Brie Rant

Taking the bully pulpit this week I will not, as accustomed, rail against the inequities of the world financial systems, global warming, the Illuminati, or the last Indiana Jones atrocity. No, this time I'm taking aim at something really important, something earth shaking. The topic this week is the product called Wee Brie and American Airlines' insistence on giving this to their First Class passengers.

Some might feel that complaints about anything by First Class passengers are, well, somewhat beyond the pale. After all they get actual food (using the term loosely) and free booze (pursuant to the dictates of the flight attendants) and they require no arthroscopic knee treatments after a five hour cross country flight (unless they are professional football players). And I kind of agree with that. But dammit, something has to be done about the Wee Brie.

For the uninitiated, on the occasions when they offer free foodstuffs to First Class, the meals always come with a Carr's Water Cracker and a prepackaged wedge of an alledgedly cheeselike  product called Wee Brie ("Just Like Cheese But Not"). This I believe constitutes the appetizer portion of the meal. Wee Brie is an abomination to all that is good and fine in the world. It's ostensibly a cheese food product which usually means that it contains no actual dairy products or even anything that has been exposed to rennet. The taste is bland to the point of making that kindergarten paste one used to snack on in one's youth a culinary highlight. And the consistency is, as Mary noted, not unlike bathroom caulk. In brief, Wee Brie is awful.

Why, in a world filled with upwards of two hundred cheese varieties in the US alone, are we forced to eat this unfathomable and inedible substance? Even one of those individually packaged Kraft cheddar cheese cracker size snacks is more palatable. If storage is an issue -- and I can believe that a Wee Brie has a shelf life measured in decades -- then why not use a hard cheese like a Parmesan? Is the several thousand dollars American Airlines saving per year by serving this abomination really going to have a substantial impact on their bottom line? I can't really believe it so. Mary uncharitably believes that the unused Wee Bries could be recycled but I'm sure even American wouldn't stoop that low.

So I call on American Airlines, today, right here, right now, to dispatch the Wee Brie to the deepest, darkest recesses of the whatever den of iniquity that birthed it and switch to a natural and tasty cheese as soon as humanly possible. Failing that, just give me another packet of pretzels.