# To whoever stole my cheese (minor rant) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 23, 2007, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149 "2007-03-23T08:15:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![nikonikosuru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@nikonikosuru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nikonikosuru)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/1 "2007-03-23T08:15:19Z")
To whoever stole my cheese… **NO**! That’s a bad foriegn exchange student! Why did you take it?! For pete’s sake, it’s not even real cheese! It’s more like the slab you find in Kraft Handisnacks. However, that’s the only type of cheese that seems to be sold in Japanese supermarkets and won’t break my wallet. Don’t even ask me about the price of imported cheese. I go to the stores occassionally in hopes of finding the dream block of discounted cheeses, but all I get is insanely expensive prices that make me wet my pants in fear. :eek: I was looking foward to having cheese on my homemade guacamole and (poorly) homemade tortillas. You took 2/3 of my cheese (2 out of 3 cubes). Just because this is a communal kitchen does not mean that food is communal. :mad: I’d expect this is a dorm full of boys, but an all girls dorm? Come on. I can’t wait until I return home. I miss normally priced cheese. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/2 "2007-03-23T12:52:00Z")
It’s bad enough when people [Move Your Cheese](http://www.amazon.com/Moved-Cheese-Amazing-Deal-Change/dp/0399144463/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-1468451-8903265?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174654233&sr=8-2) without telling you but outright stealing is just outrageous! ---
**Author:** ![A.I.Wintermute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@A.I.Wintermute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A.I.Wintermute)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/3 "2007-03-23T12:54:42Z")
I guess girls are thieving bastards too. Who knew? I empathize with you on the cheese issue, though. I live with a bunch of American Asians who are split pretty evenly between the cheese-loving and cheese-fearing camps (mostly based on how long they lived abroad, it seems), so at least I can narrow my list of suspects when my cheese goes missing. I think you should leave a sign in the refrigerator demanding to know who moved your cheese. Edit: Damn! Too slow. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/4 "2007-03-23T13:03:51Z")
I’m curious. Please give an example of how much a basic cheddar would cost in US dollars. Right now I can get an 8-oz block of Kraft Mild Cheddar for about $2, so that’s $4 a pound. How much would you have to pay? ---
**Author:** ![nikonikosuru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@nikonikosuru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nikonikosuru)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/5 "2007-03-23T13:30:28Z")
[QUOTE=kittenblue] I’m curious. Please give an example of how much a basic cheddar would cost in US dollars. Right now I can get an 8-oz block of Kraft Mild Cheddar for about $2, so that’s $4 a pound. How much would you have to pay? [/QUOTE] Oh gosh, I don’t even know. The only time I can get real cheese is when I go to the import shop. I’ll take a picture next time I go and post it, but most of them are wedges of various cheese (mozzerella, cheddar, etc) that are much smaller than the dollar bricks back home, and they go for at least $10. I would say weight wise, they’re about 1/4 of a block of the Kraft cheese back home. $3 feta is about double or triple that here…may not seem so expensive to people with money 😛 but it’s hard justifying the purchase of good cheese when that money could buy a lot of vegetables (what I mainly live off of here, heh). Sometimes I do give into the temptation though, cheese is a hard thing to resist! I’m bad with estimations, so I’ll go downtown tomorrow and take some pictures. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![nikonikosuru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@nikonikosuru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nikonikosuru)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/6 "2007-03-23T13:33:59Z")
[QUOTE=A. I. Wintermute] I guess girls are thieving bastards too. Who knew? I empathize with you on the cheese issue, though. I live with a bunch of American Asians who are split pretty evenly between the cheese-loving and cheese-fearing camps (mostly based on how long they lived abroad, it seems), so at least I can narrow my list of suspects when my cheese goes missing. I think you should leave a sign in the refrigerator demanding to know who moved your cheese. Edit: Damn! Too slow. [/QUOTE] What scares me most is that it wasn’t even within the span of half an hour of me putting the cheese in the fridge and it being stolen. I was in the kitchen for 75% of the time, too. The moment I was gone, somebody managed to sneak in, quickly unwrap all the packaging (Japan really does overpackage everything), steal 2 pieces, and run off. 😕 I just might write an angry sign in my over polite Japanese. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/7 "2007-03-23T18:13:12Z")
