beer will do.

In discussing cheese, the question is frequently asked as to what are the dessert cheeses. Here, too, there are gulfs as wide as a tall provolone.

"Dessert cheese?" one professional asked. "It's any cheese that captures your fancy after a meal."

Another equally experienced cheese enthusiast described a dessert cheese as any of the mild, creamlike cheeses such as the one known as gourmandise. The argument seems no more relevant than the difference between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum.

Red wines and chilled beer are certainly not the only beverages that complement cheeses. The milder creamlike cheeses go well with champagnes and genuine Sauternes.

Fruit goes well with blue cheeses, soft-ripening, semi-soft and firm cheeses. Berries have an affinity for cheeses of the cream variety.

The statistics pertaining to the imports of cheese are fairly astonishing. According to Martin Fromer, general counsel of the Cheese Importers Association, the cheese imported in the greatest quantity each year is pecorino Romano, a hard, grating cheese from Italy. The next largest is Swiss cheese from Switzerland and third Edam and Gouda from Holland.

Both France and Denmark, of course provide an impressive assortment of cheeses to this country. And France contributes the two cheeses that seem to be most admired by the largest audience of dedicated turophiles. These are Brie and Camembert, which appear on nine-tenths of the town's most elegant menus. They are almost invariably served as the penultimate dish at gala dinners sponsored by wine and food societies. France also sends us the noble Roquefort and two fairly recent notable blue-veined cheeses, bleu de Bresse and pipo crem'.

Denmark offers among other cheeses the excellent Danish blue and tilsit. Let it be noted that America is no sluggard when it comes to cheese production and quality. Among others, there is an excellent Brie-type cheese produced in Illinois. Vermont is famed for its Cheddar and California for its Monterey Jack. Domestically produced Liederkranz can hold its own with some of the soft-ripening cheeses such as Brie or Camembert.

There are many people who mistakenly believe that all of the cheeses imported into this country are pasteurized. It is simply not true. The same standards to cheeses produced in this country and abroad. To wit, any cheese that is cured sixty days or longer need not be made from pasteurized milk. Younger cheeses must be made from pasteurized milk. It seems logical enough that the flavor of cheese is impaired by pasteurization..........-