The Art of Eating is one of the strangest food magazines on the market. Give the average food journalist an assignment to write about, say, polenta, and they will go down to Whole Foods and buy a bunch of cornmeal, then compare recipes from Marcella Hazan and Lynne Rossetto Kasper and come up with a couple of serving suggestions. That’s how I’d do it, at least. Ed Behr of _The Art of Eating_ would start in an Italian cornfield, talking to a careworn farmer who laments the loss of the old ways. Behr would explain at length why polenta isn’t as good as it used to be and why the polenta you’re eating is crap.

I haven’t actually seen an article about polenta in AoE, but I’ve seen Behr give this treatment to various wines, Belgian beer, steak, and many foods that will coincidentally place him in one of the more picturesque reaches of Italy or France. He’s a dogged reporter, and his style is almost absurdly dry. In short, you want to hate Ed Behr, but you can’t, because you know he’s right.

We just got the new issue of AoE, and the cover story is a classic Behr piece on Comté cheese, which is the French equivalent of Swiss gruyère. Inside is a photo of large rounds of Comté aging on racks. Iris picked up the magazine this morning and said, “Big stack of cheese! Maybe mouse eat it.”