Ben surmised the fare before him. The table was well spread with what you might expect for a continental breakfast; bread, butter, sour cream, a sort of runny, fruity, homemade looking jam, a kettle containing boiled water, surrounded by the necessities for making a cup of tea (except of course for the milk!), and the centre piece of a large plate, piled high with pancakes. Not the thick, stodgy kind, but rather what some might call crêpes, neatly rolled up, suggesting a delicious filling.

This was not the first time in Moldova that Ben had encountered pancakes for breakfast and so without hesitation, due to a keen appetite that had been worked up during the previous day’s exertions, he heartily filled his plate with a good selection of them. Without further ado, he smothered them in jam, adding a little sour cream, although with measure, partly because at times he suspected that it was responsible for stomach discomfort, but also in an attempt to cut down on the calorie count of what appeared to otherwise be not the lightest of meals. These type of pancakes were invariably filled with fresh white cheese, not dissimilar to ricotta, and although Ben loved dairy, he was conscientious that you could have too much of a good thing!

After his host from the church that he had been helping at gave thanks, Ben tucked heartily into the tasty looking breakfast before him. However, he quickly drew his ingestion to a halt. What he had taken for granted to be cheese pancakes, where actually potato pancakes! Ben had nothing against potato pancakes, although he wasn’t used to them, especially not covered in a homemade black current jam, with a little sour cream for good measure. The sweetness of the jam complemented the cheese in cheese pancakes well, but somehow didn’t seem right when combined with potato.

Ben took a moment to contemplate what to do. He slightly regretted his bull in a china shop approach and realised that he would have been much better off sampling the pancakes before adding the jam. Potato pancakes wouldn’t have been all that bad on their own, however Ben’s presumptuousness now meant that he was confronted with the unfortunate situation of having to eat potato mixed with jam! Not a usual combination, but it was too late and so Ben, not being one to waste food, or indeed wanting to upset his hosts, decided that he would just have to plough on.

He scraped off as much of the jam as he could, casually so as to not attract too much attention from those around him, and then he tucked in. At first, he suffered some unusual sensations in his mouth, but as he pressed on, he found to his surprise that the potato jam mixture wasn’t so bad after all. Well, this just gives a new meaning to the term ‘sweet potato’ he though to himself. By the end, the sweet potato had started to grow on him, although he felt like in the future, he would stick to eating ordinary potatoes in the more traditional savoury way, rather than creating his own play on a theme.

Cheese is a product that is not often substituted by potato, although as Ben learnt to his cost it can be! When we talk about cheese substitutes, we usually could have one of three things in mind.

The first would be substituting one particular cheese for another. A simple example is using Grana Padano instead of Parmigiano Reggiano. Why would we want to do that? Well, Grana Padano and Parmigiano are two very similar cheeses, but the former is usually a little cheaper as it is produced in larger quantities and in a more industrialised way than Parmigiano, and hence also more readily available.

The second way of looking at substitute cheese would be in terms of so-called processed cheeses. As the name suggests, this is cheese that has had other products added to it and then via various industrial processes been converted into a new, man made product that resembles cheese. A classic example would be single cheese slices or spreadable cheese. Processing cheese in this way has a number of advantages. The properties of the final product can be controlled, for example many cheeses don’t melt well, but by processing them a final product can be achieved that melts uniformly as can be seen by cheese slices, which make possible the world-renowned cheeseburger. Not only this, but the quality of the final product can also be assured, something important with regard to a food like cheese, which in its natural state is widely susceptible to environmental influences and thus the final cheese produced can potential vary greatly in terms of taste, self-life and so on.

A third reason why cheese is often processed is that cheesemaking is a very involved endeavour, needing a big investment in order to produce the milk that is then treated and matured to result in the final cheese. In many cases, this means that cheese is an expensive product. Processed cheese on the other hand, means a way of producing a good amount of product with less investment and so makes more economic sense.

Overall, one might think that processing cheese lessens its nutritional value, but actually, as has already been mentioned, processed cheese can have some advantages over natural cheeses, especially uniform quality, low fat versions and long self-life. Most cheese have a large amount of salt added in order to make them keep, so in some respects it boils down to whether we trust more the salt or the alternative preservatives.

The third approach to cheese substitutes are cheese analogues. This is where the word substitute really comes into its own. Here, we are talking about non-dairy products that completely replace cheese. An archetypal example would be vegan cheeses. These are plant-based products that have some similarities to cheeses in the way they are made, and the appearance, taste and possible uses of the final product.

Vegan cheeses can be made from a variety of sources, but soybeans, nutritional yeast and various nuts, such as almonds or cashews are common ones.  It could be argued that these are not cheeses in the classic sense, but their similarities to real cheese, is what confers to them the title of cheese. In any case, there are a number of benefits of substituting real cheese for these plant-based versions, in particularly health benefits as these products can contain much of the nutrition of actual cheese, but with less fat or salt. Also, they are good for those who have problems digesting the lactose from dairy products and there are of course many who for moral or religious reasons prefer non-animal based products.

Evidently then, there exist sufficient alternatives to cheese inasmuch that only those who want a particularly different experience need substitute cheese with potato!