Still on a rambling tear regarding trees: I was thinking today about an article I once read about the building of ships for the British navy in its heyday. The British navy had the largest and most powerful fleet in the world during the 1700s and 1800s. The ships were finely constructed and designed. However, they were built at a cost to the nation, not only financially, but by the end of the era, most of Britain's oldest forests had been sacrificed to the building of ships.

It seems humans on all continents (except perhaps Antarctica) take the value of trees rather lightly considering how integral they are to life. Not only do trees provide customized homes and food to numberless mammals, birds, insects, frogs, they provide a lot of the oxygen we breathe. But when there's a decision to be made between changing a building plan or the location of a power line, and the sacrifice of a tree, it's the tree, and all the creatures that rely on it, that usually loses. Multiply that by tens of thousands each year, and you get a system that is breaking down.

(Another bit of truth came to mind today - a pinch of the debris off the kitchen floor [excluding floors treated with pesticides] is likely less harmful than a drop of the detergent by the sink.)

On a lighter note, I was reading another old Smithsonian magazine today, the November 1996 issue. (An image of the whimsical cover is at the top of this post.) There was an article written by Rudolph Chelminski on French cheeses. The following are a couple of quotes:

'...a rebel priest from the Brie region had taught Madame [Marie] Harel the secrets of cheese-making while, according to legend, he was hiding out from Parisian revolutionaries or his own ecclesiastical authorities in 1790. Such a triumph was her unctuously potent variety of Brie that Camembert soon became a thriving industry and the pride of Normandy.'

'[Dr.] Joseph Knirim's attachment to Harel [over a century later] grew from his discovery that patients with stomach disorders, unable to keep normal food down, flourished when he put them on a diet of Camembert and Pilsen beer. Medicinal benefits were not what the plucky milkmaid intended, but never mind, the good doctor was determined to honor her anyway. He launched a subscription drive for a statue, and two years later his efforts were crowned with success when a likeness of Marie Harel, standing steadfast with a great jug of cholesterol-laden Normandy milk on her right hip, was dedicated opposite the Vimoutiers town hall. The statue was beheaded in 1944 during an Allied bombardment, but a new one was soon substituted, and it stands there today as proud as ever.

'I'm sure that right about now you're wondering: Does the work of a mere cheese-maker possess sufficient gravite and grandeur for her to merit elevation to the status of national hero? In France, it does.'

The first time I went to Europe, celebrating my 43rd birthday, it was to France, and I was taken by the experience of trying the local cheeses, unlike anything I'd tasted before. (A list of authentic French cheeses may be found here: My favorite was called picodon.) I later tried to find it in specialty shops in the US, but it was unavailable. Some of the French cheeses rely upon raw, unpasteurized milk products, which could not be imported into the US. The article states that even with the great attention to sanitary conditions that came in the factories of modern cheese-makers, the French had to struggle to get the European Union to accept the centuries old tradition of selling cheese made of unpasteurized milk.

If there's a trend in my chain of thought here, it's that, like with trees, the bacterial and fungal life that are integral to well-being are often misunderstood and under-appreciated. Not only do they provide food and food enhancement (mushrooms, beers, ciders, cheeses, yogurt), but they are of integral importance to the function of our bodies, including, yes, digestion and elimination. Most bacteria are our friends, and quite a number are essential, a basic truth Dr. Knirim tried to commemorate with a statue of his heroine: the creator of Camembert.