brie de dromedary

One of the great perks of my job is getting to try new and/or interesting food products. Like curry chocolate, illegal Brie, and camel cheese. It is always amusing when one of these products makes the New York Times, and we get to watch as non-regular customers wander aimlessly around the store in search of sold-out local ricotta or cured pork jowl, and old ladies with Martha Stewart accents call us on the phone asking how to get to this faraway land of Brooklyn. Sometimes I wonder if my passion for customer service isn't really just passion for making fun of others. Anyway, back to the camel cheese.

I was pretty excited when we got the sample a few months ago. Because, um, CAMEL CHEESE. So how is it? Well, on the plus side, I appreciated the learning experience offered by the packaging. Let's just say that were I to make it to the final round on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and got the Africa map, I would be screwed (this was actually a legitimate concern of mine as a child.) Also, if I were ever in Africa and hadn't had a dairy product in weeks, I would probably be pretty happy to eat some camel cheese. On the negative side, um, nothing against camels or the fine people getting creative with their milk, but it just doesn't taste that good--basically like pureed low sodium cottage cheese covered in a bloomy rind. And for $30 a pound, which is more expensive than 95% of our other cheeses, I think it belongs in the novelty category along with Bacon Bars and Antipasto Lusso (aka "party in a jar").

So where can you get camel cheese? Sadly, nowhere. There was a shipping issue and it remains unavailable. But I hope they'll get it together soon. I very much look forward to whipping out the camel cheese when someone asks if we have anything low fat.