" Cheese is but a peevish elf— It digests all except itself."

Cheese is one of the most valuable of foods, and contains, in one pound, as much nutriment as is contained in two pounds of beef. In its raw state it is rather difficult of digestion to some, but this it somewhat overcome by cooking. A small amount of bicarbonate of soda should always be added to cooked cheese. In the face of this, it seems strange that cheese should be eaten to aid digestion, but a small portion of very rich cheese eaten after a hearty dinner aids that function wonderfully.

The various popular brands of cheese take their names from the places where they are made. Many foreign cheeses are now so well imitated in this country as to render importation unnecessary. For many years the Neufchatel cheese has been made here, and is really quite as good as the original French cheese, while there is made in Connecticut alone a very large quantity of so-called "Camembert cheese" which supplies the leading markets of the large cities of America.

The favorite skim-milk cheeses are Edam, Gruyère, and Parmesan. Holland is the home of the Edam, which is generally served here in its hard or ripened condition. But in Holland the usual breakfast served the traveler includes, besides the delicious cocoa or coffee, rolls, thick slices of plum bread, and great pieces of fresh Edam cheese, which is a dark golden color, and melts in one's mouth. The Gruyère is Swiss and the Parmesan an Italian cheese, the latter principally used for grating over macaroni and served in this form with soups and on dishes au gratin.

The favorite milk cheeses are the Gloucester, Cheshire, Cheddar, and Gorgonzola - the first three English and the latter Italian. The milk and cream cheeses include Stilton and Double Gloucester from England, the favorite Young America and New York Dairy of " the States," and the Canadian Cream Cheese from the Eastern Townships of Canada. Cream cheese includes Brie, Neufchatel, and Camembert, which are the popular varieties served in America. Anyone who has lived in Paris, however, has doubtless acquired a taste for the Port de Salut, the Pont l'Eveque, both similar to Brie, but with a more pungent flavor, and the luscious little Coeur Creme cheeses which, with the Fromage d'Isigny and the Gervais Creme, are served with Bar le Duc currants or gooseberries, or with various comfitures and compotes of fruit.

The Schweitzer Kase, or Swiss Cheese, is another favorite, but the love of Limburger is generally confined to Teutons, most Americans disliking the odor cordially. Perhaps the most popular cheese to-day is the Roquefort, which is ripened in dark caves in France and allowed to mold until ripe. There is a fashion of loading a Roquefort cheese with brandy, which not only preserves it, but gives it an incomparable flavor. The various potted cheeses, like MacLaren's and the Canadian Club, are put up in jars with brandy and retain their delicacy of flavor indefinitely if kept in a cool place.

Pineapple cheese is similar to Edam and seldom preferred, while Sap Sago is a well-known competitor. The gourd-shaped Italian cheeses are so strong that few care for them, although when grated over a dish of spaghetti they are not to be despised. The cheese from Switzerland made from goat's milk and the Norwegian cheese of reindeer milk seldom find their way to this country, where the " full cream country cheese " made by the farmers' wives is far-famed.

Who has not eaten the luscious " Cottage Cheese," " Dutch Cheese," or " Schmier Kase," made from sour milk and worked smooth with sweet cream? This is sold in some dairies in the cities, nicely wrapped in five-cent packages, and is sometimes improved by the addition of chopped sage, parsley, or chives.

The correct cheese to order after a dinner depends entirely upon the preceding courses and the taste of the diners-out. While English people often take a bit of Gorgonzola or ripe Stilton, Americans generally order Roquefort, Camembert, or Brie, and American cheese is generally relegated to the noon luncheon as an accompaniment to the inevitable American triangle of pie. A French dinner usually terminates with a bit of cream cheese and a confiture, unless a bit of Roquefort is taken with the cognac and coffee.

CHEESE CANAPE. At some dinners, a canape, in which cheese forms a part, is frequently served, the Canape Lorenzo of cheese and crab meat, which originated at Delmonico's, being world-famed. An ordinary cheese canape is made by browning a circular piece of bread in butter and spreading with French mustard, then with a layer of grated cheese seasoned with salt and cayenne. This is set in a hot oven and baked until the cheese is melted.

CHEESE SANDWICHES run the gamut from Schweitzer Kase in rye bread with German mustard down to a dainty affair served at afternoon teas or receptions, which is made of a slice of brown bread and a slice of white bread, between which is a filling made from minced green peppers, English walnuts, and olives, blended with Neufchatel cheese and softened with mayonnaise. Grated Gruyère cheese mixed with chopped walnut meats seasoned with cayenne is a favorite English sandwich, while fresh whole wheat bread with slices of American cream cheese and English mustard is " not to be sneezed at."

"Cheese and bread make the cheek red."- German.

Cheese, like tobacco, is at last being dignified with literature of its own. The daily papers are cartooning the "Cheshire Cheese," that delightful old inn in the "Dreams of a Welsh Rabbit," and, if you please, Wine Office Court off Fleet Street in London, where Dr. Johnson ate toasted cheese and pudding and drank his musty ale, has published an interesting history of this, the most perfect old tavern existing in London, its title being " The Book of the Cheese." Goldsmith, who lived nearby, used to sit there with Dr. Johnson, and there are many souvenirs shown of the two famous litterateurs.

And the cheese? Was there ever anything to compare with the toasted cheese one has there? It's an idealized sort of rabbit, served up in little square tins on slices of toast and brought in sizzling and set before one on the rough board bench with a mug of musty or a pitcher of ale and porter mixed and frothing over deliciously. The secret of the toasted cheese is, like that of the pudding, jealously guarded, and it is said that but one man in London ever knows at one time just how the trick is done. But it's a morsel that is well worth crossing the Atlantic for, provided one isn't satisfied with his own chafing dish cheese stunts.

Why is not cheese used more, I wonder? It is nutritious, and, eaten properly, aids in digesting a dinner. If one always drinks plenty of good old ale or beer with his rabbit and includes in its ingredients a pinch of soda there's no reason, unless there's a chronic indigestion to contend with, why a rabbit need not digest as easily as a new-laid egg.

In foreign countries cheese is as staple an article of diet as bread. One reads of the husky English laborer with his pail of beer and mid-day tiffin of bread and cheese. The German considers no luncheon complete without his Schweitzer Kase or Schmier Kase, while the Swiss goat-milk cheese, the Norwegian reindeer-milk cheese, the Italian cheese, and the hundred and one variety of French cheeses are equally famous staple articles of diet.

An Appetizer.

Take equal parts of MacLaren's Roquefort cheese and sweet dairy butter and melt in the hot water pan, using a very low flame. When of cream-like consistency add cayenne and Worcestershire sauce to taste, stirring until it foams. Crisp crackers and the beer that made Milwaukee famous complete a trio of famous palate-ticklers.