Arri London wrote:
>sf wrote:
>>Arri London wrote:
>>
>> I've seen jam and honey accompany cheese on a cheese plate, so why
>> not?
>
>Where did you see that? Sounds dreadful

Why, jam is fruit... fruit is usually served with cheese and no rule
says it must be fresh fruit. And many cheeses lend themselves to jams
particularly well; cottage cheese, pot cheese, farmer cheese, and of
course cream cheese. And many cheeses are eaten with crackers and for
many the crackers/toasts are spread with jam and then eaten along with
cheese and spirits are drunk as well... what's a wine and cheese
without crackers, and cooked fruit is a more natural accompaniment for
crackers/toasts than fresh fruit... my family consumed a lot of
compote, we all had an array of fruit trees. It's really all a matter
of what's traditional for each. I prefer jams with cheese and
crackers/bread to fresh fruit... but for me when I grew up that was
traditional breakfast fare along with a lot of other viands that many
today wouldn't think of eating at all... folks from Latvia also ate a
lot of smoked/pickled fish for breakfast, I'm sure still I'd kill for
the matjes herring available then, today it's crap, not even
herring... and also drank vodka and/or schnapps for breakfast, with
tea or coffee, mostly tea brewed in an ornate samovar... my
grandfather would finish a 16 ounce glass of straight vodka along with
a 16 ounce glass of caviar as an appetizer before breakfast... the
caviar he ate (I've no idea which) was in the 16 ounce glasses he used
to drink vodka or tea... it was a tall tapered glass. We ate wedges
from huge loaves of Russian black bread and corn bread, not
cornbread... dense with chewy crust a 1/2" thick that my grandmother
baked every morning, the loaves proofed in bed with her under the down
comforter, she had special linen proofing sacks, bread would be in the
coal stove oven by 4 AM, a loaf weighed a good five pounds. She baked
six loaves every day. She and my grandfather operated a tourist home
here in the Catskills... today called a B & B. Their tourist home is
long gone, the property was donated to the town and is now a park
commemorating them... they fed and housed a lot of indigents, even if
they had to sleep in a hallway on a pallet.