lifestyle

The French influence on Panamanian cuisine has been here for a long time. Although most of the people who came here for the French canal digging effort were not in fact French, enough of them were to leave certain cultural marks, both of Metropolitan French and Franco-Caribbean varieties. Later when a largely English-speaking West Indian canal construction work force was working under US auspices a lot of women came from Martinique and Guadeloupe and married into Panama's Afro-Antillean community, and although after several generations the surnames from the distaff side have largely disappeared from among the populace, certain influences that are hardly ever identified as such remain. And of course, Panama is The Crossroads of the World, along the most convenient route from France to the French Pacific, and that geographical fact has brought many a Frenchman or Frenchwoman across our isthmus and some have stayed.

Panamanian bread is essentially based upon the French, with higher standards maintained in heavily Antillean places like Colon. Upscale lifestyles can and often do include French wines. French cheese has long been available here.

Ah, but we haven't had such a grand selection of cheese, or a place that specializes in it that's run by someone with French tastes.

That is, we haven't had that until recently.

Now on Via Argentina, across from Parque Andres Bello, we have Cheese Cheese. Much, probably most, of their selection does come from France, and all the rest --- including things from places such as Veraguas, California and Switzerland --- is up to French standards.

Want a soft cheese to spread? Then decide whether you want stuff from goat's milk or cow's milk, and then review a bunch of varieties of each. Want a hard cheese to grate? There are options to choose from there, too.

This reporter's first foray in to Cheese Cheese ended with the choice of St. Andre's, a soft French cheese, something like Camembert, maybe a little milder. It wasn't the wrong choice.

Want some crackers to go with your cheese, and maybe some French preserves to go with the crackers? They have those, too, and a small selection of other gourmet items.

There are much larger delis and gourmet stores in Panama City, and most of these have some French cheese too. But Cheese Cheese is specialized, and has things you can't get anywhere else in this country --- good things, the sorts of things about which you should not take this reporter's word, but should go discover for yourself.