Rappers Need to Stop Using the Term 'Cheddar'

Cheddar, man. Jay-Z raps about it. Kanye flaunts it. Lil' Wayne wishes he got it. How the hell did a cheese become synonymous with that cold hard cash? Imitations are pervasive on the dairy market, but the good shit should always be popping straight off the farm. Rappers need to stop using the term, unless they're putting those little morsels of lactose straight into their mouths between lyrics.

Cheddar isn't just a swagged out state of mind. It's also the act of cutting up curds into little cubes and stacking them so the whey can drain out. Peep the steez on the journey of dairy traditions: originating in Somerset, England somewhere around the 12th century, this cows milky mammoth has become an iconic representative of the term cheese itself. Tangy, grassy, sweet, and sharp, this cheese is a true clusterfuck of flavor.

Little Bo Peep's curds n' whey ain't got nothing on the true taste of real genuine farmstead cheddar. Farmstead means that the actual milk for the cheese comes from the farms own animals. Real clothbound cheddar is wrapped in cheesecloth.

If you want to make basic cheese, you heat up milk, add rennet, wait for the milk to congeal into one massive curd, and then cut that curd into little bits for the whey can drain out. You can do a shitload of things with the curd and whey products to make different kinds of cheeses.

But to go hard and make cheddar, you take the cubes, stack them up like fat stacks of cash, and drain them. Place them into round molds, let them sit, take them out of the round molds, soak them in a cold jacuzzi bath of salt brine, take them out of the salt brine, wrap them up in some cheesecloth and then store in a cool, damp, dark place. A cave is ideal. Pretty simple.

In the final throws of getting swagged out, the cheddar's cloth gets rubbed with lard. Combining different types of fat is always a good thing. You can interpret that however you want. Then leave that molded wheel to chill out for a few months, years, whatever, flipping it every so often so the wheels ripen evenly, kind of like a pancake. Sell that green, flip them wheels, smack them hos and pair with a brown ale and some chutney.