[QUOTE=nikonikosuru] What scares me most is that it wasn’t even within the span of half an hour of me putting the cheese in the fridge and it being stolen. I was in the kitchen for 75% of the time, too. The moment I was gone, somebody managed to sneak in, quickly unwrap all the packaging (Japan really does overpackage everything), steal 2 pieces, and run off. 😕 I just might write an angry sign in my over polite Japanese. 😃 [/QUOTE] We’ve had a few threads about food thieves in communal refrigerators. One recommendation that didn’t involve potential harm to the thief was to buy a lockbox and keep your precious cheese in there inside the fridge. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/8 "2007-03-23T22:51:03Z")
With the price of most food Americans would like being so expensive in Japan, I would buy the lock box. Put the stuff like cheese in it and leave the tofu out of it for them to snatch. ---
**Author:** ![2pelo\_honey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/ecb155/32.png) [@2pelo\_honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2pelo_honey)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/9 "2007-03-23T23:07:05Z")
Boy, I don’t know…if someone snatched an expensive treat from me that quickly and sneakily, I’d be tempted to go crazy on them until somebody admitted it…course, easier said than done…I am sure I’d end up trying to maintain status quo, but would still distrust them…do you all talk together? Could you handle a “bland faced” discussion about “who on earth would be so nasty as to do that?” ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2007, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/10 "2007-03-24T00:20:50Z")
[QUOTE=nikonikosuru] Oh gosh, I don’t even know. The only time I can get real cheese is when I go to the import shop. I’ll take a picture next time I go and post it, but most of them are wedges of various cheese (mozzerella, cheddar, etc) that are much smaller than the dollar bricks back home, and they go for at least $10. I would say weight wise, they’re about 1/4 of a block of the Kraft cheese back home. $3 feta is about double or triple that here…may not seem so expensive to people with money 😛 but it’s hard justifying the purchase of good cheese when that money could buy a lot of vegetables (what I mainly live off of here, heh). Sometimes I do give into the temptation though, cheese is a hard thing to resist! I’m bad with estimations, so I’ll go downtown tomorrow and take some pictures. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Just curious, but is there a dairy industry of any scale in Japan? I’m sure there must be some milk production in Japan… but have any of the dairies made the minimal investment and ventured into cheese production? I think this might be an investment and business opportunity towards future food trend. Consider the stolen cheese your supply, their demand. Make a buck. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2007, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/11 "2007-03-24T01:02:10Z")
大変そう！ That sucks! Thosse cheese-stealing bastards must pay! Do you have any idea of who it is? If so, we can go from there to enact a plan for revenge. If it happens again, I would love to ship some cheese to you, but I’m not sure if it could make the trip? /puzzled. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2007, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/12 "2007-03-24T02:36:57Z")
Imagine an artisanal Japanese dairy cheese. With the Japanese aesthetic and sense of tradition, when introduced…it could turn into the best cheese in the world. I say, go to the long tradition people. The guys who make dofu, shoyu, and any soy cheese based texture and ferment. ---
**Author:** ![nikonikosuru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@nikonikosuru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nikonikosuru)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2007, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/13 "2007-03-24T05:37:30Z")
I found my cheese! 😃 Sorry for the rant. It turns out that I had the same package of cheese as one of another girl’s, and mine slid down in the drawer in the fridge so I could not see it, and I thought her opened package was mine. I opened my redicovered package today and left a cube in place of the one that I took yesterday (I thought it was my package). Whew! I feel silly. 😃 Thanks for the offer **Auto** , but I would hate to see how much it would cost. Plus, I can’t think of many cheeses in America that can survive the trip over. My friend from Germany got some cheese from her family, but it must be different than cheese in America because it survived the trip and was still tasty. **Devilsknew** , I would say that the dairy industry here is still realitively small. A lot of people here, if not the majority, are lactose intolerant so they can only handle a little at a time. There’s cream cheese, the fake Kraft Handisnacks tasting cheese, yogurt, and milk. Not much variation compared to back home, really (although I do like the aloe yogurt here). The milk here is a bit rich for my tastes, I’m used to skim and it seems to be alone the lines of homogonized milk. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2007, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-whoever-stole-my-cheese-minor-rant/397149/14 "2007-03-24T12:38:00Z")
This cheese thing is something that means I’d never visit Japan. I’m from Wisconsin and cheese is indispensable. I guess the world is wrong and Japan is a very backwards country. Those are terrible living conditions.