The fire crackled softly in Blue Vein Hall.
Mini Mozzarella sat cross-legged on the rug, while Babybel leaned against Lady Brie with Mr Squidge tucked firmly under one arm.
Sir Blue Vein stood beside the old scroll cupboard.
It wasn’t the grandest piece of furniture in the hall. Compared with the great clock, the carved mantelpiece and the enormous family portraits, it looked rather ordinary.
But Sir Blue had always said that some of the most important things in Cheese Family history were kept in ordinary places.
He opened one of the little cupboard doors and carefully took out a rolled-up piece of parchment.
It was old.
Very old.
One edge was slightly torn, there were brown stains across the middle, and someone had written right into the margins.
Mini leaned closer.
“Is that one of the Fromageville scrolls?”
“Older,” said Sir Blue.
Mini’s eyes widened.
Sir Blue smiled.
“This belonged to a travelling cheese named Asiago. Most people called him Asi.”
Babybel squeaked.
“No,” said Sir Blue. “He wasn’t a famous explorer. He wasn’t a great warrior either.”
He looked down at the battered parchment.
“Asiago simply had a habit of writing things down.”
And with that, Sir Blue began the story.
Long before the journeys that would become famous in Fromageville history, the roads between the old cheese settlements were rough, winding and often badly marked.
Asiago loved them.
He travelled with a small cooking pot strapped to his pack, a wooden spoon tucked through his belt and a roll of parchment tied carefully beneath his coat.
Whenever Asi found something worth remembering, he wrote it down.
A good soup.
A new herb.
The quickest path between two villages.
The name of a baker who made particularly good rolls.
Once, he had even written:
Never buy turnips from a cheese wearing one red boot and one green boot.
There was no explanation underneath.
Asi said some lessons were better left that way.
One bright autumn morning, he was following an old track through the hills when the road split in two.
Asi stopped.
He looked left.
He looked right.
Then he looked at the little wooden sign beside the path.
Unfortunately, the sign had fallen over.
Asi picked it up.
There were two arrows painted on it.
One said:
MARKET.
The other said:
OLD ROAD.
The problem was, Asi had absolutely no idea which way the sign had originally been pointing.
“Hmm.”
He turned it round.
“Hmm.”
He turned it upside down.
From a branch above him came a voice.
“That isn’t helping.”
Asi looked up.
A squirrel sat on the branch, holding an acorn between both paws.
“I knew that,” said Asi.
“Of course you did.”
“I was checking.”
“Naturally.”
The squirrel took a bite of the acorn.
Asi pointed along the left-hand track.
“Market?”
“No.”
He pointed right.
“Market?”
“No.”
Asi frowned.
“Then where is the market?”
“Behind you.”
Asi turned round.
A narrow path disappeared between two bushes.
“Ah.”
The squirrel nodded.
“Cheeses never look behind themselves.”
“I do.”
“You didn’t.”
“Not this time.”
The squirrel dropped down from the branch.
Asi noticed a strange little mark scratched into the wooden signpost.
It looked like a whisk.
He ran one finger over it.
“What’s this?”
The squirrel stopped.
For the first time, it wasn’t smiling.
“Where did you see that?”
“Here.”
“I can see that.”
Asi looked at the mark again.
“You know what it means?”
The squirrel stepped closer.
“That’s the Whisk of Truth.”
Asi laughed.
“The what?”
“The Whisk of Truth.”
“That sounds rather important for something scratched into an old sign.”
“My family have known that mark for generations.”
Asi waited.
The squirrel didn’t say anything else.
“What does it mean?”
“Depends where you find it.”
“That’s not very helpful.”
“It isn’t supposed to be.”
The squirrel climbed back onto the branch.
“But if you see it again, pay attention.”
Asi took out his parchment.
“What are you doing?”
“Writing it down.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t know it five minutes ago.”
The squirrel stared at him.
“You write everything down?”
“Only the useful things.”
“You wrote down that I told you the market was behind you.”
Asi quickly rolled up the parchment.
“That may become useful.”
The squirrel gave him a look, then pointed through the bushes.
“Market’s that way.”
“Thank you.”
“Try not to get lost.”
“I wasn’t lost.”
“Naturally.”
By the time Asi reached the market, he was hungry.
Very hungry.
But something was wrong.
Stalls were closing early. Baskets were almost empty, and a group of cheeses stood around a large cooking pot in the middle of the square looking miserable.
An elderly cheese was peering into it.
