It took me FIVE HOURS to write this, all one-handed-one-fingered, the rest being en-useless-end by the arthritis.

I WILL NOT BE DENIED!!

Oh well... not like I had anything else to do ...

Some kinds of mold are edible, some kinds of mold are not,
And, in the end, it must depend on just what kind you've got!
It doesn't go by color nor what, with eye, you see.
You'll only find that moldy kind, oh, microscopically.

But it's mold that makes the cheese, and though it seems absurd:
Without the mold, or so I'm told, a curd is just a curd.
So any mold INSIDE a cheese you'll find is quite benign.
(Folks wouldn't buy it if they died: So goes the logic line.)

So: It's the mold OUTSIDE a thing that causes the concern
And so I say, please, if I may, there's something you should learn:
Origin'ly they made their cheese to be conservative:
In days of old they used the mold as a preservative!

See: Mold likes nooks and crannies, so, to continue this weak ditty,
Curd is just, to mold and must, an edible mold city.
It's full of nooks an crannies and of hotels, bars and cells
That all hold, to hungry mold, consumable cartels.

They'd set a cheese with just ONE mold, oh, one that wouldn't kill 'em,
And pierce the cheese, occasionally, so that one mold'd fill 'em.
Invading molds on cheeses found, no matter how they tried
The bars, hotels and cheesy cells already occupied!

So there it sits an settles in, but if you pierce the rind,
The seal is toast, and from its host you free what lays behind.
The mold can now get out of Dodge and all of its construction
And proceed with its one need: Its moldy reproduction.

It sets up catapults and spires, disseminating spores
And that stuff's the colored fluff that goes out and explores.
So molds ON cheese are usually a bit what's within,
But fuzzy food's considered rude, so shave it to the skin.

Now mold on bread's another thing: It's just some volunteers:
Maybe Ok, but still, I say, it may bring you to tears!
A bit of mold upon the heel means mold is shot throughout,
The safest thoughts 'bout what you bought's the perspicuous "throw out."

Having said that, if I find a spot or two of mold on my bread, I'll throw away the slices with the mold and two or three slices on each side, then use the remaining bread in a cooked dish immediately (savory bread and cheese pudding, for instance, just to get all the mold I possibly could into a single dish).

A loaf with mold evident on both ends and ANYWHERE in the middle is land-fill!

I've been cooking like this for 40-some-odd years, and quite a lot of that under oddish conditions, so I kinda know what I'm looking for. I'd never advocate anyone else do this without supervision!

Chuck it and go buy a fresh loaf!

Last Edited: 08/27/2010