OLD MOTHER STILTON'S LARDER ALMANAC
Contents
Before You Taste Anything
That dusty lot up in the Library think they keep the castle's memory. Books. Books. A book only knows what some fool wrote down. My cheeses know what happened. Cheese sits in the dark and takes it all in — every quarrel, every betrayal, every man who said he'd come back — and it keeps, and it ripens, and it never, ever forgets. I have been down here so long I have started keeping too. I am the oldest living thing in this castle, and the most honest, because I have gone off and stopped pretending.
Every cheese in this larder is a memory I couldn't throw out. Some are grudges. One is a love. Eat carefully. You are not having a snack. You are reading my diary.
Each entry: The Cheese · What It Remembers · How Far Gone.
The Weeping Brie
The Cheese. Soft, pale, collapses the moment it's looked at directly. What It Remembers. The day Pretty Percy IV came down to proposition my great-great-grandmother, and the day, not long after, he died of what the portraits politely call a broken heart and I call excellent seasoning. How Far Gone. Runny. As all the vain ones go in the end — too soft to hold their own shape, and blaming the plate. Keep: flattery curdles fastest of all the dairy.
The Spite Cheddar
The Cheese. Hard, orange, aggressive. Has a rind you could turn a blade on. What It Remembers. Every unkind word ever said about this kitchen by House Dribble, who have blamed us for dinner for two hundred years when it is their bell that never rings. How Far Gone. Not gone at all. That's the thing about a grudge — keep it cold and it lasts forever, which is the whole tragedy of keeping it. Keep: a hard rind protects nothing but the sourness inside.
The Stinking Bishop (do NOT open near the battlements)
The Cheese. A weapon. A war crime. A smell with a postcode. What It Remembers. The Great Stink of 1734, which a Bastable caused and a Fizzle assisted and House Glubb worships to this day. I was there. I have kept a little of it. For reference. How Far Gone. Magnificently. Some things improve by getting worse; very few of them are people. Keep: the past you refuse to air out will, eventually, clear a room on your behalf.
The Forgetful Wensleydale
The Cheese. Crumbly. Falls to pieces if you ask it anything directly. What It Remembers. Less each year. It is the one cheese that is losing its memory, and I keep it because I am frightened of becoming it — a thing that sat in the dark so long it forgot what it was ripening for. How Far Gone. Crumbs. All crumbs. Keep: a memory-keeper's only real fear is the day she keeps nothing — including herself.
The One With No Name
The Cheese. I will not describe it. It sits at the back. I made it the year I stopped waiting. What It Remembers. Him. He went off to make his fortune and said he'd come back before the cheese was ready. The cheese has been ready for sixty years. I keep it ready. I keep it covered. I do not eat it and I do not throw it out, because the day I do one or the other is the day I admit which one of us went off first. (It was me. I know it was me. Don't say it.) How Far Gone. We are exactly as far gone as each other, the cheese and I. That is the only company I have ever been able to rely on. Keep: love left too long in the dark does not spoil. That would be a mercy. It simply waits, and waits, and ripens into the shape of the door.
A Word for the New Turnip
The Cheese. None for you yet. You haven't done anything worth keeping. What It Remembers. Nothing — which means, child, that you are the only thing in this larder I can't hold a grudge against. Rare. Enjoy it. How Far Gone. Fresh. Don't waste it the way the rest of us did. Keep: everyone down here was new once, and kind once, before the dark and the waiting got to the dairy. Get out more than I did.