Asi peered in too.
There were three carrots.
Half an onion.
A handful of beans.
And quite a lot of water.
“Soup?” he asked.
“Supposed to be.”
“Ah.”
“The supply cart didn’t arrive,” said the elderly cheese. “Storm brought a tree down across the old road.”
Around the square, travellers and market sellers were gathering. Everyone had expected a hot meal before setting off home.
Now there was barely enough food for anyone.
Asi rubbed his hands together.
“What have we got?”
“That’s it.”
“No. I mean everybody.”
The cheese frowned.
Asi climbed onto an empty crate.
“Right!” he called. “Anybody got food they weren’t planning to use?”
A market seller held up three apples.
Someone else had a small bag of oats.
A baker produced two stale loaves.
A young cheese had a handful of herbs.
One traveller offered a wedge of something Asi decided not to look at too closely.
The ingredients arrived one by one.
Asi chopped.
Stirred.
Tasted.
Added something.
Took it out again.
Changed his mind.
Put it back in.
At one point the elderly cheese stared into the pot.
“That isn’t the recipe.”
Asi looked around the square at the apples, the oats, the herbs and all the cheeses who had brought something along.
“Then perhaps the recipe needs to travel too.”
Before long, the smell from the pot had everybody edging a little closer.
Asi tasted it.
“Needs something sharp.”
“Sharp?”
“Sweet too.”
A small cheese near the back raised a jar.
“I’ve got this.”
Inside was a dark, sticky preserve.
Asi sniffed it.
“What is it?”
“Fruit, vinegar, sugar, spice.”
Asi tried a little.
Then he tried another little.
Then, purely for research, he tried a third.
“That’s very good.”
“We call it chutney.”
Asi immediately reached for his parchment.
“How do you make it?”
The cheese laughed.
“You really do write everything down.”
Asi began scribbling.
Fruit.
Vinegar.
Sugar.
Spice.
Cook slowly.
Taste often.
Then he paused.
“Anything else?”
The cheese thought for a moment.
“Every family makes it differently.”
Asi smiled.
“Even better.”
He added a spoonful to the cooking pot and tasted it again.
“Better.”
The elderly cheese tried some too.
“Much better.”
That was good enough for everyone else. Bowls appeared from all directions, the stale loaves were torn up and passed around, and before long there wasn’t much left in the pot.
Asi sat on the edge of the fountain with his parchment across his knees.
Beside the new chutney recipe, he added:
Good with sharp cheese.
Try more spice next time.
Then he noticed the little whisk symbol he’d copied earlier.
He drew it again, much smaller this time, in the bottom corner of the page.
Just a tiny mark, almost hidden beside a splash of chutney.
The following morning, Asi was getting ready to leave when the elderly cheese from the market came over.
“Could I have that recipe?”
Asi started to copy it onto another piece of parchment.
Then he stopped.
“You know what? Keep this one.”
He handed over the original.
The cheese blinked.
“But this is yours.”
“It was. Change it if you want. Just write down what you did.”
The cheese looked at the crowded parchment.
“What if there isn’t any room left?”
Asi lifted his pack.
“Then you’ll need another scroll.”
And with that, he set off down the road.
He’d walked perhaps fifty paces when a familiar voice called from a tree.
“Wrong way.”
Asi stopped and slowly turned round.
The squirrel was sitting above him.
Again.
Asi sighed.
“Behind me?”
“Behind you.”
Asi turned round and started back.
The squirrel watched him pass.
“You should write that down.”
“I already have.”
Back in Blue Vein Hall, the fire gave a little pop.
Sir Blue Vein carefully unrolled the old parchment.
Mini Mozzarella leaned closer.
“So that’s really Asiago’s scroll?”
“One of them,” said Sir Blue.
“One of them?”
Sir Blue smiled.
“Recipes have a habit of growing.”
Mini looked over the faded writing.
There were ingredients, notes, crossed-out measurements and different handwriting.
In one corner, almost hidden beneath an old brown stain, was the shape of a tiny whisk.
Then Mini noticed another word.
“Chutney?”
Sir Blue smiled.
“Recipes have very long memories.”
Babybel gave an enthusiastic squeak.
Lady Brie laughed.
“I think Babybel has understood the most important part.”
“Which is?” asked Mini.
Lady Brie stood up.
“That after all that talk about chutney, we’re going to have to find something to eat.”
Sir Blue carefully rolled up the old parchment and put it back in the cupboard.